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DPS plan welcomed at migrant summit

12 state officers would help feds

Susan Carroll
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 13, 2005 12:00 AM

FLAGSTAFF - A shortage of federal immigration agents has created a law enforcement crisis in Arizona with police cutting loose scores of undocumented immigrants, even smugglers, on city streets and rural highways.

At the same time, Arizona taxpayers' tab for incarcerating foreign nationals now tops $223,000 daily, the state's top corrections official said Tuesday, and thousands of undocumented immigrants eligible for deportation are waiting for paperwork from the federal government.

After years of harshly criticizing the federal government, Gov. Janet Napolitano has proposed a series of programs aimed at stemming critical gaps, a move criticized by Republican lawmakers as political pandering after she vetoed a controversial immigration enforcement bill in May.

Now, state and local law enforcement agencies are being called upon to come up with possible solutions after the federal government has ramped up the size of the U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona to nearly 2,900 agents. The state still remains the national epicenter for illegal immigration.

At a summit here Tuesday ordered by Napolitano, more than 100 law enforcement officials from the federal level down to the county sheriffs level, met to discuss immigration enforcement options, including proposals floated last week by the governor.

After the closed-door summit, many participants expressed optimism about a plan to train 12 state Department of Public Safety officers to assist overwhelmed federal immigration agents in detaining undocumented immigrants. The officers would go through a five-week training program set up by the federal government.

Other proposals include training corrections officers to deport undocumented immigrants who served their time from state prisons and adding three liquor-license investigators to a fraudulent-document task force.

The governor's plan is much smaller in scope than the bill she vetoed, which would have authorized all state and local police to help enforce immigration law.

Napolitano, who is out of the country on vacation, did not attend the summit but asked law enforcement officials to report to her with recommendations on possible proposals to curtail illegal immigration. The summit was the first in what is expected to be a series of meetings to craft a state immigration strategy.

The proposals, called "micro-initiatives" by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were embraced by some immigration analysts, even conservatives, as a positive step forward.

"This effort by the governor is not a bad idea, but it shouldn't be over-hyped," said Mark Krikorian, director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates greater border control. "It's one step in the right direction, but only one step."

After the summit Tuesday, some law enforcement officials who participated said they were concerned about the possible perception in immigrant communities that police would act as de facto immigration agents and discourage undocumented immigrants who are crime victims or who witness crimes from coming forward. But many praised the plan while acknowledging it won't fix the state's growing immigration-related problems.

"Is 12 (officers) enough? No," DPS Director Roger Vanderpool said. "But you've got to start somewhere. There's only one way to eat an elephant, and that's one bite at a time."


Scope of the problem


Arizona remains the busiest illegal gateway along the Southwest border with more than 500,000 arrests last year by U.S. Border Patrol agents. The influx of undocumented immigrants through the state and the flourishing people-smuggling trade, estimated by the state attorney general at $300 million a year, has led to spikes in homicides, home invasions and kidnappings in Phoenix, officials said. DPS and Phoenix police officers have reported waiting for hours to get assistance from the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for incidents involving undocumented immigrants and sometimes were told ICE agents were too busy to help.

With an increase in the number of federal agents since 2003, the situation has improved "dramatically" in Phoenix, said Tony Morales, a Phoenix police spokesman. But officials acknowledge that the problem is still critical.

According to documents obtained by The Arizona Republic, federal agents were unable to respond to incidents reported by Phoenix police involving some 307 undocumented immigrants in the past six months, including groups of 16, 13, and 12, some involving suspected smugglers. One case ICE agents were unable to respond to involved a homicide at a drophouse with 20 undocumented immigrants, records show.

Roberto Medina, with the Phoenix ICE office, said agents try to respond whenever possible but focus on "violent criminal aspects" in the state. He would not say how many of the 5,500 ICE agents nationwide are based in Arizona.

"It's not because ICE doesn't want to respond," Vanderpool said. "It's a numbers thing."

Corrections Director Dora Schriro, who has criticized the response time by ICE agents in the past, is now asking that the federal government to train some state detention officers on the deportation process. She said the Arizona Department of Corrections has more than 1,044 undocumented immigrants eligible for deportation or ready for the federal government to start its paperwork for deportation proceedings.

Schriro, who attended the summit, called the current system "awful."

After years of criticizing the federal government for failing to reimburse the state for the cost of jailing undocumented immigrants, Napolitano has approached Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio asking for additional jail space for people picked up by the DPS immigration task force.

Arpaio, who did not attend the summit, on Tuesday called the governor's proposal a pilot program and pledged to make room at the Maricopa County Jail.

"If I have to set up tents from here to Mexico, I'll do it," he said. "The important thing is to get these people off the streets.


Tested in other states


The governor's idea, to dedicate 12 of the 1,100-strong DPS to assist the federal government, has been tested in other states in some version, including Florida and Alabama.

Maj. Patrick Manning, chief of the Alabama Department of Public Safety's Highway Patrol Division, said that before the Sept. 11 attacks, only two agents in the state were working for the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"Prior to doing this," he said, "it wasn't uncommon for a trooper to stop someone who didn't speak English, who didn't have documents and call (INS) to find out they were six hours away. There were a lot of them released. What else could we do?"

The move is part of a push by some lawmakers to involve the estimated 700,000 local and state law enforcement officers in the nation in assisting with immigration enforcement.

Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda, a summit participant, said he is "very concerned" about possible backlash Napolitano's proposals could create after years of outreach to the Latino community to gain their trust.

"It's very important for the federal agencies to understand that when they come into our communities, they have a significant impact on the relationships we have been building with our Hispanic communities," Miranda said. His officers don't want to be immigration agents, he said.

Angela Kelly of the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., said law enforcement officers are forced to strike a difficult balance.

"As well-intentioned and cautious as the governor (Napolitano) might be, and as smart as police might be in maintaining good relations with the immigrant community, they're still running a big risk," Kelly said.