Immigration bill stalls amid calls for 'enforcement first'
The reform measure failed a key Senate vote Thursday. Its foes say the pressing need is to enforce existing laws – even if it makes life harder for illegal immigrants.
from the June 29, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, is one of the most aggressive enforcers of laws on the books. More than 100 of his deputies have been trained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants under federal law, and when the current class graduates, he will have 162. [Editor's note: The original version misspelled the sherriff's last name.]
But he'd like go further. "If we start arresting [illegal immigrants] as they come across, put them in jail, the incentive for coming across will not be there," he says. "You cannot work from behind bars and send money to loved ones in Mexico.... Put them in jail, and I know it will reduce the number coming across immediately."
As for all the illegal immigrants already living in the US, Sheriff Arpaio advocates giving them six months to leave the country. "If they don't want to leave, then they can go to jail. It can be done. If you broke it down state by state, it could be done."
Arizonans in November approved four ballot measures that will make life more difficult for illegal immigrants in the state. Then, this week the legislature sent to the governor a bill that would levy the stiffest sanctions in the nation on employers who hire illegal immigrants. She is expected to say Monday whether she'll sign it.
FAIR, a national membership organization, is "absolutely for attrition" through enforcement, says its spokesman, Mr. Mehlman.
"We have to be realistic," he says. "The 12 million ... or however many [illegal immigrants] are here didn't come yesterday, and they're not going home tomorrow. If we make it clear to employers we're going to be out there looking for them, if we start to cut off nonessential benefits [to undocumented migrants], they'll realize it's not worth sticking around."
States and local governments have been passing immigration-control laws of their own "because the federal government's neglect has become their problem," Melman says. States dealing with an influx of immigrants are the ones who pick up the costs of integration and any public services illegal immigrants use, such as education and healthcare, he says.
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