Arizona sheriffs continue to raise concerns about the escalating crisis at America’s southern border, and some of these officials are putting their money where their mouth is.
Last week, the Arizona Sheriffs Association issued a press release to announce that deputies from five state counties would be heading to Cochise County. Those counties were Apache, Coconino, Navajo, Pinal, and Yavapai.
According to the release, the purpose of the deployment is to “help stanch the flow of drug and human smuggling in the state” by “working alongside other law enforcement to curb border related crime.
“Everyday, sheriffs deputies around the state encounter drug and human smugglers in our communities,” Arizona Sheriffs Association president and Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes said. “This is not a border region problem but a crisis in all of Arizona.”
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels is happy for the increased support from his colleagues from the Grand Canyon State. In a statement, Dannels said, “We are grateful that law enforcement from across the state are converging in southern Arizona to curb the human and drug smuggling. This show of force sends a strong message to the cartels that Arizona is serious about tackling these criminal gangs.”
The latest efforts to combat the negative effects of a porous border come as a result of the Safe Streets II Task Force out of Cochise County. The Arizona Sheriffs Association shared that this task force, comprised of law enforcement members from local, state and federal agencies, exists to “gather intelligence and attempt to apprehend human and drug smugglers.”
“It is our duty to protect the communities we serve and that starts at the U.S.-Mexico border,” Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said. “For far too long, the border areas have been open to the drug cartels. We must work to shut off these cartels from ruining America.”
“Criminal gangs that smuggle drugs and people across the border often end up in Coconino County and threaten our law enforcement and residents,” Coconino Sheriff Jim Driscoll said. “I’d rather deter those criminals at the border and stop them from using our county as a transit corridor.”
This latest effort from Arizona sheriffs follows their actions taken earlier in the month via letters to Governor Katie Hobbs and legislative leaders, requesting the state to “double its contribution to local law enforcement to allow (sheriffs) to deploy more resources to interdict human and drug smugglers.”
Just last month, a Cochise County Deputy Sheriff was seriously injured as he attempted to stop a suspected smuggler, who was trying to evade apprehension in her vehicle. When talking to local media about the rash of similar incidents plaguing his county and department, Sheriff Mark Dannels said, “Just this week alone, I’ve had a patrol car damaged, I’ve had two officers, deputies that were trying to be run over by smuggler drivers. This is every day down here.”
In May 2022, former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels penned an op-ed for Fox News, detailing how an increasing rash of border-related crimes were affecting southern Arizona communities. The two officials shared a heartbreaking story of how one of these episodes tragically changed the lives of one southern Arizona family forever, writing, “This crisis started to place local law enforcement officials and residents of Cochise County on high alert in October 2021 when law enforcement officials attempted a traffic stop on a 16-year-old from Mesa, who was smuggling migrants in Cochise County in southern Arizona. The teenager suddenly hit the gas, driving over 100 miles per hour through small towns and quiet intersections on a mad dash to avoid apprehension. He eventually ran a red light, smashing into another vehicle and killing Wanda Sitoski, a local grandmother on her way to meet her son for her 65th birthday dinner.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
As the issues at America’s southern border continue to mount, one Arizona Congressman took advantage of a face-to-face encounter with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to let him know exactly how he felt about the official’s job performance.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing to “examine the Biden administration’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal for the Department of Homeland Security.” On the docket for the meeting was testimony from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Arizona Freshman Representative Eli Crane sat on this committee and had a chance to question Mayorkas.
Representative Crane didn’t mince words and he didn’t leave anyone in doubt as to his true feelings about the Biden Administration’s policies at the border. Directing the full weight of his comments to Secretary Mayorkas, who was sitting directly in front of the dais in the committee room, Crane said, “Sir, you said in your opening statements that you’re attacking cartels and smugglers in an unequivocal way. You most certainly are not, sir. As a matter of fact, if they were in this room right now, the heads of these cartels, you know what they’d tell us? They’d say, ‘hey, reelect these guys again and by all means keep that guy right in his seat because he’s our MVP. He’s making it so easy for us to smuggle drugs, smuggle people, get gangs into this country, distract our Border Patrol agents, and at the same time, destroy the U.S. economy.’ So you’re not doing a good job, sir.”
