Drophouse raids show Valley still hub for migrants...

Drophouse raids show Valley still hub for migrants


By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), March 14, 2008

A series of drophouses discovered this month by police shows that the Phoenix area remains a major hub for smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S. despite stepped-up immigration enforcement and tighter border security.

Local law-enforcement officials have found at least eight drophouses, one nearly every day since March 3, leading to the arrests of more than 400 undocumented immigrants, authorities said. In one drophouse in Avondale, police found more than 80 immigrants crammed inside.

'All of a sudden, we saw that surge (following a quiet January and February),' said Vincent Picard, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix.

Smugglers were warehousing the immigrants, who had recently crossed the border illegally. Most were headed to other parts of the country, Picard said. In some cases, the people may have been held against their will by smugglers trying to extort extra cash beyond the smuggling fees the immigrants agreed to pay, he said.

The federal government has been trying to crack down on smuggling organizations in the Phoenix area for years after stepped-up enforcement in Texas and California in the 1990s funneled traffic through Arizona, turning the state into the main corridor for illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexican border.

ICE has teamed with state and local police to thwart smuggling organizations in Arizona. Picard credited the increased cooperation with making it more difficult for smuggling organizations to avoid detection in the Phoenix area. A 20 percent increase in the number of illegal immigrants discovered at drophouses this year compared with last year shows the strategy is effective, he said.

But he acknowledged that, despite stepped-up enforcement, the Phoenix area remains the nation's main hub for the dangerous smugglingtrade.

'There is more criminal activity associated with smuggling (here) than any other city in the U.S.,' Picard said.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office believes six homicides in the West Valley over the past three weeks may have been linked to the human-smuggling trade.

Some success

Authorities have had some success in combating smuggling organizations. In February, local, state and federal authorities broke up a smuggling ring responsible for shuttling as many as 60 illegal immigrants daily from Naco, a border town in southeastern Arizona, to Phoenix.

But the recent spate of drophouse discoveries shows immigrant smuggling is 'still a problem and still a very large problem,' said Jeanine L'Ecuyer, Gov. Janet Napolitano's spokeswoman.

Napolitano has called on state lawmakers to pass a law that would make knowingly renting an apartment or house to smugglers a felony.

State Rep. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, introduced a bill in February that would increase penalties for human smugglers and make selling, renting or leasing property for the purpose of smuggling a felony.

That bill died in committee. But another bill, introduced by state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, would fine landlords for knowingly or recklessly renting apartments to undocumented residents. The bill would also allow the government to seize property used to house or transport illegal immigrants. That bill passed the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

The Legislature has passed several laws in recent years aimed at clamping down on illegal immigration in Arizona, including the toughest employer-sanctions law in the nation. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, gives prosecutors the power to put employers that knowingly or intentionally hire illegal workers out of business.

The smuggling trade will continue, however, L'Ecuyer said, until Congress passes comprehensive immigration reform, because states alone don't have the power to solve illegal immigration. The reforms must combine immigration enforcement and border security with an expanded temporary-worker program, she said.

Congress, however, is unlikely to pass a comprehensive bill this year. Instead, some lawmakers are pushing an enforcement-first bill that calls for adding more Border Patrol agents, pressuring state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws, and requiring all employers nationwide to use the government's E-Verify program to electronically check the employment eligibility of workers.

Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, now supports an enforcement-first approach to immigration reform after backing comprehensive reforms that included a legalization program for undocumented immigrants. Critics branded the approach as 'amnesty.'

Still, the bill could turn into headache for McCain by highlighting divisions in his party over the issue of immigration as he tries to gather support from conservatives.

Seasonal increase

Illegal-immigration traffic and smuggling activity typically increase from January through May, Picard said. Local police have reported 29 drophouses to ICE officials this year, down from 35 during the same period in 2007, he added. The number of illegal immigrants encountered in drophouses this year is up to 744, from 617 last year.

Border Patrol arrests, a measure of immigrant traffic, by the Tucson Sector jumped 30 percent from January to February, Agent Jesus Rodriguez said. However, overall arrests for this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, are down 12 percent compared with the same period last year, he said.

Mild weather isn't the only factor in immigrant traffic; economic forces also play a role. This is the time of year when migrants are pulled by an increase in seasonal work in agriculture, construction and other immigrant-heavy industries, said Tomas Jimenez, a sociology professor at the University of California-San Diego.

He said stepped-up immigration enforcement, tighter border security and the slumping U.S economy have had a minimal effect on deterring illegal immigration.

'As long as people can make eight times what they make in Mexico, they are going to come to the U.S. for work,' Jimenez said.

Recent discovery

The most recent drophouse was discovered Monday in the 2600 block of 87th Avenue in Phoenix's Maryvale section.

Phoenix police discovered the drophouse after a neighbor called 911, Detective Reuben Gonzales said.

The smugglers escaped before police arrived, he said. ICE officials arrested 59 undocumented immigrants found in the house, including 11 women.

The immigrants were from Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador, said Eduardo Preciado, assistant field-office director for ICE's detention-and-removal operations in Phoenix.

To avoid detection from stepped-up enforcement in the Phoenix area, smugglers may be trying to warehouse people in more rural areas.

On Saturday, Yavapai County sheriff's deputies found 38 illegal immigrants in a drophouse in Black Canyon City, a rural community along Interstate 17 about 45 miles north of Phoenix, spokesman Dwight Develyn said.

The drophouse was discovered two days after deputies making traffic stops on I-17 found 31 illegal immigrants in two vehicles.

Develyn speculated that smugglers were holding immigrants temporarily before transporting them north on I-17 to Las Vegas or other destinations. Deputies also found documents of immigrants previously held at the residence.

'It was definitely an up-and-running drophouse,' he said.



http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0314drophou
ses0313.html