Posted on 05/01/2004 9:50:44 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
The county's anonymous tipster line that pays rewards for information that helps solve crimes will now offer cash for incidents related to illegal immigration.
88-CRIME announced Thursday that it has expanded its services to the U.S. Border Patrol in hopes that Arizonans will report smugglers, vehicles carrying illegal border crossers and people who might have kidnapped illegal entrants. 88-CRIME is the anonymous tip line of the Pima County Attorney's Office.
The new effort is making some Tucsonans who work with immigrants uneasy.
They worry Hispanics will become instant suspects, causing a flurry of racial profiling in hopes of snagging cash rewards.
The Mexican government applauds the program - so long as the situation doesn't get out of hand.
"It's a benefit, disrupting the smuggling lines and attacking the safe houses, because those are all part of the problem," said Miguel Escobar, the Mexican consul in Douglas.
"But we don't want to see a medium brought in to combat serious problems turned into a situation where people are being detained for the color of their skin. I'm hoping we will not navigate in those very troubled waters," he said.
Officials with both 88-CRIME and the Border Patrol said they are not interested in having illegal border crossers being turned in.
"We're not looking for people calling to say there's UDAs walking down the road," said John Fitzpatrick, the acting assistant chief patrol agent for the Tucson sector, using the acronym for undocumented aliens. "That will help to discourage the racially motivated calls."
He pointed to specific tips people should be looking for, including:
-- Houses with large numbers of cars coming and going at all hours."The more eyes and ears we have, the more it will help law enforcement in Arizona," said Dale Brown, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant special agent in charge in Tucson. "We need the help of the public."-- Dozens of people arriving at homes, then disappearing.
-- People who tipsters think might be people-smugglers.
About 30 percent of the calls the Border Patrol receives through its toll-free number, 877-USBP-HELP, lead to uncovering safe houses, homes used to house illegal entrants before moving them to other cities, Fitzpatrick said.
He hopes the 88-CRIME involvement will raise the number of safe houses the agency busts.
Such tips could lead to unwarranted problems for Hispanics or motorists whose vehicles carry Mexican license plates, a member of a local human-rights group said.
"I think it's going to result in people being suspicious of each other and snooping around each other," said Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos. "It's going to definitely play on racial stereotypes."
The critics' critics say they're being "thin-skinned."
"All I know is, there are too many illegal aliens. Anything we can do to further the process of catching these people, arresting them and taking care of them, I'm all for it," said Wes Bramhall, head of Arizonans for Immigration Control. "If people want to be thin-skinned, so be it," he said.
Since January, 88-CRIME has turned over about 50 calls to the Border Patrol in Southern Arizona, about 10 percent of which resulted in convictions and payoffs, said Gary Dhaemers, 88-CRIME's executive director.
By comparison, last year the organization fielded a small handful of calls that were turned over to the federal immigration officials. That's due in large part to a reorganization last year in which the Immigration and Naturalization Service was disbanded and housed under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, leaving confusion over which agency should receive such tips.
"During that transition period, it was difficult to find somebody to get the information to," Dhaemers said. "Now it's going where it's supposed to go."
Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or mmarizco@azstarnet.com
I hope Tom finds us here. I really believe he has more support with the citizens than he knows.
For now, all I can do is start writing hand written letters to my two Republican Senators here in Mo. especially Kit Bond because he is up for re-election in Nov.
That's my real name on the cover.
This is the second time in 2 weeks I've heard of people calling the BP on illegals and they won't come.
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