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Arizona: Illegal Aliens
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that the October 1992 population of resident illegal aliens in Arizona was 57,000. Most of that illegal alien population may be presumed to have arrived after the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens, when nearly 83,000 applicants were received from aliens who claimed Arizona as their residence. The illegal alien population has continued to climb since 1986, and is estimated by the INS to be about 115,000 as of October 1996. The INS plays down the apparent doubling of the illegal alien population in four years by noting that it now believes the 1992 estimate was too low by 38,000. This is part of an overall adjustment in its estimate to increase illegal Mexican resident aliens by 500,000. In any case, the illegal alien population of Arizona is growing rapidly.
******************************************* * INS Hotline 1-877-872-7435 * * INS - Investigations - Arizona * * Phoenix (602) 379-3116 * * Albuquerque (505) 248-7352 x.124 * *******************************************
In 1996, Arizona, like California earlier, enacted a law screening drivers license applicants for
citizenship or legal residence in the United States. Salvador Reza, a spokesman for
Tonatierra an Hispanic advocacy group has protested the law as "racist," because "it
targets a very small portion of the population." Mr. Reza was presumably protesting the law's
discrimination against illegal aliens.
(Source: Arizona Republic, September 17, 1996)
The INS has increasingly been coordinating its worksite enforcement actions with the local state
employment services. For example, in 1995 the INS identified and deported 381 illegal alien
workers employed by ISS Cleaning Services in Phoenix. The firm was put in contact with the
employment agency and agreed to accept referrals of unemployed legal workers.
( Arizona Republic, April 28, 1997)
The local police in Chandler -- 150 miles north of the border -- conducted a sweep over a four-
day period to identify illegal aliens. Their efforts turned up 432 illegal aliens and resulted in a
class action lawsuit against the police for civil rights violations. The suit was filed on behalf of
an Hispanic woman who was a native-born Californian who was stopped and asked for her
papers when leaving a market with her children because she was talking to them in Spanish.
(Source: USA Today, August 11, 1997)
A coyote (alien smuggler) operation resulted in the death of one alien and serious
injuries to 13 others when a flat bed truck carrying 50 to 68 aliens from Mexico and Guatemala
went off the road and crashed six miles east of Tortilla Flats. The passengers said they were
headed for Los Angeles or for Phoenix and had paid $60 or more for the trip. According to a
Sunnyside case worker for a non-profit organization, the illegal aliens were heading for jobs that
probably would have paid $150 to $160 per week (compared to $25 per week they could earn in
Mexico). But some of that money might have ended up extorted by gangs that threaten to turn
illegal aliens in to the INS if they don't pay up.
(Source: The Arizona Republic, March 8, 1998)
During the week of April 20, the Border Patrol discovered at a highway checkpoint near Nogales
85 Mexican illegal aliens hidden in a tractor trailer headed towards Phoenix. They were hidden
beneath vegetables.
(Source: Reuters, Mexico City, April 29, 1998)
The Border Patrol busted up an alien smuggling ring as the result of a six-month investigation.
Seven persons suspected of running the smuggling ring and 99 illegal aliens and were arrested in
Tucson on April 26 and 28. The INS said that most of the aliens will be sent back to Mexico, but
that the smugglers face possible prosecution.
(Source: The Arizona Republic, April 30, 1998)
On December 23, a van transporting a dozen illegal aliens went off U.S.160 in southern Colorado
and rolled. Two of the aliens, both Guatemalans, died. The two drivers, one a Mexican and the
other a Guatemalan, were charged on January 12 with transporting illegal immigrants and could
face up to life in prison because of the two deaths. The passengers said they had entered the
United States illegally near Nogales, and had made their way to Chandler, Ariz., where they had
arranged for their trip with a promise to pay $700 after they found jobs.
(Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 1999)
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 105 illegal entrants who were
planning to cram into a single modified pickup near Douglas during early morning hours on
February 1. The group was spotted by the Cochise County Sheriff's Department.
The group entered the United States about eight miles west of Douglas the previous day. The
whole group was voluntarily returned to Mexico.
(The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), February 2, 1999)
The five-day dragnet in Chandler in July 1997 that netted 432 undocumented immigrants continues to generate press attention. Ron Sanders, chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, calls Chandler "the first or second most notorious staging site for aliens in the world" with well-established smuggling routes and drop houses where illegal immigrants are housed. He says that as many as 70,000 legal and illegal immigrants pass through Chandler a year on their way to other parts of the country. That, and local proposals for improving property maintenance in the downtown area by cracking down on city code violations was behind "Operation Restoration." The report in November of the city's independent investigator concluded that there was no malice against Hispanics or immigrants, but excesses probably did occur as a result of poor training and supervision. (The Christian Science Monitor, February 2, 1999)
