Arizona border sheriff is dismayed over Bush proposals

May 18, 2006

Sheriff Ralph E. Ogden of Yuma, Arizona, hopes that President Bush won't ask him and other border law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration law. Bush visited Yuma on Thursday, May 18 to reiterate his core proposals for immigration reform, including asking state and local law enforcement to help fill the breach on the border.

Yuma has grown into one of the hottest illegal-crossing corridors in the nation, with arrests at record levels and still climbing.

As Yuma sheriff for 14 years, Ogden says he'd like to help., but Arizona border communities are already strapped and suffering from years of rampant illegal immigration. They just can't take much more. Ogden estimates that illegal immigration already eats up 15 to 30 percent of his budget, and that’s before having officers detain and arrest undocumented immigrants.

Law enforcement in the Arizona border counties of Santa Cruz and Cochise agree with Ogden’s estimate, saying they spend significant amounts of time investigating border shootings and traffic accidents caused by smugglers. That’s in addition to waiting for the Border Patrol to pick up undocumented immigrants.

'This is a federal problem,' Ogden said. 'I've got to provide services to my community, and it's kind of hard to be all things for all people.'

Bush's television speech on immigration called for 'state and local law enforcement in our border communities' to help ease the transition as more Border Patrol agents are added in Arizona and along the 1,950-mile Southwestern border.

Some law enforcement officials said they are unclear on exactly what Bush plans to ask them to do and expressed concern about a series of bills at the state and federal level that would have them step in as immigration police.

Ogden decided to sit down and do the math to see what it would take for his deputies to arrest and jail each undocumented immigrant picked up.

Each month, Yuma County law enforcement officers encounter approximately 640 undocumented immigrants. At that rate, they would make about 8,300 arrests this year, he said.

Detaining the 8,300 undocumented immigrants until the Border Patrol responds would cost the county about $35,000. If the officers had to detain and arrest all of them, he said he would be looking at massive overtime and would have to double the number of beds in the local jail, now about 680.

In the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector, apprehensions have almost doubled in the past five years. In 2001, agents made 78,385 arrests while in 2005, 138,460 were apprehended

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada is responsible for 55 miles of border with Mexico just north of Nogales, a Mexican city of nearly 400,000. The number of Border Patrol agents has increased to more than 500 in recent years, but the county is still overwhelmed, Estrada said.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever doesn't want his deputies to become 'de facto immigration' agents but argues that there is definitely a role for local law enforcement to play in securing the border. For example, if the Border Patrol can't pick up undocumented immigrants quickly, Dever wants his deputies to be able to transport the immigrants to the Border Patrol.