Arpaio: ICE made deputies release 3 illegals

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Friday the federal government refused to take three illegal immigrants arrested in a crime sweep Thursday because their arrests didn’t fit new Department of Homeland Security policies.

Arpaio said the department breached a promise that he could operate under an existing agreement that allows him to enforce immigration law.

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Homeland Security is requiring all local police agencies with existing 287(g) agreements to sign new ones within the next three months that are in accordance with new policies and department objectives or else lose their authority.

“If you think about it, I just gave amnesty to three illegal aliens,” Arpaio said.

Arpaio said he has to decide whether he wants to maintain the 287(g) authority if the rules become too restrictive.

Local agents with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told deputies who made the arrests to let them go, said Sgt. Brett Palmer.

“I was told ‘no,’ I was not authorized to arrest,” Palmer said.

A Homeland Security spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the opposite.

“The determination to release these individuals lies solely within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,” said Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler. “ICE officials gave permission to the MCSO 287(g) officer to question the individuals and had no other engagement.”

Arpaio said if that is the case, then he will start arresting illegal immigrants who have no other criminal charges again.

Arpaio launched a three-day “crime suppression operation” aimed at suppressing crime and illegal immigration Thursday, concentrating on Chandler and Queen Creek and surrounding areas.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has about 60 deputies and 140 posse members involved in the operation and Pinal County has about 10 deputies helping out.

As of 9 p.m. Thursday, deputies made 36 arrests, eight of them illegal immigrants on state charges.

Deputies came across the three illegal immigrants who were eventually released Thursday during traffic stops.

Palmer said he pulled over a car that was illegally displaying a license plate about 8 p.m. near Ray Road and Arizona Avenue.

One of the three passengers in the car spoke only Spanish and had only a Mexican ID card, two legal criteria for questioning someone about their immigration status, Palmer said.

The passenger admitted to being here illegally, Palmer said.

The other two illegal immigrants were stopped at Interstate 10 and Warner Road between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. for an unsafe lane change.

Palmer said the deputy who made the stop was able to determine they were illegal immigrants.

An ICE agent told the deputy he couldn’t make the arrest, Palmer said.

Over the past few years, ICE would have deported them, Arpaio said.

Arpaio said he believes Washington accelerated the new directives for political reasons.

Homeland Security spokesman Chandler said Thursday that ICE would evaluate the immigration arrests during the sweep, but ICE would “only concur with those arrests if they further the agency’s priority to identify and remove criminals and other aliens who pose a risk to public safety.”

In issuing the new 287(g) policies July 10, Homeland Security said it was concerned that local police were using minor infractions to get illegal immigrants deported.

To combat that, Homeland Security will require agencies to “pursue all criminal charges that originally caused the offender to be taken into custody.”