Arizona Immigrant Law Will Backfire
By Samuel Logan for ISN
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed external pagebill SB 1070 into law on 23 April in a move that broke national silence over federal immigration reform. The same pen stroke caused ripple effects through her state, into Mexico, Capitol Hill and beyond.
The law's most controversial clause obligates local police officers to enforce federal statutes against illegal aliens. Once the law enters into force, in less than 30 days, officers may stop and request identification documents of ‘suspicious persons’ in the border state, and arrest anyone without the proper papers.
While there are legitimate concerns over racial profiling in a state where citizens often make the distinction between white, black and ‘brown,’ the more pressing concern is that this new legislation will further saddle law enforcement's ongoing efforts to fight Mexican organized crime, street gang activity, kidnapping and gun and drug smuggling.
As an unintended consequence, this law will force distance and the closure of communication between law enforcement and the grater Latino immigrant community - an important source of intelligence for most criminal investigators in Arizona at the local, state and federal levels.
"We believe it will detract from and siphon resources away from those committing the most serious crimes," Secretary of Homeland Security and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on 27 April. Her testimony echoed the concerns of local sheriffs, including Clarence Dupnik, the Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, who presides over Tucson and has announced that he external pagewill not enforce the law.
Phoenix, the state's capital, was dubbed the external pagekidnapping capital of the US in 2009. It is home to one of the highest concentrations of street gang members in the country. Additionally, many federal law enforcement agents believe that Phoenix is the US operations base for the Sinaloa Federation, arguably the most powerful drug trafficking organization (DTO) in Latin America today.
Meanwhile, Mark Qualia, spokesman for the Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) in Phoenix, external pagetold The Arizona Republic daily on 28 April that the apprehension of illegal aliens has declined, from 1.2 million in 2005 to 541,000 in 2009.
A 29 April external pagePew Hispanic Center report estimated that some 500,000 undocumented immigrants resided in Arizona in 2008. This number has likely climbed, but it still remains a small slice of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the US today.
Drug seizures, however, have continued to rise, indicating that while the number of undocumented workers entering Arizona has declined, the number of criminals could be increasing.
While border crossing points such as Tijuana, Juarez, Matamoros and Reynosa remain unstable as rival DTOs battle over control of the lucrative turf, border crossings into Arizona from Sonora, and into California from Baja California - including Mexicali, Nogales, Agua Prieta and even Naco - have remained relatively calm.
‘El Chapo,’ the man who runs the Sinaloa Federation, has long controlled this turf. With little to no contest, he has funneled his illicit products - marijuana, black tar opium, cocaine and methamphetamines - north into Phoenix for years where criminals store the product before distribution across the US. Cash and guns regularly move in the opposite direction.
Drug seizures, which many agree represent between one-third and one-fourth of the actual amount of product moving through any given point at any given time, increased by 15 percent from March 2009 to March 2010 - totaling some 1.65 million kilograms, according to The Arizona Republic.
As Governor Brewer fights to keep this legislation afloat, it's hard not to consider that her political move, which comes ahead of national mid-term elections, might have been designed to external pagegalvanize national debate over the needs of immigration reform. Yet it seems to have driven a wedge between border security and immigration policies, and state and federal initiatives.
Washington's political barometer indicates that the Whitehouse is reticent to lead the way on immigration reform, and that the US Congress is loathe to take up the debate before elections, with at least external pageone notable exception.
As a state, Arizona has taken its own initiative in crafting a law that enables local agents to enforce federal legislation. Yet it remains clear that local law enforcement, while concerned with border security, is not as interested in the presence of undocumented workers. Arizona's greatest concern is not hard working immigrants - documented or not - but the criminals who hide among them.