Political Notebook: What happens when all 'criminal aliens' are arrested?

Gary Restaino had served 22 years in the Justice Department when word finally came down Monday that his time to leave had come.

Restaino was the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, the presidentially appointed top prosecutor, since 2021. Before that, he had served for 18 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, and he served in other federal roles before that.

“When I go back to my Peace Corps service (in Paraguay), I’ve worked under every president since George Herbert Walker Bush,” Restaino said Thursday.

Restaino, a Democratic appointee, continued working for about four weeks after the new Republican president, Donald Trump, was inaugurated on Jan. 20. He got a good chance to see how the new administration would work before his anticipated dismissal.

While he begins a months-long sabbatical, he answered questions Thursday. Here’s an abridged transcript:

Q: What has changed under the new administration?

A: On the immigration front, so far from the prosecution side, it’s been business as usual. That is to say, we do our standard individual accountability to some small subset of aliens, most of whom are not dangerous, to make sure that they understand the consequences of coming in unlawfully, and we have a few who are dangerous that we can focus resources on.

The surge that this administration has done, taking agents away from other tasks onto immigration-related activity, has resulted in some serious defendants being apprehended and now prosecuted, and that’s a good thing. At some point real soon, we’re going to run out of criminal aliens, and then it’ll be interesting to see what the role is of a U.S. Attorney’s Office, because there’s not really a prosecution solution to all of that.

Q: Was there not a request that you shift resources toward more immigration prosecutions or cases?

A: So, we see that among our law enforcement partners, that the DOJ law enforcement agencies have been publicly asked to shift some resources. I don’t want to make Arizonans think that every FBI, DEA and ATF agent is doing border work, but some of them have been tasked to do immigration work for us at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Like I say, I really feel like we have been, during my tenure there, fully compliant with the administration’s expectations. We’ve always done thoughtful and strong border work. I hope the thoughtfulness continues again once we run out of criminal aliens.

Q: So, at some point they’re going to run out of criminal aliens, and then what?

A: Where the rubber hits the road is the illegal entry where someone doesn’t have a prior deportation, whether the juice is worth the squeeze to put them through the criminal justice system or to simply exclude or remove them from the United States. That’ll be the policy decision that this administration has to make. I don’t know, and don’t prognosticate at this point, whether or not the U.S. Attorney’s Office will have a criminal prosecution role in that.

Q: How have the firings of federal employees affected your office?

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

A: About a tenth of the workforce at the office is probationary, meaning they could be fired for any reason, as long as it’s not an unlawful reason. And you’ve seen across other aspects of government, those probationary employees being fired. Our probationary employees are awesome. They are excellent. They are a group of people that do really, really high quality work and have made sacrifices to do that work. They’re still in limbo. I really would hope for a declaration from the Department of Justice that a border district like Arizona is going to protect every single one of its probationary employees.

City candidates out

No sooner had the ink dried on last week’s roundup of Tucson City Council candidates when it became clear the lineup had shifted again.

Bruce Wheeler, the former Tucson City Council member and state legislator, has decided not to run for the open seat in Ward 6 after all. And he’s not the only one removing himself from the formerly crowded Democratic field in the midtown ward. Charlie Verdin dropped out this week and endorsed fellow Democrat Miranda Schubert.

“After getting to know Miranda on the campaign trail, it’s clear to me that she’s already working hard to strengthen our community. She also shares my commitment to facing the housing crisis with the urgency it deserves,” Verdin said in a written statement.

The other Democratic candidates in Ward 6 are Theresa Riel, Leighton Rockafellow Jr. and James Sinex. Republican Jay Tolkoff has also filed his intent to run for the seat.

Two more Democrats have also filed statements of intent to join the increasingly crowded race in Ward 5. Manon Getsi and Fabian Danobeytia join four others who have said they plan to run in the south-side primary: Selina Barajas, Christopher Elsner, Richard Hernandez and Jesse Lugo.

New Cochise recorder

Cochise County will have another new election official when next month arrives. The Board of Supervisors decided after a closed meeting Tuesday to appoint Billy Cloud to the position being vacated soon by incumbent recorder David Stevens.

The board interviewed five candidates before selecting Cloud, who is perhaps best known around Cochise County as former chief of the Tombstone Marshal’s Office and former chief deputy clerk of Superior Court.

Stevens announced Jan. 17 that he plans to step down from the office at the end of February. He had just won re-election to his third term as recorder in November.

Pro-414 signs disappear

A week ago, this columnist went searching for pairs of signs for and against Tucson’s Prop. 414 half-cent sales tax increase to photograph, but only could find pro-414 signs posted. A week later, the situation has flipped. Anti-414 signs are everywhere, and the pro-414 signs that were there before have disappeared.

Clayton Black, president of the Tucson Fire Fighters Association, confirmed Thursday that signs are disappearing as fast as they put them up in some spots.

“They’re coming up missing all the time,” he said. “I put one up Friday. I came back Saturday and it was gone.”