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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Federal prosecutions in Arizona have soared dramatically Federal prosecutions in Arizona have soared dramatically Posted: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 5:00 pm | Updated: 7:21 pm, Wed Aug 18, 2010. Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services Nearly one out of every five cases being brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the whole country are filed in Arizona, according to a new report. The Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found there were 20,818 prosecutions in the first eight months of the current fiscal year. That compares with 109,532 for the entire country. By contrast, Arizona represents just 2 percent of the national population. Not surprisingly, more than four out of every five are related to violations of federal immigration laws. But even within that category, the study shows a clear trend in this area. Five years ago, federal prosecutors brought fewer than 3,200 immigration cases to the courts in the first eight months; the figures for the current fiscal year exceed 17,500. And drug prosecutions also are up, too. None of this impressed Gov. Jan Brewer who has been engaged in a war of words with the Obama administration about what she said is the failure of the government to secure the border. “These efforts to arrest and prosecute are good, but they are not enough,’’ said gubernatorial press aide Paul Senseman. And she chose to look at the increase in prosecutions as a sign that things are getting worse, not better. “The data suggests that the border security problem is acute in Arizona and growing quite rapidly,’’ Senseman continued. “As long as narco-terrorist drug cartels and human smugglers continue to frequently operate in Arizona, then much more must be done to secure the border.’’ But Dennis Burke, the current U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said the prosecution statistics do not represent more crime. He said that his predecessors -- political appointees like he is -- wanted to pursue more cases. What they lacked, Burke said, was the money to hire more lawyers to bring more cases to court. “They just didn’t have the resources,’’ Burke said. The result, he said, was that decisions were made to simply have the person sent back to his or her home country. “Now you can go back and say, ‘Look, this person has a criminal background,’ ‘’ Burke explained. “It’s not just a question of deporting him. This is a question of prosecuting him before he’s deported.’’ The TRAC report bears that out. It says the number of full-time federal prosecutors in Arizona went from 111 at the end of September in 2005 to 151 this past March. That’s a 36 percent increase here, versus just a 9 percent jump in prosecutors for the nation as a whole. Burke said he just hired five more prosecutors for the Phoenix office and four more in Tucson. And that’s not the end of it: The $600 million supplemental appropriation signed earlier this month for Southwest border security also includes cash for additional prosecutors. But Burke said he does not yet know how many will end up in Arizona. Burke said those changes, coupled with an experimental program in Tucson, will result in even more illegal immigrants being prosecuted. That program, known as Operation Streamline, has criminal charges being leveled against some people who entered the country illegally but otherwise have no criminal record and are not repeat offenders. The purpose is to move toward a “zero tolerance’’ policy, where illegal crossers would realize that being captured would mean more than a bus ride back to the border. Burke noted, though, there are practical limits, with courts in Tucson able to handle only 70 of these cases a day. He said the increase in prosecutions of drug couriers and others also is a direct result of more staff. At one time, he said, attorneys in his office were turning away marijuana smuggling cases if they found someone with less than 500 pounds. That policy became so well known, Burke said, that smugglers who were apprehended were volunteering to federal agents that they were carrying less than that. Now, Burke said, there is no minimum. In fact, he said his staff recently brought charges against someone who had just seven pounds. Burke stressed that the prior refusal to prosecute some smugglers did not mean they got off free. He said the cases were turned over to county attorneys who, with their own workload problems, often were less than pleased to be handling the federal cases. Enforcement Efforts Focus on Arizona Fiscal year AZ prosecutions US prosecutions AZ percentage 2005 7,905 118,342 7% 2006 12,470 116,739 11% 2007 12,847 117,651 11% 2008 17,759 155,694 11% 2009 26,237 169,612 15% 2010 1st 8 mos 20,818 109,532 19% Source: Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse Syracuse University Immigration prosecutions only - 1st 8 months of each fiscal year FY (8 mos) number 2005 3,189 2006 7,453 2007 7,795 2008 9,260 2009 14,222 2010 17,591 Source: Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse Syracuse University Drug prosecutions only - 1st 8 months of each fiscal year FY (8 mos) number 2005 1,145 2006 1,041 2007 709 2008 493 2009 896 2010 1,424 Source: Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse Syracuse University Composition of Arizona Prosecutions Type percentage Immigration 84.50% Drugs & narcotics 6.80% White collar crimes 4.10% Other 4.60%
Poster Comment: if you read the article you see that the federal government has very clearly focused on doing immigration prosecutions here in Arizona. it doesn't show a chart to tell us if the arizona's share of immigration prosecutions have gone up. it is possible that they just increased their focus on immigration crimes and the statistics just came out this way. Or, it seems more likely that they are focusing on immigration prosecutions especially in arizona. what are we to think of a federal government that does these immigration prosecutions, but sues arizona for wanting to do the same thing? I think that the federal government should focus on employer audits to identify illegal immigrants already in the country and to force employers to stop hiring illegals. It would be far more cost-effective. I'm not against law enforcement at the border, I just don't think it is a cost effective way of addressing the problem.
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