Miles from Mexico, deputies fight border crime
1 commentby Melissa Blasius - May. 14, 2009 10:35 PM

Pinal County Sheriff's Deputies are miles from the border, but they still fight illegal immigration each and every day.

In the cover of darkness, they use night vision technologies to patrol, always with the threat of drug smugglers attacking.

Spending a shift with Deputy Jesus Lopez, you start to see the blurring of the lines between border cop and beat cop. Deputy Lopez is a former military policeman, who served in Afghanistan. He just wrapped up his first year with the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.
He's getting used to the midnight patrols in the desert washes where he's looking to arrest smugglers, confiscate drugs, and call in federal immigration officers to pick up illegal immigrants.

The ethical dilemmas in the expanding border war are also becoming routine.

During one shift last month, Deputy Lopez pulled over a car in Casa Grande. The driver didn't have a drivers license. Lopez says both the man and his wife admitted they were in the country illegally, but their two young daughters in the back seat were U.S. citizens.

Lopez allowed the family to walk away, saying deputies have some discretion on when it's appropriate to call Border Patrol when they encounter suspected illegal immigrants. In this case, Lopez chose not to call in federal immigration officers, saying he wouldn't want to split up the young family through deportation.




http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/ar ... 09-CR.html

Send them all back home together ...