Thread: Band of sheriffs makes claim to border crime enforcement

http://www.heralddemocrat.com/articles/ ... tate07.prt
Band of sheriffs makes claim to border crime enforcement

By Alicia A. Caldwell
Associated Press

EL PASO — When the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition formed last year, the group’s goal was clear: Allow more than a dozen rural departments to join forces for a second line of defense along the Mexican border behind the U.S. Border Patrol.



In its first year, the coalition has gotten mixed reviews.



The sheriffs say they have been effective. But others have questioned whether they have the training and experience to handle major drug interdictions and complex immigration law. Gov. Rick Perry has suggested state funding may not continue, but has requested $64.1 million from the federal government for local law enforcement.



But with President Bush’s plan to beef up Border Patrol and National Guard presence on the border, it’s not clear what the coalition’s second year will accomplish.



In its first major operation last fall, the nonprofit group caught more than 1,000 illegal immigrants and confiscated millions of dollars worth of drugs, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said.



The group also sparked two international incidents: one of its members insisted drug smugglers using Mexican army equipment was a foreign invasion, and in another detained a Mexican federal official and accused him publicly of being a drug smuggler. In other incidents, coalition members shot an unarmed suspect and have spent money on salaries and a new Mustang car for a sheriff as well as on the high-tech equipment it needs.



Proposals for local enforcement of immigration laws have garnered opposition from California to Georgia, with some police departments saying that immigration enforcement needs to remain the responsibility of federal authorities.



But the border sheriffs joined forces because local residents are the victims of border crimes and the sheriffs are often the first to respond. They had hoped the federal government would help their effort by approving a $100,000 funding request, but it appears Bush’s plan to add federal agents will replace that.



The sheriff’s departments are often the only local law enforcement in such barren border counties as Hudspeth, which sprawls over 4,500 square miles of West Texas and counts only 3,300 residents; or Zapata County, which is closer to the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley but still has only 12,000 residents for its 1,000 square miles.



They have historically relied on the U.S. Border Patrol or Drug Enforcement Administration to handle major drug and immigration arrests.



Overall, Gonzalez said, the sheriffs have been successful.



“Some agencies are having checkpoints; others, like here in Zapata County, are doing surveillance of the river,” Gonzalez said of operations along the Rio Grande. “It’s making an impact.”



But some immigration experts question whether that’s local law enforcement’s job.



Felipe D.J. Millan, an El Paso immigration attorney, worries that deputies will try to enforce complex federal immigration laws.



“You need to let the immigration officers enforce the immigration law,” Millan said. “I have a high degree of respect for (local law enforcement) but by doing certain things they are putting themselves in the position of enforcing immigration law.”



Deputies raiding local hotels for illegal immigrants or operating traffic checkpoints prove that the deputies are trying to enforce immigration laws, said Ray Ybarra with the American Civil Liberties Union in El Paso.



Millan and Ybarra said vlocal deputies don’t know the ins and outs of federal immigration laws — statutes that even experts describe as the most Byzantine of the federal code.



Border Patrol agents, on the other hand, spend much of their nearly five months of training studying immigration laws.



The group, which relies heavily on deputies working overtime, has been funded with about $6 million in state grants. So far, each county sheriff has been given $367,500 to spend for border security operations. Another grant of nearly $4 million will be administered by the sheriffs coalition.



According to spending records coalition members filed with the state, many agencies are using the grants to pay for overtime, heavy-duty vehicles, night-vision goggles and surveillance equipment.



Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West bought a $22,300 Ford Mustang GT. He did not return phone calls seeking comment.



Rick Glancey, the coalition’s interim executive director, said Mustangs are commonly used by law enforcement for “interdiction operations,” helping officers blend in with civilian traffic.



Glancey, who makes $65,533 a year as the spokesman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department, also has been paid more than $19,000 since December by the coalition.



Coalition members said the proof of its efficacy is in the quantities of drugs seized — including 2 tons of marijuana found in El Paso last week — and arrests made.



“The reality is when you call 911, that call is going ... to a sheriff’s office,” Glancey said.

I am so sick and tired of hearing illegal immigration advocates invoking the race card by saying that only Latino's are being targeted. When are these idiots going to realize people are here illegally and pose a threat to the health and welfare of legal citizens on the border and further inland? I applaud the efforts of those Sheriffs in doing what our absolutely useless federal government refuses to do. The ACLU and LaRaza should be exposed for what they really are...militant and subversive organizations whose goal in concert with Aztlan and Mecha is the overthrow of the U.S. government using violence if necessary with the eventual secession of the southwest part of the U.S. to form the mythical land of Aztlan.