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Border Patrol assigns two agents to work with county sheriff
DAVID L. TEIBEL
May 7, 2008
Tucson Citizen

Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik has added two U.S. Border Patrol agents to his border crime unit, bypassing the county Board of Supervisors.
Dupnik in January had gone to the board seeking authorization to cross certify border patrol agents, which would allow them to enforce state criminal law as well as federal immigration law and have them assigned to the Sheriff's Department.
That proposal drew criticism from rural and urban residents, clergy and social and health care workers who said giving Border Patrol agents authority to enforce state law would do nothing to reduce crime associated with illegal immigration.
They told the county supervisors such a move would deter illegal entrants from reporting crimes out of fear of being discovered and sent back to their home countries.
Faced with the criticism, Sheriff's Bureau Chief George Heaney withdrew the proposal until it could be further studied.
Dupnik said at the time that the Border Patrol requested a formal agreement between the agency and the county, which required approval by the board, before it would allow its agents to be deputized.
Dupnik already had some 90 federal officers - none of them Border Patrol agents - cross-certified to enforce state law. He said those agents mostly have been assigned to work with multi-agency task forces such as the Counter Narcotics Alliance and Fugitive Investigative Strike Team and various other joint agency operations.
Cross certification, or deputizing, does not require the supervisors' approval, Dupnik said.
Dupnik said in a recent interview that Chief Patrol Agent Robert Gilbert, who is in charge of the patrol's Tucson Sector, has dropped the formal agreement requirement and made two supervisory agents available last week.
"Chief Gilbert decided this issue was so important from an officer safety standpoint, that in spite of lawyers he sent two agents out to work with us full time," Dupnik said.
The agents will be assigned to liaison between the Sheriff's Department and the Border Patrol, Dupnik said, adding they will not be cross certified and will not be called upon to enforce state law.
But, they will be able to help protect deputies and Border Patrol agents by quickly letting each agency know what the other is doing and where along the violence-prone border where not every one in camouflage and bearing a firearm is a law officer, Dupnik said.
The fear is that law officers from different agencies could mistakenly get into shootouts with each other, he said.
Dupnik said having the agents assigned to his border crimes unit also will provide deputies quicker access to Border Patrol criminal history data bases.
"It highlights the importance of the coordination that is needed when we're out there working covert operations in the same area," Dupnik said.
"I think that's the sheriff's prerogative," Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard Elias said of Dupnik's move.
But, "I think it's regrettable," Elias said, adding, "I do think it creates a situation where some folks in our community who need the sheriff to show up at their house may be worried about calling.
"It's a chilling effect it creates," Elias said.
Gov. Janet Napolitanorecently vetoed a bill April 29 that would have allowed county sheriffs to sign agreements with the border patrol, without county supervisors' permission, as long as the inter-governmental agreement had no fiscal impact on the county.
Napolitano noted in her April 29 veto letter "that all law enforcement agencies whose jurisdictions overlap must communicate with one another and coordinate their policing efforts for the safety of the officers and the public."
The Border Patrol agents assigned to Dupnik will be obligated to enforce federal immigration laws while working with his department, Dupnik said, and his deputies will turn illegal entrants over to the Border Patrol when they find them.
But, the sheriff said, "we've been doing that for the 50 years I've been a cop."
That, Dupnik said, does not change the position he has held for years that his deputies' responsibility is not to enforce immigration law, it is to enforce state laws, such as those against robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault and homicide, all crimes that have grown along the border.
Those crime problems are the reason Dupnik created the border crime unit, which primarily works drug and people smuggling investigations in remote desert areas, not routine calls in the urban area, the sheriff said.
For that reason, Dupnik said, the assignment of Border Patrol agents to the border crime unit "won't have a chilling effect on illegal entrants (in the metro area) reporting crimes. Why should it?"

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/84630.php