AZ police group says feds must move on illegal immigration
August 28th, 2008 @ 6:08am
by Jim Cross/KTAR

The head of the Arizona Police Association says illegal immigration is a federal issue and the government is providing no direction on how to deal with it.

Dale Norris said a policy must be adopted soon or problems associated with illegal immigration will balloon.

Smugglers have become increasingly violent and do not care who they have to hurt or kill to get drugs and people across the border, Norris said.

``As we make the consequences of the smuggling act harsher on the people doing it, their resistance to being arrested is going to get higher and higher."

Border Patrol agents are frustrated at the lack of federal leadership, said Norris.

``You can see the frustration that they're facing. `Why am I out here risking my life to arrest people when you're behind my back talking about, well, the ones that get past you, maybe we won't do anything with them.'"

Police agencies are in limbo right now, waiting to see what happens with immigration reform, Norris said.

``We're not at the spearpoint of the policy until it's enacted, then we are in fact at the point of the spear. Tell us what the spear's going to look like, tell us what we have to do because right now, we're just stick in the middle, bouncing around off the walls."

He added, ``We have to have some uniform federal policy that deals with this issue. From our perspective, it all starts with one thing and that's securing the border."

Norris said police officers are being put in more and more danger as they try to enforce immigration laws.

``No matter how many times we arrest people and ship them back, every time a police officer makes an arrest, it's a risk. You have to look no farther than the killer of Nick Erfle? How many times did we arrest him and remove him?"

Erfle, a Phoenix police officer, was shot last Sept. 18 after he stopped three people for jaywalking and obstructing traffic in central Phoenix. The suspect was identified as an illegal alien with a felony record, who had been deported in 2006 and illegally re-entered the United States.

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