Crane then used this scathing, yet respectful and measured, lecture to reiterate his support for Articles of Impeachment against the DHS Secretary, which so far have been drafted by fellow Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs. Earlier this year, Congressman Biggs re-filed the Articles after first introducing the action in August 2021. In a press release announcing his re-introduction of the Articles, Biggs said, “It’s clear Secretary Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. His conduct is willful and intention. He is not enforcing the law and is violating his oath of office. For these reasons, Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached.”
Biggs and Crane aren’t the only Members of Congress on the track towards tougher action against Mayorkas. Back in November 2022, Kevin McCarthy, now the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, stated, “His actions have produced the great wave of illegal immigration in recorded history. That is why today I am calling on the secretary to resign. He cannot and must not remain in that position. If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure to determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.”
Just six months into Fiscal Year 2023, border officials have apprehended 1,223,067 illegal aliens at the southern border, including 191,899 in March (the most-recent month of information) – a little over half the numbers for the entirety of Fiscal Year 2022 (2,378,944). These apprehensions also do not take into account the number of ‘gotaways,’ which is a term for illegal aliens who escape detection by border officials and fade into countless American communities.
In February, Congressman Crane visited the southern border in El Paso, Texas, with members of the House Homeland Security Committee. Crane’s office publicized that the congressional delegation “witnessed a drug bust in real time, highlighting the severe drug trafficking issue plaguing our nation and the failure of the Biden Administration to disincentivize smugglers.” Crane said that the Biden Administration’s abandonment of the American people at the border was “a dereliction of duty” and “a betrayal of the American people they swore to protect.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The announcement that a federal judge has temporarily blocked President Joe Biden and his administration from lifting a Title 42 public health order at the Mexico border on May 23 was welcomed news to the communities and law enforcement agencies still reeling from the ongoing influx of undocumented migrants which started after Biden was sworn in.
Federal officials admitted to Judge Robert Summerhays with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana that once Title 42 is fully lifted, the number of border crossings are expected to “increase significantly” to as many as 18,000 migrants each day. As a result, last Friday the judge granted a request by 21 states for a preliminary injunction which forces the White House to comply with various federal rules before making any more changes to Title 42 enforcement.
In March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under President Donald Trump invoked Title 42, which is part of the Public Health Services Act of 1944 aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases in the country. Title 42 allows federal officials to suspend the right to introduce migrants -including those seeking asylum- by sealing the land borders into the United States and expelling crossers back into Mexico or return them to their home countries.
Biden later loosened Title 42 to no longer apply to unaccompanied children or to certain migrants who can show a “significant law enforcement, officer and public safety, humanitarian, or public health” interest.
For the month of April 2022, only 42 percent of crossers were expelled under Title 42, according to a report issued by Rep. John Katko of New York. By then, the CDC had announced Title 42 would end May 23, to be replaced by unspecified plans to control COVID-19 in other ways.
Arizona is among the states named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which contends the end of Title 42 will bring “much greater numbers of paroled aliens with non-meritorious asylum claims who were induced to enter the United States because of the Termination Order.”
Summerhays was assigned the states’ lawsuit and issued a temporary restraining order against Biden, the CDC, and federal immigration officials to keep Title 42 in place until the legal challenge is complete.
Part of that challenge involves ensuring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a workable a plan ready to implement for border operations once Title 42 is lifted. The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) requires a public notice period, with sufficient time for comment, before the CDC’s Title 42 order can be ended. And there is a requirement that the CDC show its proposed change is not “arbitrary and capricious.”
The lawsuit contends keeping Title 42 in place until an APA-compliant plan is in place will prevent “an imminent, man-made, self-inflicted calamity: the abrupt elimination of the only safety valve preventing this administration’s disastrous border policies from devolving into an unmitigated catastrophe.”
Summerhays was asked to change the temporary order into a permanent injunction, which he considered last week. His May 20 ruling notes the states provided sufficient evidence to support their argument that the CDC’s announced termination of Title 42 will increase community and state costs for healthcare, education, and public safety as a result of “increased border crossings and that, based on the government’s estimates, the increase may be as high as three-fold.”
