ICE Takes Custody of Two Suspected Illegal Immigrants

ARIZONA REPUBLIC

By JJ Hensley

July 2, 2012

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/07/02/20120702ice-takes-custody-suspected-illegal-immigrants.html#ixzz1zYwpcGxx

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office turned over a pair suspected to be in the U.S. illegally to federal immigration officials when the suspects were not accused of any violations of Arizona law, the first test of an agreement that state and local officials have been operating under since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency last week revoked federal authority for some local law-enforcement agencies.

The Obama administration last week revoked the authority that seven Arizona law-enforcement agencies had to serve as federal immigration agents in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona's immigration-enforcement legislation, known as Senate Bill 1070.

The revocation of that federal authority led many local politicians, including Gov. Jan Brewer, County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, to predict that ICE agents would be unresponsive when local law-enforcement agencies called with concerns about potential illegal immigrants.

Those concerns proved to be unfounded Monday night when federal agents responded to a stop of a suspected smuggling vehicle that sheriff's deputies made north of the Valley.

Sheriff's deputies turned over two suspects, including a 16-year-old unaccompanied boy, to ICE agents and booked the remaining nine people into custody on suspicion of violating the state's human-smuggling law.

Federal officials last week said that Arizona's SB 1070 would not dictate federal immigration-enforcement priorities, which include deporting violent criminals, repeat offenders of immigration policy and recent undocumented border crossers.