The Board of Supervisors acted wisely in the best interests of Pima County residents when it rejected federal funding for Operation Stonegarden, a program that weds the Pima County Sheriffโs Department to the U.S. Border Patrol.
It is not the role of the Pima County Sheriffโs Department to enforce or be involved in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Sheriff Mark Napier repeatedly has stated this in public interviews.
But the language associated with the Operation Stonegarden grant program states that its goals include: โmanaging our borders (and) administering immigration laws.โ
When the Sheriffโs deputies get involved in immigration-law enforcement, people in the community who are undocumented, or have undocumented relatives, friends or neighbors, are unwilling to cooperate with the departmentโs efforts to enforce state criminal law.
This cooperation can be essential to the response to criminal activity and successful prosecution of the criminals involved. Reporting of crimes and the testifying of witnesses are critical to the needs of law enforcement to keep us safe.
Sheriff Napier and his staff contend the Operation Stonegarden money is used only for state criminal law enforcement, but there is little doubt that this operation blurs the lines. Department figures, supplied to my office, indicate that Stonegarden-funded deputies turned over to the Border Patrol 162 persons they encountered in 2017.
The Sheriffโs Department has not supplied the Board of Supervisors or the county administration with a clear accounting of its use of Operation Stonegarden funds.
In a Feb. 13 memorandum, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry asked Napier for an accounting of county-funded โemployee-related expensesโ associated with Stonegarden overtime pay, the mileage in standard and four-wheel-drive vehicles in the program, and county costs for handling the arrests, detention and prosecution of Stonegarden arrestees.
Huckelberry asked Napier to detail how Stonegarden deputies interact with the Border Patrol, and if these activities are separate from those of the departmentโs Border Interdiction Unit. He asked for an accounting of the $900,024 in cash and 71 vehicles that the department states it seized under Stonegarden. The money and proceeds of vehicle sales should have gone to the anti-racketeering fund, Huckelberry said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security funds Operation Stonegarden, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection oversee use of this money.
DHSโs Office of Inspector General audited the Operation Stonegarden program and issued a report in November 2017. It found: โFEMA and CBP did not meet their oversight responsibilities to monitor Stonegarden grantees, issue guidance and approved costs, and demonstrate program performance.โ
The audit reviewed a small sample of the grant awards and found that 13 percent of the money involved โwas unsupported or unreasonable.โ It found instances of excessive hours of work reporting and purchases of equipment and vehicles not allowed under the program.
An Arizona Daily Star investigation of Operation Stonegarden in 2009 showed that the program was short on providing accountable benchmarks, objectives or metrics needed for effective oversight.
With the Trump administration stepping up militarization of the border, despite a marked decline in undocumented crossings, it has become more imperative that Pima County withdraw from the ill-conceived and unaccountable Operation Stonegarden.
