Thread: 4 human smugglers arrested in Mesa immigration raid

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=60447

4 arrested in Mesa immigration raid
By Daryl James, Tribune
March 5, 2006
Investigators arrested four suspected human smugglers Saturday at an east Mesa motel that came under fire in November for attracting too much crime.

The arrests marked the Valley’s third raid in three days related to illegal immigration.

Officers with the Arizona Financial Crime Task Force followed the suspected smugglers, or “coyotes,” to the Colonade Motel Suites near Main Street and Higley Road about 5:20 p.m. In addition to the smugglers, investigators found 13 suspected illegal immigrants from Mexico.

All suspects surrendered peacefully.

The Colonade and nearby Miles Motel and Apartments received letters in November from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office that directed the motels’ owner to make a better effort to thwart crime — or the properties could be seized. The county asked the motels’ owner to consider doing criminal background checks on guests and to keep the properties tidy and well-lighted.

“We’re hoping that it will send out the message to commercial owners that they have a legal duty to deter crime from their properties,” deputy Maricopa County attorney Jana Sorensen said in November.

Earlier in November, federal officials charged 13 owners and former owners of six motels along Mesa’s Main Street with conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants. The Colonade and Miles motels were not implicated in that investigation.

Mesa police first tagged the Colonade and Miles motels as crime hot spots about three years ago. Since then, calls for police service have more than doubled at those locations.

The motels’ owner could not be reached Saturday for comment.

Phoenix police Sgt. Clark Simmons said the 13 immigrants taken Saturday would be handed over to federal immigration authorities — if the agents showed up. He said federal authorities sometimes decline to take custody of immigrants seized in raids, and immigrants in those cases are set free.

Friday night in west Mesa, the task force arrested five suspected human smugglers at a different motel and handed over 61 undocumented immigrants to federal agents. “That night they showed up,” Simmons said.

Two DPS officers on the task force were injured in Friday’s raid during a scuffle with two suspected smugglers at a Wal-Mart, Department of Public Safety spokesman Frank Valenzuela said.

Those two suspects were arrested. Three others were later arrested at the Sun Crest Apartments near Main Street and Mesa Drive. Officers found 15 migrants in one apartment and 46 in another.

Friday’s arrests came one day after Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies booked 51 suspected illegal immigrants on smuggling conspiracy charges. They’re being held for prosecution under the state’s new human smuggling law. Under Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ interpretation, immigrants themselves can be charged as co-conspirators because they paid smugglers to be brought into the country.

The law enacted in August gives prosecutors a way to go after smugglers, a job typically handled by federal authorities. But the immigrants taken into custody Friday and Saturday were not booked on those charges.

Officers at the scene Saturday said illegal border crossers who travel with smugglers typically pay $1,200 to $2,000.

Simmons said human smugglers often rape or rob their clients or hold them in unsanitary conditions, but he did not see evidence of that at the Colonade motel.

Simmons’ task force includes officers from the Phoenix Police Department, DPS and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Mesa police were not involved in Saturday’s raid.
Contact Daryl James by djames@aztrib.com

If they spent half the time they do chasing down employers hiring illegals as they do the smugglers, they'd find that they wouldn't have to chase the smugglers anymore.

I love it when they arrest the smugglers. That is fewer contact points and, hopefully, it will result in fewer illegals.

I do agree with you Rockfish-- they need to spend some time harassing the employers.