Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is asking whether the feds are dishonest, incompetent or both. Arpaio says a review of arrest data by his office revealed that one in three illegal aliens booked into jail over a recent three-month period were previously arrested by local law enforcement on various criminal charges, despite being turned over to the federal government for deportation proceedings.
In a statement released on Thursday, Arpaio said the “alarming” rate of recidivism by illegal immigrants “leads to an undeniable deduction: The federal policy of stopping illegal immigration through arrest and deportation is failing through an apparent combination of incompetence and intention.”
“One of two things is happening,” said Sheriff Arpaio, “either the federal government is quietly ushering illegal aliens out its back doors and back onto our streets, or our border is still so wide open that deportees continue to re-enter the country illegally with remarkable ease.”
This situation leads to an unavoidable conclusion, Arpaio reasons, and one with far-ranging political consequences for law enforcement in general and for the entire nation as a whole. Arpaio contends that the federal government authorities stopped the Sheriff from enforcing immigration laws in order to allow them to take over the task of immigration enforcement in Arizona.
Furthermore, Arpaio says, as the data suggests, the federal government assumed the responsibility of controlling the arrest and disposition of illegal immigrants to ensure that no enforcement of the law would actually occur.
The government’s intent, Arpaio says, was to quietly achieve its broader agenda: to stop Arpaio’s enforcement of immigration laws and loudly discourage all other law enforcement agencies from doing the same. Arpaio argues that to do the job of enforcing immigration laws translates to a high level of frustration by local law enforcement which faces a large revolving population of criminal illegal aliens who appear to be violating laws with minimal fear of deportation or being held accountable for their crimes.
Arpaio claims, “In fact, recent congressional testimony points to a further shell game by the Obama administration which loudly claims record numbers of deportations. Congress heard just this week that the administration has been employing a misleading
methodology to inflate deportation numbers.”
This serious and disturbing state of affairs, says Sheriff Arpaio, has remained unaddressed by the federal government since the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office began enforcing immigration laws over eight years ago. A three-month snapshot of jail records indicated that 31% of illegal alien criminal offenders booked into the Maricopa County Jail system were returning to jail shortly after being turned over to the federal government with immigration holds.
Of the 1348 illegal immigrants held by MCSO at the request of Immigration Customs and Enforcement in the examined three-month period, 419 (31%) were previously arrested despite being turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings.
Many of the reoffending 31% had several previous bookings into the county jail – some more than twenty times. The recidivism data has Sheriff’s officials concerned that local tax dollars are wasted by placing immigration holds and turning illegal alien offenders over to the federal government only to find that they are coming back as often as they are.
A cursory look at the records of some of those arrested again is revealing, both in regard to the quantity of arrests and the nature of those arrests.
Many illegals had 5 or 6 arrests, while others had far more. One man had 9 prior arrests; another numbered 15; and still another totaled an astonishing 19 previous arrests and bookings. Many of the cases examined had been charged with ‘level one’ crimes – the criteria by which the federal government says would mandate their deportation.
Then there are the actual charges, which span a wide range of major crimes, from kidnapping to sexual abuse to organized retail theft to molestation of minors to forgery to aggravated assault to DUI to weapon possession to resisting arrest to the entire scope of drug-related offenses, from possession to sale to conspiracy, on and on.
Arpaio pointed out, that compounding the problem is the significant impact that the recidivism data has on taxpayers.
“Clearly, local tax dollars are being wasted,” declared the Sheriff. “Law enforcement across the county arrests these offenders, officers place immigration holds to keep the offenders in jail, and then they are turned over to the federal government that brags about ‘record deportations.’ Yet our statistics paint a very different picture. These ‘deportations’ are either not happening or are exceptionally ineffective and that means Washington is failing the American people and hiding the truth.”
Arpaio said Maricopa County taxpayers need to demand answers from responsible federal authorities.
“Every time we place a hold on criminal aliens at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said the Sheriff, “it translates into money and manpower. Why are we wasting our valuable resources in the jails and on the streets if there is no intention on the federal government’s part to either deport these people or to increase security on the border?
“Let me make this clear,” said Arpaio, “this might be politics for the President but for law enforcement this is a practical issue, because law enforcement cannot protect the community if critical facts are being withheld by the federal government. We want ICE to open its records and tell us who they are releasing onto our streets and why. Going forward, we need to establish rational reporting procedures. On our behalf, we are going to publish statistics showing how many illegal aliens are arrested and then released every month until this situation is resolved.”
Arpaio concluded, “American citizens who commit crimes also re-offend at an alarming rate, so this problem is not unique to illegal aliens. However, the difference is while we can’t absolutely stop US citizens from re-offending, we can with illegal aliens. Simply stated: they cannot commit crimes if they are no longer in the country. The solution is that simple.”