Southern Arizona Information...

[soundwave]

I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I've been busy with work lately. I saw this new forum and thought I'd give a slight heads-up about what's really going on down here.

The biggest problem area is southern Pima County (shown here). Pima County is the 7th largest county in the country comprising of 9,241 square miles of land and takes about 1/3 of the Arizona/Mexico border. On this map you can see how the county is divided. In the green (Tucson city) area the sheriff's department divides the area into 4 districts (about 450 deputies) and the Tucson Police Department (about 1,000 officers). Border Patrol's presence consists of about 95% of their resources in this area.

The remaining white and yellow portion (yellow being the reservation) is about 5,000 square miles dedicated to one district with about 25 deputies of the Pima County Sheriff's Department (PCSD). PCSD in this area has to work with Border Patrol, Bureau of Land Management, the Air Force, Parks, and a host of other federal agencies including the police department of the reservation. Basically, the problem lies in an insufficient amount of Border Patrol presence on the reservation and the entire district as a whole to enforce it. The reservation doesn't usually allow Border Patrol to be on their land for the most part.

This specific southern portion of the county, given the absence of a sufficient law enforcement presence on both local and federal levels makes it difficult for the constant problems with drug and illegal immigrant smuggling. While very hard to enforce immigration laws, both PCSD and BP try to locate and apprehend as many illegal immigrants as they can. On a consistent basis we find many illegal immigrants as far as the Ajo town area (about 40 miles north of the Arizona/Mexico border) on a daily basis with PCSD assisting in the apprehension of them.

But out of all of this, I thought I would give a good wake up call to anybody on this board that thinks that the Minute Man Project and all the other yayhoos that have "projects" or "coalitions" along the "Mexican border" is a good idea is nuts. Those people are only in the green (Tucson) area on the second map I gave a link on. They're literally missing 5,000 square miles of land that is the real problem. While I don't condone these groups, they don't like to stray far from Tucson and don't get the job done when they're only "patrolling" the same 4,000 square miles that Border Patrol has like 5,000 agents at, too. ;O)

Cheers.

[hscop]

soundwave: Question: I dont know how it works in Arizona, so I will assume that all police officers in the state (regardless of what city/county/district they work for) are state officers. Are they allowed to enforce federal immigration laws? If not, are there state laws?

I say the states that border MX should activate their national guard to secure the borders.

[soundwave]

It does work in the Arizona that way. All officers are are state certified and with the state certification they have peace officer powers throughout the state. However, immigration laws are federal and Border Patrol (from what I understand) are the only ones that can enforce it. All that I know is that in Arizona they are the only ones that can arrest for illegal immigration. And, there are no Arizona laws against illegal immigration.

Cheers.

[mcsap]

If I get an illegal alien here, there is NOTHING I can do with them. The local INS doesn't want them unless they are arrested for a Misd or a Felony. Is this the same in AZ ?

[soundwave]

Border Patrol will usually take anything we give them. Mostly because they're kind of embarassed because they walked 40 miles through the desert and weren't caught by them at that time. That and at the end of the day we usually catch about 30-50 of them. The reservation has the biggest problem. They won't even come out to pick them up unless they have that amount already. Otherwise they have to let them go. It's really stupid, you know?

Cheers.

[chewy]

It does work in the Arizona that way. All officers are are state certified and with the state certification they have peace officer powers throughout the state. However, immigration laws are federal and Border Patrol (from what I understand) are the only ones that can enforce it. All that I know is that in Arizona they are the only ones that can arrest for illegal immigration. And, there are no Arizona laws against illegal immigration.

Cheers.

Border Patrol isn't the only agency that can arrest for being illegaly here but it is their primary job and they, and INS are the ones that the illegals get turned over to in the long run for deportation.

[TPDHellhound]

All state officers can "detain" illegals for a criminal investigation, just like any legal citizen. However, state officers do not have Federal Authority. Therefore, we cannot enforce federal laws. So we cannot arrest illegals simply for being illegal.

The reasoning behind this is because legislatures do not want illegals to be afraid of local police. They want them to be able to go to police if they are victimized and need help. And I'm SURE that illegals are well read on the different LE agencies in the US and understand this discrepancy... right? :rolleyes:

[soundwave]

Yep, they detain all the time until BP shows up. We don't have INS, per say, around here so BP is pretty much it (and I'm not even going to attempt to contemplate how DHS organization works lol). But I'm right there with you TPDHellhound, they know that they can't be here but knowing the differences of LE jurisdiction is highly unlikely even if we tried to explain it to them.

Cheers.

[hscop]

We dont do anything with illigals. Cant even detain them. The most we can do is take then into custody on a federal warrant or under a parole hold (if they have already been deported for a felony).

[Sleuth]

Soundwave, I'm sure some things have changed since I retired in '97, but my last post of duty with Customs was in Sells. Some of your data is just a bit off.
There were both BP and U.S. Customs Patrols on the Res. BP could go anywhere they wanted, but Casa Grande Sector just did not have the manpower. They did respond when we caught smaller (5-6 person) loads.

Our Patrol Officers were all Native Americans (part of our agreement with the tribe), and we rounded up lots of wets (I'm retired, I can say that) for BP. In fact, I never caught one BP did not take from me, but on the Res. the smallest group I caught was 6 or 7. Largest was about 35.

While there was some minor friction between our agencies, we got along well on the working level. BP was (and, as far as I know is), a fine group of men and women, understaffed for the job they had. I was pleased to have them back me, as I backed them from time to time.

[soundwave]

Well I'm sure a lot has indeed changed since 1997, but some are still the same. I'm not fully aware of BP's agreements with the rez, but from what I have been told by a deputy now working with us coming from 3-4 years with the rez's PD, it's the PD that's in charge of all LE local/state/federal for the entire rez -- BP is now very sparce on the rez east of highway about 10 miles out. The rez is really getting into self-reliance, though. As I said, I'm only going by someone that came from PD, but I think it's pretty reliable.

Now there are literally hundreds of BP agents cruising around the highway and Casa Grande now has a large station near I-10 that is about 8 times the size of our BP station and just as many agents to go along with it. The recent news reports about BP sizing up is not off-bat at all, they are really growing pretty big. Also, the loads are getting smaller (about 3-4 persons) but are more numerous. There's a lot of US citizens bringing them up and they come in multiple vehicles in tangents now.

Hope that clears up a few things. Cheers.