http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2114
As the 2008 session drew to a close, the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2402 Jim Tracy and his counterparts from across the western United States are looking to Congress, not the states, for answers.
Last week, Tracy attended the annual spring meeting of the Western States Sheriffs’ Association in Reno, where the group drafted a resolution to Congress, asking for help on a plethora of illegal-immigration issues that affect local law enforcement. Nothing in the resolution was new. It simply reiterated the requests the group has been making for several years.
“They’ve made very little progress in doing anything concrete,” Tracy said of Congress. Tracy said the WSSA made three specific requests of Congress: seal the border, don’t create any unfunded mandates requiring counties to enforce immigration law, and reform the process by which temporary workers from other countries can obtain visas to work in the United States legally.
Tracy and the WSSA also want some kind of system in place that would allow officials at county jails to check the immigration status of inmates, either by providing the jail direct access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, or through regional illegal-immigration task forces that would be modeled on the drug task forces in operation across the country.
The effects of illegal immigration are felt most strongly in border states such as Arizona, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has grabbed national headlines for his department’s aggressive enforcement of immigration law. But Tracy said the impact is also felt in Utah County and elsewhere in the state, which he said is a destination for immigrants, legal and otherwise, due to large numbers of agriculture jobs and seasonal work.
Tracy and the other western sheriffs want more physical security at the border, whether it be by fences, federal agents standing shoulder to shoulder, or other means.
“Whatever it takes,” Tracy said. “It’s a sieve, so really, whatever we do here, literally it can be undone by the flood of people behind this illegal person immediately. We’re trying to stop the stream of water once it’s already out the end of the hose. We need somebody to pinch the hose.”
The WSSA also urged Congress to reform and speed up the process by which immigrants can get work visas, especially for temporary workers who intend to return to their home countries at some point. Tracy said it’s obvious that there is a great need for immigrant labor in this country and suggested that a process could be implemented to not only streamline the visa process for people wishing to come to the U.S., but also to give illegal immigrants who are already here a way to legalize their status.
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