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Maricopa County Uses New Law to Look
for Undocumented
PHOENIX (By Randal C. Archibold,
NYT)
May 10, 2006
―
To people who say round up more
undocumented immigrants, Sheriff Joe
Arpaio of Maricopa County has an
answer: send out the posse.
On Wednesday, the posse, a civilian
force of 300 volunteers, many of
them retired deputies, are to fan
out over desert backcountry,
watching for smugglers and the
people they guide into these parts.
Already, a small team of deputies
roams the human-trafficking routes
to enforce a nine-month-old state
law that makes smuggling people a
felony and effectively authorizes
local police forces to enforce
immigration law.
Not only do deputies charge the
smugglers, but many of their
customers have also been jailed.
That has drawn criticism from
several quarters, even the
politician who sponsored the law and
has generally supported Sheriff
Arpaio's position.
"That was not our intent," said the
sponsor, State Representative
Jonathan Paton, a Republican, who
added that he would prefer to detain
smuggled immigrants under
trespassing laws, a move lawmakers
are considering under a package of
bills intended to crack down on
undocumented immigration.
Take a border state wrestling with
the effects of a surge of
undocumented immigrants. Add Sheriff
Arpaio and his unorthodox,
well-chronicled brand of law
enforcement — he forces male and
female inmates to wear pink
underwear, among other
often-questioned tactics. And watch
the sparks fly.
"I have compassion for the Mexican
people, but if you come here
undocumented you are going to jail,"
said Sheriff Arpaio, an elected
Republican, whose county is the
fourth most populous in the country
and among the fastest growing.
To avoid suggestions deputies
practice racial profiling, the
sheriff has ordered them to find
probable cause, usually a minor
traffic infraction, before pulling
over suspect vehicles.
Lawyers and advocates for the jailed
immigrants, several of whom are
challenging their arrests, take a
different view.
"It's really an attempt to
intimidate immigrants by threatening
and imposing incarceration," said
Victoria Lopez, executive director
of the Florence Immigrant and
Refugee Rights Project.
Peter Schey, a lawyer from Los
Angeles hired by the Mexican
consulate here to represent some of
the detainees, said, "This sheriff
is not the director of homeland
security, but that is how he is
acting."
Sheriff Arpaio sought and received
an interpretation of the statute by
County Attorney Andrew P. Thomas,
who said the undocumented immigrants
could face charges they conspired
with smugglers.
Mr. Thomas, also a Republican, sent
a letter on Tuesday to the State
Department protesting what he
considered Mexico's intrusion into
Arizona affairs by retaining Mr.
Schey and trying to challenge the
law.
Representative Paton said he
believed Maricopa was the sole
jurisdiction enforcing the law, with
other law enforcement authorities
telling him they lacked the manpower
to do so or questioned whether such
actions would hold up in court.
Smuggling undocumented immigrants is
a federal crime. Arizona adopted its
law last year out of frustration
Washington had not done enough to
control undocumented crossings. In
recent years, central Arizona has
emerged as a prime crossing point.
A majority of undocumented
immigrants caught by the Border
Patrol are returned to their home
countries — in the case of Mexicans,
almost immediately — without
charges.
In the eight weeks since the team of
deputies formed, 146 people have
been arrested, Sheriff Arpaio said,
with 12 suspected of being
smugglers. Four have pleaded guilty
and under a deal with prosecutors
received three years' probation.
They will be referred to federal
authorities for deportation.
Cases are pending against the
remainder, with 48 seeking dismissal
of the charges. A conviction under
the state law could mean a
two-and-a-half-year prison term.
Mr. Schey, executive director of the
Center for Human Rights and
Constitutional Law, an advocacy
group, said nothing in the law
authorized charging undocumented
immigrants with smuggling. In court
papers, he suggested the entire law
was invalid because it "pre-empts"
federal authority to regulate and
enforce immigration law.
The deputies, meanwhile, continue
their patrols. Normally, Deputy
Chris Scott spends his days kicking
in doors and barreling through
houses, serving search warrants and
performing the other high-energy
tasks of a special weapons and
tactics officer. But before dawn one
morning this week, on "undocumented
immigrant interdiction" patrol,
Deputy Scott saw a pickup with a
broken tail light drift over the
center line of a desolate road near
Gila Bend. He flicked on the
emergency lights of his unmarked
sport utility vehicle and pulled
over the pickup.
Barely mentioning the reason for the
stop — state law prohibits driving
over the center line or with a
broken light — he peppered the
driver and five passengers with
questions: "Licencias?" "You have
identification?" "These guys work
with you very long?"
After several backup deputies
arrived, they determined the men
were not being smuggled, although
some appeared to be here
undocumented and were turned over to
the Border Patrol.
"I think word is getting out, and
they are skirting around us," Deputy
Scott said later as he cruised
without finding much suspicious
activity.
The Border Patrol has not taken a
position on the state law or the
efforts to enforce it, a spokesman,
Jesus Rodriguez, said.
It may be easy to dismiss the
sheriff as grandstanding, and he
promises a television-friendly event
on Wednesday to begin expanded posse
patrols, but last November he won a
fourth term. An editorial in The
Arizona Republic criticized the
patrol as "knee jerk" also credited
him with an "unerring ability to
gauge public opinion."
A statewide poll of 380 voters from
April 20 to 23 by Arizona State
University and KAET-TV in Tempe
showed broad support for more
stringent border security, with 57
percent favoring building a fence
there.
Opinion split over making it a
serious crime to be here
undocumented, with 51 percent
opposed to such a move and 48
percent opposed to making it a
felony to help undocumented
immigrants. The poll has a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus five
percentage points.
Sheriff Arpaio's cellphone ringtone
plays "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. "I
have enough confidence with the
Maricopa community," he said in his
19th-floor office here, the walls
decorated with clippings of news
coverage. "If not, that's the way
the ball bounces."
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