Five Arizona sheriff’s departments are sending deputies to Cochise County for at least the next month to help the county tackle border-related crime, with a focus on deterring the participation of U.S. citizens who help smuggle migrants from the border.
Apache, Coconino, Navajo, Pinal and Yavapai counties will contribute to the law enforcement surge in Cochise County, where officials say the rise in human and drug smuggling has led to an increase in high-speed vehicle crashes resulting in fatalities and serious injuries.
The vast majority of the county’s border-related offenses recorded over the last 18 months were committed by U.S. citizens, county officials say. Many are recruited by Mexican criminal organizations, often via social media, to transport migrants or drugs from the border.
Since January 2021, 13 people have died in Cochise County as a result of these activities, said Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre.
Human smuggling has become a lucrative industry for Mexican crime groups, who offer to pay U.S. drivers between $500 and $2,500 for each person transported, McIntyre said.
Law enforcement officials hope a visible law enforcement presence across the county will deter anyone considering taking up that offer, said Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes, president of the Arizona Sheriff’s Association.
It’s a more realistic tactic than targeting the multi-billion-dollar “illicit economy” that’s developed around smuggling migrants, he said.
“We’re not going to deter the cartels. They’re just going to keep working, it’s their business,” he said. “But it’s the American citizens: If you’re a 16-year-old kid and you’re thinking about driving down there (to transport migrants from the border) and you see a cop at every stop sign, maybe you think, ‘This isn’t a good idea.’”
The joint operation will add 15 to 20 additional deputies daily to Cochise County and cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Rhodes said. The funding comes from a $12 million border-security grant allocated by the Arizona Legislature last year, he said.
Mexican crime groups now control irregular migration across the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County, charging migrants upwards of $8,000, McIntyre said. Cartel members use social media to recruit U.S. citizens as smugglers and advise the drivers to travel as fast as possible to get out of the county, McIntyre said.
These criminal situations are distinct from asylum seekers who cross the border and immediately seek to turn themselves in to border agents, McIntyre emphasized. Once processed and released in the U.S. to await their hearings, those asylum seekers are present in the country legally, he said.
Statewide impact
The additional deputy support is part of a four-week operation; at that point, sheriffs will assess the impact and consider extending the operation, said Navajo County Sheriff David Clouse. Navajo County is sending four deputies, and their vehicles, to be based out of Cochise County for the coming month, he said.
Although Navajo County is 200 miles from the border, its residents feel the effects of border-related crime, as trafficked fentanyl makes its way onto the streets, he said.
“This is an issue that my constituents and my county are deeply concerned about,” Clouse told the Star. “We’re seeing a rise in (drug) seizures in our county and we’re also seeing the human smuggling side. Better to catch it at the closest point (to the border) as possible.”
Last month at a news conference, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels said the county has handled more than 2,300 border-related crimes, at a cost of $6 million, over the past 18 months.
The vast majority of the offenders were U.S. citizens, he said. Only 136 were people in the country illegally.
Migrant-aid workers and human rights advocates are concerned that escalation in law enforcement presence could result in more high-speed pursuits that put bystanders, law enforcement officers and migrants in danger.
“I would hope the sheriff’s department would take into account the severity of the crime they’re attempting to apprehend the person for, and the risk of harm to folks in the public,” said Mark Adams, co-coordinator of Douglas-based Frontera de Cristo, a binational, faith-based migrant advocacy group. “I would like to see a review of what the pursuit policy is to make sure that community security is at the top of the priority list.”
In 2019, Cochise County charged around 20 people with unlawful flight from law enforcement, and only a handful of the cases were related to human smuggling. So far this year, 174 people were charged with the same crime, and at least 90 percent were related to human smuggling, McIntyre said.
To limit the public-safety risk, Cochise County law enforcement has recently adjusted its tactics to make sure officers discontinue pursuits near populated areas and rely more on tire spike-strips in strategic “choke point” locations, McIntyre said.
“It’s a direct attempt to make sure that we’re enforcing the laws in the safest ways possible for our community,” he said.
But some of the danger is out of officers’ control: Some accidents are single-vehicle wrecks, in which the smuggler wasn’t even being pursued, McIntyre said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection also revised its vehicle-pursuit policy earlier this year in response to rising numbers of deadly vehicle-pursuit crashes.
Adams emphasized the need to look at the bigger picture: Cartels are profiting massively off of the increased militarization at the border and the lack of legal, safe avenues to immigrate to the U.S., he said. His organization, and other members of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, want to increase understanding of the “symbiotic relationship” between border enforcement and organized crime.
“As we’ve increased our enforcement of immigration, it’s created an environment in which smuggling organizations have thrived,” he said. “We want to work toward policies that allow for the legal, safe and efficient flow of people and commerce through ports of entry, as opposed to trying to, quote, ‘shut the border down’ — and really all we do is increase the power of organized crime and put more people into harm’s way.”
For now, law enforcement officers are hoping to spread the word far and wide that helping crime groups smuggle migrants is not worth the risk.
“We want more and more people to hear, ‘Hey, there’s a ton of cops down there at the border,’” Rhodes said. “You think you’re doing something that’s somewhat harmless and you go down trying to make a quick buck. Then you end up in prison for five years, or dead or seriously injured. That’s what this is about.”
