http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2010/07/13/20100713arizona-immigration-law-mesa-enforcement.htmlMesa's top officer said his department will be ready to enforce the state's controversial immigration law despite personal concerns of racial-profiling allegations, inevitable rising jail costs and threats to officer safety.
During the next two weeks, Mesa police officers will be required to watch the state's 90-minute training video on how to enforce Senate Bill 1070. They will undergo as many as five hours of additional in-house training, Police Chief Frank Milstead said.
"1070 is going to be a challenge for the police department," he said. "It's very complex, and there are a number of things an officer can do incorrectly. We are going to do everything in our power to follow the spirit of the law."
Barring a stay or injunction, the law goes into effect July 29. It makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It requires a police officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest to, when practicable, ask about a person's immigration status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person may be in the country illegally.
Although the law specifically prohibits using a person's race, ethnicity or other identifiers to determine whether to inquire if he or she is in the country legally, Milstead said the sensitive nature of the law and several months of debate could leave officers open to claims of racial profiling.
Supporters of the law say arresting illegal immigrants could stem the flow of people crossing the border into the country.
That likely won't be the case, Milstead said.
"You cannot arrest your way out of an immigration problem when that many people come across the border every day," he said. "We can't arrest our way out of the 38,000 felony warrants in the county, and we can't arrest our way out of 400,000 illegal immigrants in the state."
Mesa isn't financially prepared for the inevitable increase in costs to transport, book and house additional prisoners, Milstead said.
Mesa spent $6 million in jail costs last year.
The city has some holding cells, but many more people are booked into Maricopa County Jail, where the city pays a $187 booking fee and a $90-per-day charge to house a prisoner on misdemeanor charges, said Sgt. Ed Wessing, a police spokesman. The county is responsible for fees associated with felony arrests.
If SB 1070 caused arrests to increase 25 percent, the city's jail costs could rise by $1.5 million, which is money the city doesn't have, Milstead said.
"If you hit me with another $1.5 million jail bill . . . there's no relief built into the (SB 1070) to pay Mesa for enforcing this law," he said.
Another concern is that immigrants may flee or harm or kill a police officer in a desperate bid to remain in the country, Milstead said.
"Now, if they get deported they may get separated from their family, get deported, leave their girlfriend, lose their job. There's just all sorts of risk associated with this," Milstead said. "That concerns me for any law-enforcement officer in the state."
Milstead said the new law shouldn't drastically change Mesa's current immigration policy, which requires detention officers to ask a prisoner's immigration status when booked into jail.
Since the city began using the policy in January 2009, more than 1,291 suspected illegal immigrants have been booked into the city's jail.
On March 15, city detention officers began detaining illegal immigrants under the federal 287(g) program, which allows local officers to enforce federal immigration law
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