Immigrants in drop houses are not the only people in danger. Once they enter the community, they deal with the constant fear of discovery. Getting undocumented immigrants to talk about life in Maricopa County is difficult. They are instinctively distrustful of strangers. When you can be arrested at any moment, you have to be careful whom you invite into your life.
Morgan Bellinger
Phoenix lawyer Daniel Ortega
Morgan Bellinger
Activist Alfredo Gutierrez works the crowd outside M.D. Pruitt's furniture store, the site of a weekly immigration protest.
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That doesn't mean the undocumented don't have anything to say for themselves. After Alfredo Gutierrez mentioned on his radio program that this story was being written, he received calls during the rest of the day from people who wanted to talk about life without a green card. Most people did not want to say their names or meet in person. Even when a respected Hispanic leader tells immigrants whom they can trust, they don't want to take the chance.
Daniela, the mother of five whose oldest child was almost stolen by a coyote, is one of the few immigrants contacted by New Times brave enough to speak candidly about her fears.
She lives down the street from a known drug dealer, which puts her children in a potentially dangerous situation every day.
"I know where they are selling and I know their name, but I am not going to say nothing. First, when the police come they could have the right to ask me about my situation. I don't know what's going to happen after," she says. "Second, I am afraid about the drug dealers. He [Arpaio] is supposed to fight with those persons, not with me."
But undocumented immigrants like Daniela are exactly whom he wants to fight. One hundred sixty of his deputies and jail officers have been cross-trained as immigration officers, a program known as 287-g after the section of the national Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996 that makes this legal.
The program is intended for local law enforcement to go after known violent, criminals — human smugglers for example — and, if they are undocumented, initiate removal proceedings without waiting on ICE.
In theory, the 287-g training that the Sheriff's Office signed up for is designed to catch people like the drug dealer down the street from Daniela and the coyotes who brutalized the people in the drop house in El Mirage — people who are known criminals. Arizona is not the only state with this funding and training available, nor was it the first to get it. Twelve states have officers cross-trained under the program. But Maricopa County has the more 287-g officers than any other county or state.
Linda Chavez, of the conservative think tank Center for Equal Opportunity, says it's a good program when used sensibly.
"You need to have police departments checking people who have been arrested for other offenses to see if the person is in the country illegally. You don't want to let someone go who is a flight risk," she says. "But you don't want them pulling people over and harassing them over a broken turn signal. Do you really want them doing an immigration check? You're hassling someone for something extremely minor when someone else could be doing something serious."
But Arpaio announced from the beginning that he had no problem arresting illegal immigrants for crimes like jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk.
"Ours is an operation where we want to go after illegals, not the crime, first," Arpaio told the Republic in March. "It's a pure program. You go after them and you lock them up."
He didn't waste any time. His office is now notorious for traffic stops that turn into deportations as well as arrests of food vendors and day laborers around the Valley.
Father Glen Jenks of Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopalian Church in Cave Creek found his parish at the center of the fight after Arpaio made it a point to station deputies outside a day-labor center the church operates in its parking lot. Jenks says the church started the center as a way to keep day laborers from wandering the streets, a major complaint in the northeast Valley community.
"That created a chilling effect. They've created terror in the Hispanic community. The consequence of that is whatever the percentage of the population that's Hispanic can't report a crime," he says. "They can't even let themselves witness a crime."
Activist Alfredo Gutierrez says that's the point.
"The intent is to Satanize a group of people. He's made them morally equivalent to real criminals," he says. "The guy walking down 34th street looking for a job has got to be as dangerous a criminal as a child molester."
Jenks says that in his parish (which he points out is about 80 percent Anglo conservative Republicans) the sheriff is losing respect.
"These are not people who have a stake in the issues we're talking about," he says. "They just have a sense that the sheriff and his deputies are gunslingers and do not really respect them or trust them at all. They've told me this point blank.
The Department of Public Safety, which has 10 cross-trained officers, has adopted a different approach. It is using the training to go after people who involved in known criminal activity.
