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Arpaio planning tent city space for arrested immigrants

William Hermann
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 14, 2006 03:19 PM


Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies are arresting enough illegal immigrants that at least 11 more large tents are needed at the Tent City Two complex outside the Towers Jail to house them, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday.

Tent City One is outside the nearby Estrella Jail in southwest Phoenix. There are about 2,000 inmates in the two tent facilities and about 10,000 inmates in all Maricopa County jails.

"We've been arresting about 100 people a month since the county attorney ruled that people involved in smuggling conspiracy could be prosecuted," Arpaio said. "We might arrest as many as 1,200 in the next year.''

In August, Arizona legislators passed an anti-human smuggling statute that gave prosecutors a tool to go after coyotes, or smugglers, who traffic in undocumented immigrants. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas later issued an opinion saying undocumented immigrants suspected of paying coyotes could be prosecuted as conspirators.

"The law is clear and I intend to enforce it," Arpaio said. "But we're going to run out of room (in the jails) at this rate." .

Arpaio said he doesn't expect putting up the new tents to be costly, even though concrete pads must be poured and electricity must be run to each unit. The tents are 18 feet by 52 feet.

"We already own the old military tents, and we'll use inmate labor for most of the work, so our biggest expense will be materials and we can take that out of operating expenses," Arpaio said.

But a shower and toilet facility will need to be built as well, and that will cost about $250,000, he said.

Arpaio said another new measure would create even more room for inmates.

"We're going to triple-bunk them, three high in the bunks," Arpaio said. "When you consider it gets about 140 degrees in the tents by about two in the afternoon on a hot summer day, that means really, really hot in that top bunk."

That inmates must put up with wretchedly hot conditions in the tents, "doesn't bother me a bit," he said.

"When people complain about those poor inmates being hot in tents I just say we send our soldiers to Iraq to defend our country and they stay in tents and it gets even hotter over there," he said. "That shuts up the critics fast."

County Board of Supervisors member Mary Rose Wilcox agrees that more space is needed for inmates, but she isn't convinced tents are the answer.

"We have to be careful of any treatment that could be considered inhumane," Wilcox said. "If the sheriff needs space we should give it to him, but we should be housing people in a humane manner. I also don't think that undocumented people should be blamed for needing the space. There are lots of other people in the jail."

Radio talk show host (KNAI-FM) and former state legislator Alfredo Gutierrez said putting more and more illegal immigrants in jail, "is a disastrous idea."

"Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio have finally figured out a way to bankrupt the county," Gutierrez said.

"After the taxpayers pay money to appoint lawyers for all these people and after most of those people are found guilty, it will cost millions. Arpaio has had multimillion-dollar judgments against him and the county for his ruthless, odd behavior.

"But this is the most futile yet."

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