OPINION — It was difficult to get beyond the opening of Allen Skillicorn’s letter – “As vice mayor of Fountain Hills and a former state legislator, I’ve always focused on solving real problems” – without context.
As an Illinois legislator, Skillicorn was found by the Legislative Inspector General to have violated ethics rules. After losing his reelection race, rather than remain in the role voters elected him to fulfill, he resigned and moved to Fountain Hills. Thereafter, he was endorsed by ROT and secured the final town council seat. Since then, Skillicorn hasn’t been “solving real problems,” but creating them.
His letter praising ICE and portraying the agency as a force for safety reflects a broader pattern: chaos and exclusion framed as public safety. Skillicorn claims to “keep neighborhoods safe,” posting signs around Scottsdale while omitting that he was cited there for speeding and driving an unregistered vehicle. That selective storytelling is gaslighting, especially when a bipartisan border and immigration reform deal in 2024 was killed at Trump’s urging, leaving performative chaos instead of real immigration management.