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called Summerhays’ ruling “a significant win,” and noted that maintaining Title 42 for now is vital.
“I’m grateful to the court for upholding the rule of law and helping maintain some level of sanity as we continue to battle the Biden-made border crisis,” Brnovich said.
In the meantime, U.S. Border Patrol Chief John Modlin of the Tucson Sector continues to tweet about the never-ending group of undocumented migrants and deadly fentanyl coming across the southwest border.
Modlin announced earlier this month that Tucson Sector agents hosted a binational training for immigration officers assigned to the Instituto Nacional de Migración. The training held at the Nogales Station included first aid and fentanyl exposure. It will enhance the handling of emergencies along the shared border, Modlin noted.
Modlin also recently hosted a delegation from Poland and the Baltic states to discuss border security best practices. And he shared information about that two large groups of had been encountered by USBP agents near Lukeville.
Those taken into custody were citizens of Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, and Peru.
Gov. Doug Ducey and nine other governors met Wednesday in Texas to announce a plan they say could be immediately implemented by the Biden Administration to address the crisis at the nation’s southwest border. The meeting came after more than two weeks of silence from President Joe Biden to a Sept. 20 request for a summit with 26 governors, including Ducey.
“We’ve tried to meet with the president and be part of the solution, but he refuses. No, worse — he ignores governors, just like he’s ignoring the border and the safety of the American people,” Ducey said, adding that the governors have publicly provided a comprehensive set of policy to end the border crisis immediately. “President Biden now has everything he needs to stop this crisis.”
The 10-point plan shared by the governors calls for the continued application of Title 42 to refuse entry to individuals coming into the U.S. due to COVID-19 public health risks (Point 1) as well as the dedication of additional resources to eradicate the surge in human and drug smuggling (Point 2).
Point 3 calls on Biden to enforce all deportation laws applicable to criminally-convicted illegal aliens, while Point 4 seeks the United States’ reentry with agreements previously in place with Mexico as well as with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras -commonly referred to as the Northern Triangle.
The fifth point would ensure states are notified by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement anytime the federal government transports migrants, including unaccompanied children, into a state that will be called upon to provide social services.
And the sixth point demands the President and all federal officials to “state clearly and unequivocally that our country’s borders are not open” and that migrants seeking economic opportunity in America should not abuse or misuse the asylum process.
Point 7 calls for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be provided with more resources for federal officers and agents. Meanwhile, Point 8 involves making additional judges and resources available to U.S. Immigration Courts to end the growing backlog and expedite court appearances for illegal migrants. There would also be an end to the Biden Administration’s current “catch and release policy” which makes it impossible to track immigrants who are otherwise free to travel anywhere in the country.
Under Point 9, the Migrant Protection Policy (MPP) would be reinstated in compliance with recent court rulings. MPP requires asylum seekers to return to Mexico to await court hearings. And Point 10, according to the governors’ plan, would reactivate construction contracts to finish building the border wall as well as additional security infrastructure such as lights, sensors, and access roads.
Those participating in the meeting with Ducey and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott were Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, Gov. Brad Little of Idaho, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana, Gov. Pete Ricketts of Montana, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, and Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming. The attendees received a border briefing from Commissioner Steve McCraw of the Texas Department of Public Safety as well as Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council.
Last month, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels took issue with comments by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) who claimed the southwest border is “sovereign and secure” and that anyone who says otherwise is spouting “biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.”
Dannels, whose county shares 80 miles of border with Mexico, said Jackson Lee’s comments were “100 percent not true.” To support his position, the sheriff pointed to data compiled by the federal government which showed 183,000 border crossers taken into custody from Oct. 1, 2020 through Aug. 31, 2021 by the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol.
During that same period, an estimated 115,000 “getaways” were reported in the Tucson Sector, Dannels said.
Those were just some of the 1,473,000 encounters with undocumented immigrants at the nation’s southwest border, a 325 percent increase from the same period last year.