Even in Mesa, where a Cuban transplant sensitive to the plight of immigrants reigns as police chief, a policy change scheduled to take effect in December means hundreds of people detained by police for minor crimes will end up deported.
The biggest problem for illegal immigrants is the county jails. Before ICE cross-trained 60 jail guards in spring 2007, about 90 percent of illegals booked into the Maricopa County jail system were released into the community after they posted bond or served their sentence. Now, virtually all of them are deported.
Michael Ratcliff
Jon Gurule, ICE Detention and Removal Operations deputy field office di rector.
Michael Ratcliff
DPS detention facility for illegal immigrants under construction in Phoenix.
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A press release put out by Arpaio in late August touted that 16,000 inmates were identified as illegal immigrants in the previous 18 months. He announced that most were deported and that others would be deported once their jail or prison sentences were served.
It is a large number, but one thing the press release does not mention is that local police departments and the state DPS — not Arpaio's MCSO — arrested about 86 percent of the 16,000.
For aliens arrested for crimes, as well as for average undocumented workers, who together make up an estimated 9 or 10 percent of the Valley's population, the game has changed when it comes to dealing with local law enforcement.
Lieutenant Ramon Figueroa, who heads the DPS' Metro East division, says there is more cooperation between immigration authorities and local cops than he has ever seen in 27 years on the force.
The agency's Highway Patrol Division figures help tell the story.
Figueroa's district, a massive swath of land that takes in the entire East Valley and runs north to Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road, used to catch and release nearly as many undocumented immigrants as it turned over to ICE. Just this year, that figure became lopsided: 376 illegal immigrants were released while 1,057 were handed over to ICE.
The DPS' northern Arizona district figures are even more striking. In 2006, its troopers caught and released 1,202 illegals and turned over 11 to ICE. So far this year, the DPS district has handed ICE 681 immigrants and released only 107.
"It's a different environment," admits Sergeant Mark Clark, Scottsdale's police spokesman. "We're not in the business of immigration enforcement. But what we are doing is making sure ICE has the opportunity to enforce immigration."
To illegal immigrants, Clark's distinction is a joke. Like other agencies, the Scottsdale Police Department seems to be very much in the business of forcing illegals out of the country.
Near the Heard Museum, off Central Avenue in Phoenix, is the building that houses the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, where legal immigrants are welcomed into the United States.
On the second floor of the building is the headquarters of ICE's Detention and Removal Operations, where illegal immigrants are processed to be kicked out of the country. No signs for Detention and Removal can be seen on the front of the building, but the fenced-in "sally port" and white buses parked out back hint of the jail-like nature of the facility.
DRO is a less-catchy and less-publicized acronym than ICE, and the head of ICE's local Office of Investigations, Matt Allen, usually gets the credit or blame for ICE-related matters in the media. DRO boss Katrina Kane does not report to Allen. She reports to ICE supervisors in Washington, D.C.
For the most part, DRO is ICE to local law-enforcement officers. When police call ICE to inquire about an immigrant's status, or when they need illegal immigrants picked up, they talk to DRO.
In 2006, when New Times published a cover story that described ICE's myriad problems, members of the agency's Office of Investigations complained bitterly about their role as part-time bus drivers whose job it was to transport illegal immigrants from local jails or crime scenes to federal detention facilities. ICE as a whole was understaffed, and agents scrambled just to keep up with the loads of immigrants found in Arizona drop houses and elsewhere.
In fall 2006, however, the federal government boosted the budget of ICE/DRO, increasing the number of agents by at least 30 percent, says Jon Gurule, the agency's deputy field office director. The Phoenix DRO field office is now third-largest in the nation, where before it had barely cracked the top 10.
Previously, police officers calling ICE were often told the agency would not get involved in cases involving fewer than about 20 illegal immigrants. Even then, agents were difficult to find after normal business hours. If police called about a drop house with 30 immigrants at midnight, an ICE agent would probably get a phone call at home, drive to an ICE office, and pick up a van or bus, then drive to the scene.
Now it is simpler, says Gurule: "If they call us, we respond."
ICE agents now staff the office 24/7, he says. Since September 2006, ICE has responded to more than 2,800 calls from local law enforcers for assistance. The number of illegal immigrants to be picked up no longer matters, though police will sometimes be asked to drive immigrants to the facility when it is convenient, rather than have ICE do all the work.
Gurule says a new communications system expected to be in place by the end of the year will electronically convey the fingerprints of nearly all the illegal immigrants booked into all of Arizona's county jails — even in counties that do not have agreements with the feds. Many of these people will be deported, though the cost of transportation from remote areas will have to be balanced against the severity of the immigrants' crimes.
