Prosecutor: Illegals Big in Crime Rate
November 7th, 2007 @ 7:09am
by Bob McClay/KTAR

Illegal immigrants play a big part in the nation's growing crime rate, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas insisted Tuesday, while Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon challenged Sheriff Joe Arpaio's claim that he's largely responsible for a rise in the number of illegal immigrants arrested nationwide.

Thomas took issue with an Arizona State University study which showed only 4 percent of criminal suspects arrested in Maricopa County are illegal immigrants.

Even if the numbers are true, Thomas said that 4 percent is too many.

``One violent crime that could be prevented by having a sound border policy is one violent crime too many," he said.

Thomas said Sheriff Department's statistics show that 23 percent of people in the county jails are illegal immigrants, and law enforcement officials who think illegal immigration isn't contributing to the nation's crime rate need to get their heads out of the sand.

``I don't really get the excuses given by some in the law enforcement community who say they don't really want to sully their hands by enforcing immigration laws etcetera," Thomas said. ``Who say that, `Well, it's a relatively small percentage of crimes or violent crimes that are committed by illegal immigrants.'

``There is a clear relationship between our crime problem and the illegal immigration problem. The attempts to spin that and pretend that that's not true are just playing with the facts."

Thomas said one-third of those serving time for identity theft and one-fourth of those convicted of aggravated DUI in Arizona are illegal immigrants.

``Notwithstanding the fact that it's politically incorrect to say so, we do see a relationship between our crime rates and our illegal immigration problem," Thomas said. ``And that's just a fact and I, for one, intend to continue to talk about it."

Meanwhile, Gordon challenged Arpaio's statement Monday that his office is responsible for some 6,000 illegal immigrants locked up in county jails.

The sheriff, commenting on a national report about the increasing number of illegal immigrants being detained or arrested, claimed credit for one-quarter of those.

Gordon said Tuesday that the sheriff's office did not make all 6,000 arrests and Arpaio is unfairly claiming the credit.

``Of the 6,000 illegal individuals who have committed crimes that are in the sheriff's jail, two-thirds of them or over four-thousand have been arrested by Phoenix police," Gordon said.

The mayor said he wanted to put to rest the notion that the Police Department is not doing anything about illegal immigrants. The city's policy is not to arrest people only for violating immigration laws if they are not suspected of other crimes. The city maintains enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility.


http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=640233