From KPHO Phoenix:
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that approximately 100 volunteer posse and Sheriff’s Deputies will soon begin randomly patrolling the desert areas and main roadways in southwest Maricopa County as a part of an operation to curb the flow of illegal immigrants entering the county.
Arpaio made the announced just as 11 more illegal immigrants were being booked in jail after a Ford Windstar with California plates and 16 people packed inside was stopped by a Sheriff’s deputy early Tuesday morning on a traffic violation near Gila Bend.
Despite the growing controversy about illegal aliens nationwide, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office remains the only Arizona law enforcement agency willing to enforce a new state anti-smuggling law.
“As a group of law abiding people, we are fed up with the number of people who come into this county illegally. We’re tired of the drugs that some of them bring to sell to our young people and we’re ready and willing to assist the Sheriff’s deputies in the fight against illegal immigration,” says [Andrew] Ramsammy [part of Tuesday's posse arrest team].
Well can you imagine that? Here we have a government employee, a sheriff, actually obeying and enforcing the law of his jurisdiction. Why is it that all those high-paid government employees in Washington, DC, cannot do the very same thing?
Jay Tea over at Wizbang makes a good observation:
There’s an old aphorism that “one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”
In 1965, we had an illegal alien crisis. About 200,000 of them were entering the United States every year. The advocates of “reforming” insisted that a critical element of fixing the problem was an amnesty program. Their proposal passed.
In 1986, we had an illegal alien crisis. There were about 6,000,000 of them in the United States. The advocates of “reforming” insisted that a critical element of fixing the problem was an amnesty program. Their proposal passed.
Today, we have an illegal alien crisis. There are between 12,000,000 and 15,000,000 of them in the United States (at best estimate). The advocates of “reforming” insist that a critical element of fixing the problem is an amnesty program.
Matt provides information that somehow didn’t make it into the news report yet needs to be stated:
What the news piece didn’t point out for people not in AZ, is the southern boundary of Maricopa County is still a couple of hundred miles or so above the U.S.-Mexico border. Sheriff Joe is catching the ones that have made it past the Border Patrol and Sheriff’s of Cochise, Santa Cruze and Pima Counties.
Maricopa, Arpaio, illegal immigrant, illegal alien
2 responses so far ↓
1 quicksilver // May 4, 2006 at 9:50 am
So, how effective is he going to be? I would imagine the illegals are able to get transportation by the time they get that far into the country.
2 Center for Sanity // May 10, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Arizona Sheriff – Throwing Illegals Aliens in Jail
It is always the Americans that are ‘vigilantes’ for wanting to enforce our border security, at least at the State level, we have yet to really see anything of enforcement at the Federal level.