First departure from what has been a joint effort between ICE and MCSO
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is questioning why agents from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) refused to take illegal entrants found by deputies in the remote desert yesterday. Arpaio says the federal agency has made its policy clear: agents will take into custody any illegal entrants believed to have committed a serious crime or is a recent border crosser.
Maricopa County deputies came across five suspected illegal entrants in the desert during a drug interdiction operation Thursday night. The Sheriff’s Human Smuggling detectives were called to the scene and determined, through interviews, that the group consisted of all Mexican Nationals who had spent the last five days in the desert.
Three members of the group, identifying themselves as illegal entrants to deputies, indicated they had paid approximately $1000 to be smuggled into the US illegally heading to Phoenix for work. They were booked into the 4th Avenue Jail on class 4 felony human smuggling charges. Sheriff’s detectives were unable to gather enough evidence on the remaining two suspects to charge them with a state crime of human smuggling and attempted to turn the suspects over to ICE as has been the practice during the last six years. ICE agents, after asking a series of questions, refused to take the suspects from Sheriff’s detectives.
The Maricopa County Sheriff says that in all the years that local ICE agents have cooperated with Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies in accepting for possible deportation those suspects involved in the human smuggling trade, yesterday’s arrests is the first departure from what has been a joint effort to comply with the federal law when ICE agents refused to take two suspected illegal entrants from the Sheriff’s Office Human Smuggling Unit without reason.
“I expected that it would happen eventually, so I had a backup plan in place which was to take these illegal entrants not accepted by ICE to the Border Patrol,” Sheriff Arpaio said. So as directed by the Sheriff, last night deputies took the two suspects to the Border Patrol.
Over the past month Sheriff’s detectives have arrested over 45 illegal entrants and booked all but three into county jail for human smuggling charges. One was a 17 year old juvenile who was turned over to ICE.
Arpaio says he remains very concerned that the weak immigration stance taken by the current administration may exacerbate the numbers of illegal entrants entering the U.S. In 2008 Homeland Security took away the authority for Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies to utilize federal authority under the 287g program. Recently Homeland Security striped the program inside the Sheriff’s jails as well.
Arpaio says his deputies, who continue to enforce human smuggling, have arrested 253 illegal entrants this year involving illegal entrants crossing the U.S. – Mexico border. Over the past several years, Sheriff’s deputies have arrested over 5648 illegal entrants involved in human smuggling.
“Regardless of the Obama Administrations policy, I am going to continue to enforce all of the illegal immigration laws. While I am disappointed in ICE’s decision Thursday night, I plan on meeting with ICE officials, hoping to remedy the problem,” Sheriff Arpaio says.
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