US fights a border-crime 'epidemic'

Law-enforcement agencies find new ways to coordinate their efforts to stem the rise of violence on the border with Mexico.

from the April 25, 2007 edition

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Better law enforcement coordination

First, ICE is linking up with US Border Patrol and National Guard troops on Arizona's southern border to make sure the groups share intelligence and investigative efforts about smuggling networks.

Second, ICE is linking up with Phoenix metro area law-enforcement agencies in the central part of Arizona. That's where most of the leaders of the smuggling organizations are based, Peña says, along with the major fake document vendors and funding and support structures for the criminal organizations.

Third, ICE plans to work aggressively and cooperatively with the Arizona Department of Public Safety's interdiction units in combating over-the-road smuggling efforts north of Phoenix – so far, the weakest link in the chain, Peña says. Phoenix is the main hub for illegal immigrants to enter the US.

ICE already has begun entering into what are known as "287G agreements" with several local law-enforcement agencies. These agreements allow ICE officials to train and empower various law-enforcement officials to arrest illegal immigrants, which until recently wasn't possible. If a local sheriff, for example, stopped someone for a routine traffic violation and suspected the person was in the US illegally, the sheriff would have had to call either Border Patrol or ICE officials to make that determination. Now, those law-enforcement officials entering into the 287G agreements can make that determination and cite the individuals for illegal entry into the US.

So far, ICE has entered into 287G agreements with the Arizona Department of Corrections, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

Last Wednesday, Sheriff Arpaio's Illegal Immigration Interdiction Strike Force, after stopping a van for a traffic violation, arrested two smugglers for transporting 17 illegal immigrants into Arizona.

"Arpaio's deputies and volunteer posse operations have arrested 523 illegals under the state human smuggling law and 71 under federal immigration law," says a statement from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

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