Arizona lawmakers will head back to the state Capitol for a new legislative session next week. On the table is a request from sheriffs departments that say they need more funding to enforce the state’s new immigration law.
Voters passed Proposition 314 by a wide margin in November. Portions of it are on hold for now while a similar law in Texas is litigated. But if enacted, it will make crossing the border between official ports of entry a state crime and give local police immigration-related arrest authority.
As the Arizona Republic reported in December, the Arizona Sheriffs Association is asking the state to provide $100 million over the next two yeas to help local law enforcement carry out those arrests if the law is able to move forward.
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels says he and other border sheriffs have long warned that if passed, Prop. 314 would require more funding.
“It’s passed overwhelmingly, now we have the will of the people who have spoken, and so we asked last year for $50 to $100 million,” he said.
Dannels says that would go toward things like managing higher numbers of arrests in his county’s jail, and adding personnel to his force. Several million dollars in state funding already goes toward local law enforcement for border security efforts. Dannels and others plan to make the case for additional money to lawmakers next week.
He says his county’s jail already handles border-related bookings for things like drug or people smuggling.
“We don’t book people on immigration in Cochise County, because it’s just not state law right now, so just for border-related crimes, it costs over $14 million for Cochise County, so you take that and multiply it by 10 counties, and you can see how the numbers add up quickly,” he said.
Dannels says like other grant funding, how the money is divided up would be up to sheriffs and local agencies.
At the end of last year, the Arizona Legislature voted to block border security funding from reaching Santa Cruz County after its sheriff, David Hathaway, criticized Prop 314 and said his department lacked the resources and training to enforce it.
