[lemura]

illegal immigrants can be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to smuggle themselves into the country

While I applaud the Sheriff's interpretation of the law and favor incarcaration of illegals until the border situation is under control, there's a small problem with his approach:

Who's an illegal? You can't just walk up to anybody on the street and demand to see their indentification, no matter how obviously they look like an illegal. (Calif & AZ residents know what I mean.)

The nexus is probable cause. I'm interested to see what the Sheriff is using as a trigger mechanism to get someone to provide ID (or lack thereof).

[ScottfromNJ]

I believe there was a Supreme Court ruling not too long ago that states people have to produce identification on demand to law enforcement, and provide proof of their identity. Showing probable cause may not be too difficult. If you have a business that is registered with the state as having 10 employees, and 50 employees are actually working on site , that's probable cause, evidence that labor laws are being violated with people working illegally off the books. They can then be asked to produce identifications, and the companies could be required to produce W2's.

[jiggyboy]

Well even if the operational specifics are a little cloudy you gotta tip your hat to him for what is at least going to be a very interesting study in domestic psy-ops.

[ovrtaxt]

Under the law — as interpreted by the Maricopa County attorney — illegal immigrants can be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to smuggle themselves into the country. The law's authors have said they intended it to be used to prosecute smugglers, not the immigrants being smuggled.

lol That's funny right there! Yeah, I'm not sure what pretense they're using- is Maricopa on the border? If so, all they have to is watch for people crossing over.