Does tackling illegal immigration puts citizens at risk?
August 13, 2009
abc 15 News
Pinal County, Az -- Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu believes the problem of illegal
immigration affects you in ways you might not be considering.
“Most people talk about how illegal immigration is connected to much of the crime
and the high crime rates in Arizona, that’s very true, yet, often forgotten and
overlooked is the fact of how it impacts public safety in the service we provide
our citizens in terms of patrol services,” he said Thursday.
For example, he says, if deputies are wrapped up tackling a series of crimes related
to human smuggling then it takes more time for them to respond to a 911 call somewhere
else in the county.
Let’s say they receive a call about a van rollover with “all these illegals tossed
from the vehicle, we've had that numerous times because they are traveling at high
speeds and they lose control, especially on some of our rural roads and what happens
is that ties up not just one but multiple deputies for hours on end,” Babeu said.
There is the cost of overtime, the cost of transporting those people to area hospitals,
the cost of treating them, and then of course the cost to the human lives who were
put in that situation.
He said dedicating manpower to those types of situations is cumbersome on the whole
system because they are already understaffed.
“Most cities in the Valley have two officers for every 1,000 residents," Babeu says.
"Phoenix even has more than that. Tempe has more than that. We have one deputy per
1,000 citizens and our average response time 13.6 minutes for a priority 1 call
-- that means drop everything I need to get there right now.”
Manny Aroz didn’t like hearing response times will be longer due to issues with
illegal immigration.
He wondered why the Sheriff dedicated any resources to issues like drug and human
smuggling.
The Sheriff explained it’s because one crime leads to others.
"We have to deal with these situations, we can't not respond to them," he said.
"All that is connected, illegal immigration, it's not just that 'hey these folks
are illegal let's go get them,' it is directly related to crime rates in Arizona.”
He gave the example of when his deputies stopped a van that was carrying 14 people
from Central America.
"We find that there is a juvenile female that then says she was raped numerous times
by the coyote, the guide, so then we have multiple other crimes that we have to
investigate,” Babeu said.
The Sheriff said he’s upset the Pinal County Sheriff's Office wasn’t given grant
money to hire more deputies because that is something he knows the community needs.
Like most places in Arizona money is tight due to worsening budget concerns and
an economy that is still faltering.
Aroz said there might be more urgent matters happening at the same time they are
handling an illegal immigration matter and so the Sheriff’s Office should have a
better response time and the Sheriff agrees.
“We are having a hard enough time even responding to emergencies where our response
time is over 13 minutes and I'm saying as the leader of that agency that's unacceptable,
I do need more help,” he said.
It is also the reason why he’s become so vocal about his desire to see a more secure
border.
He stood alongside Maricopa County Joe Arpaio back in July during a crime suppression
operation to try and help people understand what he sees as the connection between
coming into the country illegally and a whole host of other crimes.
“What I have tried to share with you is the impact of how it affects us in law enforcement,
it takes away vital resources when we don't have enough for us to respond to emergencies,
to protect our own citizens, protect our own families, so it is a very real concern
that we are living with," Babeu said. "We need to focus on securing that border
and stopping the illegal flow coming into Arizona."
That is why since he’s taken office the Sheriff said he’s stepped up enforcement.
“Our approach is zero tolerance, you come into Pinal County and we deal with you,
we are not going to let you go, we will turn you over to Border Patrol, and to ICE,"
he says. "It is no longer, well we don't have a good ID, we don't know who this
is we just let them on their way like a lot of agencies do.”
Babeu said Pinal County is the fastest growing county in Arizona, second fastest
growing in the country.
“We just have not kept pace with the population boom and now we have close to 400,000
residents and we're different from Maricopa County and all the other counties because
more than half of our population lives in unincorporated areas so we're the police
in all these areas and this has a connection to our ability to respond to emergencies
in a timely fashion,” he said.
He put it bluntly. “We need more deputies."
Another issue the Sheriff tackled during our interview is the idea that if you support
a secure border, “it gets into a conversation where we're called racist about that
and that's unacceptable.”
“We’re not only recognizing the fact of our proud history of as a nation of immigrants,
we embrace that, we celebrate that, it's not about that, it's about, should we be
able to say who comes in our country, and to do it legally to do it the right way
and I say absolutely yes we must," he said. "So we are trying to have a thoughtful
conversation.”
The Sheriff plans to take a strict stance to send a strong message.
He wants you to know that illegal immigration, “takes away from resources to follow
up on criminal activity for our own citizens and it delays justice for our citizens,
it impacts our emergency response when one of our citizens calls and says I need
help, we have a car wreck ourselves or there is some domestic violence call or disturbance
or a robbery, our response is delayed, sometimes by a great extent.”
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