News
Supervisor: Feds must enforce law on border
By Jim Lamb
NOGALES—A Santa Cruz County official has urged state legislators not to heap immigration law enforcement on local governments by passing new laws; instead leave it up to the federal government.
Manny Ruiz of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors said local governments are burdened and stressed enough already.
He said the Santa Cruz County Sheriff Department has only 50 deputies to patrol the 1,200-square-mile county, “And they aren't all working at the same time.”
The Republican controlled House and Senate have passed bills in the past authorizing sheriff departments and local police departments to arrest and jail illegal immigrants, but Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano has declined to sign them.
Local officials say they don't have the men or the money to do what they see as federal enforcement.
Senate majority leader Tim Bee, who represents Green Valley, Sahuarita and much of southeastern Arizona, brought about a dozen legislators from Phoenix for a close-up look at the Mexican border Friday.
They met at Nogales city hall, just a mile north of the wall that separates Nogales north and Nogales south. Nogales south, in the Mexican state of Sonora, has about 300,000 residents. Nogales, Ariz., just 30,000.
They heard about labor problems in the Yuma area, where 25,000 Mexican workers help harvest winter crops that feed millions of Americans. They heard about how tighter security slows the huge trucking industry at Nogales. And they also heard pleas that the border is too easy to breach by illegal aliens and drug smugglers.
Mayor Ignacio Barraza of Nogales, Ariz., and Mayor Mario Antonio Martinez Dabdoub of Nogales, Son., and councilwoman Ethel Garcia and others from the Tohono O'odham Reservation talked about living on the border.
Council member Garcia said the Tohono O'odham Reservation's 2.8 million acres makes it about the size of Connecticut. About 1,500 illegal aliens cross the reservation a day.
Many don't just keep walking north, however. Garcia said her home had been broken into “oh, about four times.”
Terry K. Shannon Jr., a produce broker and chairman of the Greater Nogales Port Authority, told of plans to expand Mariposa Port of Entry on Nogales' west side.
Estimates to reconfigure and enlarge the port run to $130 million.
Each year, about 288,000 trucks carrying 4 billion pounds of fresh produce pass through Mariposa.
The produce and other Mexican produced goods that cross at Mariposa are valued at $13 billion a year.
Paul R. Muthart, a Yuma-area grower, said immigration reform is needed to help those who need to cross, and to thwart those who are trying to steal their way in.
Muthart, speaking for other Yuma-area growers said in the busy period some Mexican day laborers start lining up at the port of entry at 3 or 4 in the morning so they can get to the fields and work.
This kind of agriculture is “all hand labor,” he said.
“We need national immigration reform. Help us get the labor supply we need,” he said.
Before sending the legislators on a three-hour bus ride back to Phoenix, Santa Cruz County supervisor Ruiz closed by pointing out the economic benefits of importing Mexican products.
“There are more than drugs coming across. There's a lot of produce.”
jlamb@gvnews.com | 520-547-9749
Manny Ruiz of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors said local governments are burdened and stressed enough already.
He said the Santa Cruz County Sheriff Department has only 50 deputies to patrol the 1,200-square-mile county, “And they aren't all working at the same time.”
The Republican controlled House and Senate have passed bills in the past authorizing sheriff departments and local police departments to arrest and jail illegal immigrants, but Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano has declined to sign them.
Local officials say they don't have the men or the money to do what they see as federal enforcement.
Senate majority leader Tim Bee, who represents Green Valley, Sahuarita and much of southeastern Arizona, brought about a dozen legislators from Phoenix for a close-up look at the Mexican border Friday.
They met at Nogales city hall, just a mile north of the wall that separates Nogales north and Nogales south. Nogales south, in the Mexican state of Sonora, has about 300,000 residents. Nogales, Ariz., just 30,000.
They heard about labor problems in the Yuma area, where 25,000 Mexican workers help harvest winter crops that feed millions of Americans. They heard about how tighter security slows the huge trucking industry at Nogales. And they also heard pleas that the border is too easy to breach by illegal aliens and drug smugglers.
Mayor Ignacio Barraza of Nogales, Ariz., and Mayor Mario Antonio Martinez Dabdoub of Nogales, Son., and councilwoman Ethel Garcia and others from the Tohono O'odham Reservation talked about living on the border.
Council member Garcia said the Tohono O'odham Reservation's 2.8 million acres makes it about the size of Connecticut. About 1,500 illegal aliens cross the reservation a day.
Many don't just keep walking north, however. Garcia said her home had been broken into “oh, about four times.”
Terry K. Shannon Jr., a produce broker and chairman of the Greater Nogales Port Authority, told of plans to expand Mariposa Port of Entry on Nogales' west side.
Estimates to reconfigure and enlarge the port run to $130 million.
Each year, about 288,000 trucks carrying 4 billion pounds of fresh produce pass through Mariposa.
The produce and other Mexican produced goods that cross at Mariposa are valued at $13 billion a year.
Paul R. Muthart, a Yuma-area grower, said immigration reform is needed to help those who need to cross, and to thwart those who are trying to steal their way in.
Muthart, speaking for other Yuma-area growers said in the busy period some Mexican day laborers start lining up at the port of entry at 3 or 4 in the morning so they can get to the fields and work.
This kind of agriculture is “all hand labor,” he said.
“We need national immigration reform. Help us get the labor supply we need,” he said.
Before sending the legislators on a three-hour bus ride back to Phoenix, Santa Cruz County supervisor Ruiz closed by pointing out the economic benefits of importing Mexican products.
“There are more than drugs coming across. There's a lot of produce.”
jlamb@gvnews.com | 520-547-9749
Copyright © 2009 - Green Valley News and Sun