From Sylvia Bokor

Arizona Sheriff Dever's Op-Ed in The New York Times

Yesterday, May 16, a Silver City Tea Party supporter sent me an Op-Ed written by
Sheriff Larry A. Dever, Cochise County Arizona which was published May 12, 2011
in The New York Times.
I asked Sheriff Dever's permission to re-print his article on my blogspots and e
lsewhere. He agreed with the proviso that it can only be shown on-line. Hard c
opy paper re-prints require a different permission.
For your convenience, I paste it here below the double line. I was requested to
give you the NYT link as well. You might want to leave a comment. If so, please
access
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/opinion/13Dever.html
Considering the content of Mr. Obama's El Paso speech on May 10 and Sheriff Deve
r's Op-Ed on May 12, it surely was no co-incidence that the Saturday, May 14, ed
ition of the Albuquerque Journal carried Op-Eds, one by Charles Krauthammer, the
other by Jonah Goldberg. Both identified the extent to which Mr. Obama's explo
its every news item to his advantage as if it were, as Mr. Goldberg shows, a "Sp
utnik moment."
Having read the El Paso speech, I myself wonder to what extent Mr. Obama install
s "supporters" at his speeches to assure positive responses.
Whatever the case, considering what's going on in Mexico and in the four of our
states bordering Mexico, Sheriff Dever's Op-Ed is important. I hope you take ti
me to read it and to visit the Border Sheriffs' site. =========================
=======================
Arizona 's Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever's Op-Ed in the NY Times Mary 12, 2
011.
THIS week President Obama toured the Southwest, in part to promote what he claim
s are federal advances in border security. But he has said little about the laws
uits by his administration and the American Civil Liberties Union against Arizon
a’s immigration law, passed just over a year ago but still unenforced, thanks to a
federal injunction.
The law requires law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone arres
ted for a crime if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is in this coun
try illegally; it also allows them to cite illegal immigrants for failing to car
ry documents required under federal law, whether they’ve committed a crime or not.

As the fight over the law, Senate Bill 1070, carries on — Gov. Jan Brewer has peti
tioned the Supreme Court to hear the case — violent crime rooted in unchecked ille
gal immigration continues to spread here in southern Arizona. It makes me wonder
if the lawyers, judges and politicians involved grasp what it is like to be a l
aw enforcement officer on the Mexican border.
As sheriff of Cochise County I am responsible, along with my 86 deputies, for pa
trolling 83.5 miles of that border, as well as the 6,200 square miles of my coun
ty to the north of it — an area more than four times the size of Long Island.
There is no river between Arizona and Mexico to create a natural obstacle to ill
egal immigration, drug trafficking and human smuggling, and our county is a majo
r corridor for all these. At best, illegal aliens and smugglers trespass, damage
ranchers’ land, steal water and food and start fires. At worst, people who have c
ome here hoping for freedom and opportunity are raped or abandoned by smugglers
and left to die in the desert.
Nor are the migrants the only victims. Just over a year ago, while officials at
the Department of Homeland Security were declaring they had secured “operational c
ontrol” of most of the southern Arizona border, my friend Robert N. Krentz Jr., a
local rancher, was murdered, most likely by drug smugglers.
The people of Cochise County support the state’s immigration law because we want t
his violence to end. Understandably, we get frustrated and disheartened when the
White House, which has failed to secure the border for generations, sues us for
trying to fill the legal vacuum.
The administration’s suit makes several claims. For one, it argues that only the f
ederal government has jurisdiction over immigration. But that’s a strange argument
, given that federal agencies regularly work with state and local governments on
cross-border crimes.
Senior officials at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have also a
rgued that state and local law enforcement officers are able to make arrests onl
y for criminal, rather than civil, violations of immigration law. Criminal viola
tions include aiding illegal immigration or re-entering the country after deport
ation; civil violations include overstaying a visa or simply being here illegall
y.
But this places an absurd burden on my deputies and me. Under the law, if I see
people I suspect of being in the United States illegally, I already have to deci
de whether there is probable cause that they are here illegally. (Contrary to wh
at its critics say, the law doesn’t allow me to question anyone I want, and I have
no desire to do so.)
Whether illegal aliens committed a crime to enter this country, or a civil offen
se to remain unlawfully, they are still breaking the law, and S.B. 1070 is Arizo
na’s solution to help the federal government hold them accountable without becomin
g embroiled in confusion that enables individuals to fall through the cracks. At
the same time, it assures the standards of probable cause and reasonable suspic
ion are applied throughout the process.
Of course, the law’s critics prefer to think that any state-level effort to contro
l illegal immigration is racially motivated, and that the law is just an invitat
ion for us to racially profile Americans and legal residents of Hispanic descent
.
For example, I’ve had more than one person ask me, sneeringly, “What do illegal immi
grants look like?” In response, I tell them it’s not really what they look like as m
uch as what they do that concerns me. Among other things, they generally run off
into the desert when they see our officers approach. Citizens and legal residen
ts don’t normally do that.
What’s more, such critics have a strange impression of what law enforcement office
rs along the border actually do. In Cochise County, my deputies and I often have
to travel many miles to respond to a resident’s call for assistance. The last thi
ng we have time to do is harass law-abiding people.
Indeed, these days we have even less time, as the law has opened up a wave of su
its against my office and other sheriff’s offices along the border from immigrant
advocacy groups — so many that other sheriffs and I formed a legal defense fund, t
he Border Sheriffs Association, to help our departments counter them.
Neither my fellow sheriffs nor I believe the law is a silver bullet, but we do b
elieve it is an important tool. It’s up to the Supreme Court to decide whether we
can use it.
Sheriff Larry A. Dever, Cochise County Arizona
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