Napolitano has Arizona's back on immigration
Jun. 22, 2008 12:00 AM

For 38 years, I have served as a law-enforcement officer in Arizona. During that time, I've witnessed public officials come and go; yet the issues at the border remain the same.

The U.S.-Mexican border has suffered from federal neglect for decades. Public pressure for comprehensive reform has grown steadily, yet Congress has failed to act, and is likely to remain stalled until after we have elected a new president.

Gov. Janet Napolitano has been a leader in the midst of that federal chaos, and she deserves recognition for that work. There are limits to what states can do to effect change in what is clearly a federal responsibility. But Napolitano has pushed those limits as far as possible under existing law and has accomplished much. advertisement

For example, she was the catalyst for Operation Jump Start. She approached federal officials, ultimately convincing them they had the power and the obligation to put National Guard members at the border in a support role and to pay for that deployment with federal dollars.

In addition, Arizona now has vehicle-license-plate readers to track and find stolen cars and trucks used to transport illegal immigrants into the United States. Many officers of the state Department of Public Safety have been cross-trained to apprehend illegal immigrants when they encounter them on the road.

Just last week, the DPS announced that IIMPACT (the Illegal Immigration Prevention & Apprehension Co-op Team), formed last year under the governor's leadership, over the past six months has discovered 40 drophouses, arrested 99 human-smuggling suspects and more than 500 illegal immigrants.

Another important example of Arizona's effective leadership is the work marshaled by the Arizona-Mexico Commission. The commission has been critically important in creating cross-border coordination of law enforcement, as well as the sharing of key data useful to officers on both sides of the border.

This weekend, during the latest meeting of the commission, more good work is being unveiled. Representatives of Arizona and Sonora are introducing E-Trace, which creates a database of the serial numbers of guns involved in crimes, allowing authorities to track the origin of the gun sale in Arizona.

Additionally, the Partnership for the Apprehension of Fugitives from Justice is being established to share information regarding fugitives wanted for crimes in both Sonora and Arizona, facilitating the extradition of these fugitives. Similarly, the Binational Commitment to Combat the Importation of Illegal Narcotics is fostering a relationship that permits prosecution of Mexican nationals arrested in the U.S. for drug smuggling. These agreements continue the governor's focus that criminals cannot use the border as a means to flee apprehension or prosecution.

Gov. Napolitano is a leader in addressing border problems. Her continued commitment and dedication to the quality of life in our state has brought great change in a region of the state that desperately needed it.



The writer is sheriff of Yuma County.

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