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Tactic comes back to bite federal immigration agent

Turf wars between federal agencies in the Beltway of our nation’s capitol are legendary.

Now, as more states and cities pass laws infringing on federal immigration authority, these battles are played out in local arenas. In Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently got nicked by a Beltway-style turf skirmish. Months ago, Maricopa County Prosecutor Andrew Thomas used the state’s new "anti-coyote" law to start prosecuting the human cargo of smugglers. Immigrant advocates protested that was not the intent of the law. Arpaio’s sheriffs, using Thomas’ interpretation as a legal basis, started arresting undocumented immigrants found with a suspected smuggler. It was another in a series of efforts by local government to enforce federal immigration laws.

When Arpaio asked the Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency in Phoenix to transport and deport immigrants snared under the law, he was told that if Andy and Joe wanted to catch undocumented immigrants, they could ship them back, too. That was the message from Special Agent in Charge Roberto Medina, who said publicly that local law enforcement didn’t have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

Frustrated, in mid-August Arpaio fired off a letter to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff criticizing a certain – but unnamed – federal immigration official in Phoenix. The official was Medina. Gov. Janet Napolitano, who is up for re-election and who Republicans are trying to paint as soft on illegal immigration, also fired off a letter supporting Arpaio’s charges.

Arpaio claimed that Medina was stonewalling intelligence sharing and refused to deport undocumented immigrants jailed under the state law.

Sources inside ICE and Homeland Security confirmed to Latino Perspectives that Medina has irritated local law enforcement since he arrived. While jurisdiction can get confusing, the bottom line is that federal Homeland Security officials and local officials should be working together to enforce immigration laws, says one source who wanted to stay anonymous.

"ICE lost a lot of credibility because of him (Medina)," says the source. "There was resentment from the agency that somebody else was doing their job."

The latest word is that ICE announced Medina’s departure in August. He’s being transferred to head the El Paso ICE office. His replacement – expected in early September, will then have to smoothe things between the feds and local cops and courts.

Federal agency insiders say expect more of these turf wars and jurisdiction disputes as state legislatures and cities pass laws and referendums trespassing on the fed’s authority. The big losers in these skirmishes are undocumented immigrants, whose rights are caught in the crossfire, and the public’s safety, when local law enforcement – already shorthanded – are mandated to enforce federal laws.

FLAG RAGE

Ruben Navarette, columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune, pointed out that the Mexican flag has a peculiar power to anger U.S. citizens. When immigrants marched waving the Mexican red, green and white, citizens were quick and loud to criticize them. But when Jewish Americans with ties to Israel waved that country’s flags in marches of support against Hezbollah in New York, and Cuban Americans waved the Cuban flag in Miami when Castro appeared to be near death, the foreign flag haters were strangely silent.

WHITE OUT

Monica G. Perez, Arizona outreach director for the Center for Progressive Leadership, says she was proud at the welcome reception for CPL’s first group of 40 Arizona political leader fellows on Aug. 19.

But amid the revelry, she was bothered by an e-mail she received earlier.

"I was asking for some help with a national Latino organization to help my national organization, and somehow our conversation turned into my working for a ‘White’ organization and how my ‘White’ organization wanted to come in and infiltrate the Latino movement in Arizona," she says. Out of 30 staffers nationally, Perez is the lone Latina working at CPL.

"I think it is a small-minded attitude. If we don’t go outside our community, and start building coalitions, by making partnerships outside our comfort zone, then we’ll never succeed: we’ll never grow."