Arpaio-U.S. turf war lets illegal crossers walk away from jail

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOENIX — A dispute over jurisdiction between federal immigration agents and the sheriff's office in Arizona's most populous county is allowing some illegal immigrants to walk out of jail.
Since the first arrests made in March under Arizona's human-smuggling law, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has filed 268 cases — 31 against suspected coyotes and the rest against suspected conspirators assumed to be undocumented immigrants.
So far, 63 pleaded guilty to lesser offenses, 15 were dismissed, two acquitted and one convicted by a jury.
But 17 have walked right out of the jail and into the community — including six who pleaded guilty to human-smuggling felonies — because the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency decided it wouldn't transport out of the country people prosecuted under the controversial coyote law.
Since July 11, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department has transported 14 more of the coyote-law defendants in four trips to the Yuma area to rendezvous with U.S. Border Patrol agents willing to take the prisoners and put them through the federal process for removal.
"Why would they refuse to pick up the felons?" Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked.