Arizona has tough fight ahead against illegal immigration

For Justice and Homeland Security department officials, times have been trying along Arizona's 370-mile border with Mexico, according to participants in a Washington border security conference.

Prosecutors are overwhelmed by immigration court cases. There were nearly 580,000 arrests of illegal immigrants in Arizona last year, and less than 170,000 spaces available to hold detainees at any given time. Even officials charged with reducing illegal immigration and border crimes have increasingly turned against efforts to secure the border, according to speakers at the Border Management Summit, organized by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.

"We are now doing more public corruption cases than ever before," said Paul Charlton, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. More bribes are being accepted, or at least more people are getting caught taking them, he said.

Hundreds of assaults on Border Patrol agents also have been reported, Charlton said.

In Yuma, where the bulk of Arizona's illegal border crossings occur, Border Patrol officials find themselves more often under siege from rocks and bullets than ever before, region Chief Patrol Agent Ronald Colburn said. Agents were assaulted 120 times over fiscal 2006, he estimated.

Border Patrol officials even find their equipment under siege. Vandals routinely destroy cameras; to get past locked gates, smugglers carry blowtorches, Colburn said. They have been successful in some attempts to hinder immigration enforcement efforts, he said.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, Charlton had predicted that "fiscal year 2006 arrest numbers are on track to exceed the number from 2005." This prediction -- made in March -- turned out to be slightly off, according to a source with the Border Patrol. The source told Government Executive that arrest numbers declined slightly, from 1.2 million in fiscal 2005 to 1.1 million apprehensions in fiscal 2006.

The source said the slide is partly because more would-be illegal aliens are opting not to try to sneak into the United States. The Border Patrol's full report on fiscal 2006 statistics is expected to be released Thursday.

Arizona officials said they have received help from Washington, and added that they are prepared for more. "We are looking forward to the construction of more [border] walls in Arizona," Charlton said. When a reporter asked if he wanted the state to have additional detention spaces, he replied, "You can never have enough resources for law enforcement and detention."

Colburn said President Bush's decision to move National Guard troops to the Arizona border has been a relief for Border Patrol officials. He said about 118,000 illegal immigrants were caught in his section alone, along with about $36 million in drugs during the last fiscal year.

Charlton said he would like to see penalties stiffened for illegal immigrant smugglers. What was once a "Mom-and-Pop" smuggling operation - considered years ago to be a mostly innocuous offense - has devolved into a network that more closely mirrors Central and South American drug trades, he said.

Shootouts between rival people smugglers and the taking of hostages have claimed the lives of illegal immigrants, and because the value of each "load" of illegal aliens is so high, drivers are willing to take immigration officials on high-speed chases through residential areas, some of which result in deaths, speakers said. Charlton said he wants to see harsher penalties in place for those who attempt to flee immigration officials, as well as smugglers.