Sheriff Babeu: Pinal County is top smuggling corridor in U.S.

by Lindsey Collom - The Arizona Republic
Apr. 7, 2011 02:47 PM

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu testified before a U.S. Senate committee that he's heard secondhand accounts of Border Patrol agents being ordered not to arrest illegal immigrants as they cross into the United States.

• Border Patrol disputes Cochise sheriff's no-arrests claim

The sheriff reported that Border Patrol agents told one of his lieutenants and a former federal agent about the prohibition, corroborating statements Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever made last week to Fox News.

Babeu spoke Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. The hearing was webcast live from Washington, D.C.

The sheriff was one of four scheduled witnesses in a hearing titled Securing the Border: Progress at the Local Level.

Other panelists included El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar, Sheriff Raymond Loera of Imperial County, Calif., and Sheriff Raymond Cobos of Luna County, N.M.

All panelists but Babeu hailed from a county sharing a border with Mexico. Pinal County, between Phoenix and Tucson, is roughly 70 miles north of the border.

Babeu repeated his long-time claim that Pinal is "the No. 1 pass-through county for drugs and human smuggling in all of America."

And he repeated examples of cartel-related activity often shared with members of the Arizona press: lookouts perched on mountaintops to help guide cargo through the terrain; persons breaking into homes to steal survival items; suspected cartel members and their victims being found injured or dead in the desert.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, a committee member, also weighed in, saying that while "there aren't many citizens in the southern part of my state...they should have the right to drop their kids off at the bus stop without being in fear of danger."

The Arizona Daily Star reported that Babeu appeared at the hearing in lieu of Dever, although Dever's written testimony was entered into public record Thursday. A committee spokeswoman said Tuesday the sheriff could not make the hearing due to a scheduling conflict.

In the interview with Fox News, Dever said a Border Patrol supervisor repeatedly told him of orders to reduce apprehension numbers by scaring illegal immigrants back into Mexico instead of taking them into custody.

Border Patrol Chief Michael Fischer described Dever's claim as "100 percent false" in a letter to the sheriff earlier this week.

"Law enforcement and border security decisions made at the operational level require the apprehension and arrest of every illegal border crosser," Fischer wrote. "Your unwarranted allegation to the contrary is just wrong. It only serves to encourage those who are planning to enter this country illegally to continue to try to do so, with obvious damage to border security."

Staff writer Dennis Wagner contributed to this report.

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