'Anti-amnesty' sheriffs harbor no ill feelings for Kyl
Jul. 1, 2007 12:00 AM

The Senate bill to legalize millions of illegal immigrants is dead.

But the issue remains very alive.

Just ask the sheriffs who stood with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., in a powerful TV ad last fall that warned against "amnesty" for immigrants.
The lawmen deal daily with the fallout from the smuggling of immigrants into the state.

The irony is that the immigration bill, which Kyl had a big hand in crafting, went down because critics said it amounted to amnesty in allowing 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants to remain in the country legally.

Whether Kyl retreated on his 2006 campaign pledge to fight amnesty has been debated on local talk radio. The bill has cost him the support of some conservatives. His response: This wasn't the bill he would have written, but the alternative was to do nothing or get a worse bill in a Democratic-controlled Congress.

In a column in last Sunday's Viewpoints, the candidate Kyl defeated in the 2006 Senate race, Democrat Jim Pederson, suggested that he and Kyl were pretty much on the same page on immigration reform, inferring that Kyl had come a long way from that campaign ad attacking Pederson on amnesty.

That view is not shared by three of the five sheriffs who stood with Kyl in the ad and were available for comment last week. They still stand with Kyl.

"From talking to Senator Kyl, I don't think he's gone back on his word," said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden. "He is trying to figure a way to get something done, rather than sitting back and wringing his hands."

Yavapai County Sheriff Jim Waugh sympathized with Kyl, saying he was dealing with the cards he'd been dealt - a Democratic Congress.

"What he's trying to do is make the best of a bad situation," Waugh said. "Do I support amnesty? No, I do not."

Joe Richards, who served 32 years as Coconino County sheriff before retiring near Flagstaff, said the idea of a guest-worker program may have been synonymous with amnesty for some people.

Like the other two sheriffs, Richards said Job 1 ought to be getting control of the border before tackling such issues as providing legal status.

"I don't strongly disagree there needs to be a comprehensive bill," he said. "But comprehensive means we need to start with a fence (along the border). I understand more than a year ago they allocated monies for a 700-mile fence.

"To my knowledge, they have not put up one strand of wire or 1 square foot of that fence."

Waugh suggested Congress approach immigration with two bills: one that secures the border and, if that happens, another that deals with the illegal immigrants here.

"Until you secure the border, you're shoveling sand against the tide," he said.

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