Only Napolitano can restore order after immigration brawl
Oct. 11, 2007 12:00 AM
ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... i1011.html

On Monday, at just about the time that Valley police chiefs were holding a press conference to say that having their departments enforce immigration laws would overwhelm them; and while some officers from Phoenix held a dueling press conference to say that enforcing such laws would not overwhelm them; and while the state's largest county sheriff's department followed one policy for arresting suspected illegal immigrants, while other county sheriffs pursued different policies; and while city officials and small town councils have begun drafting their own enforcement rules, transforming Arizona's "melting pot" into a steaming caldron of anger and frustration that is about to boil over, Gov. Janet Napolitano was in the middle of an intense discussion about illegal immigration . . . at Notre Dame University.

In Indiana.

Meantime, back at the ranch, the immigration debate has become a Hollywood-style barroom brawl, with chairs flying, bottles being broken over heads and folks getting tossed through windows. What we need is a take-charge person to stride through the saloon doors, fire a shotgun into the ceiling and restore order. advertisement




I contacted the governor's office to see if she planned to do something like that.

Whose side was she on? I asked. The sheriff's? The chiefs'? The cops on the street? The cities? The little towns? And is there any chance that she could bring all sides together and try to find a workable solution?

"Can the governor wave a magic wand and say thou shalt cooperate? No," said Napolitano's spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer. "Would she like to? Yes, but . . . "

In politics, unlike the movies, there's always a "but."

"The governor believes in going at this in a targeted fashion, in a way that the state can be most effective," L'Ecuyer said.

She pointed to a program in which Department of Public Safety officers are being trained to work with federal officials to go after illegal immigrant gangs. And state corrections officers are being trained to process the paperwork for illegal immigrants serving sentences in Arizona.

"But overall, when you get into whose job it is (to fix the immigration problem), it's a false question that's created by federal inaction," L'Ecuyer said. "I know that's not the answer that you wanted but the feds keep not doing anything about this. . . . This is what the governor was talking about when she said that we are going to have 50 states with 50 immigration policies."

More than that, I'd guess. There are now county immigration policies. And city policies. And small-town policies. And then what? Neighborhood policies? Individual policies?

L'Ecuyer pointed to the fraudulent ID task force, and to a number of other programs that Napolitano supports that are aimed at combating illegal immigration.

As for the use of police officers to do immigration work, L'Ecuyer said, "If you were to say that every single cop from every police agency in the state is going to do primary immigration enforcement, you beg the question, 'What about all the other stuff they are supposed to be doing?' "

At the same time, she added, the governor has no authority to tell counties or cities what to do.

That's true.

It's also irrelevant.

As governor, Napolitano can shame them into attending a statewide summit, where she then can attempt to cajole them into finding common ground. Or at least to convince warring officials to begin talking to one another rather than at one another. Sort of like that nice, civilized panel that she was on earlier this week.

In Indiana.