Pinal County Attorney’s Office, ICE strategic partnership an ‘active’ way to keep community safe

PHOENIX — Much of the nation has been weary about partnering with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but the Pinal County Attorney’s Office (PCAO) actively contacted the federal agency because its community needs to make use of all resources to maintain safety.

Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller said Friday on KTAR News’ The AZ Political Podcast that he first spoke with ICE in January, the same month he first took office.

“I look at my office as we want to be on the forefront. We want to not be passive, we want to be active in our communities,” Miller said. “We’re seeing crime change. President Trump did a fantastic job of closing the border.

“So, instead of seeing crime at the border now, we’re seeing crime in our communities.”

A large reason for other law enforcement agencies not striking up partnerships lies in the misnomer that ICE is targeting all immigrants, especially legal and law-abiding people. However, Miller said a majority of criminal activity across the U.S. come from repeat offenders and some of the acts are committed at the expense of the law-abiding immigrants.

“We’re seeing all around the country, repeat offenders. And so, the biggest predictor of crime is past acts of crime,” Miller said. “We’re going after those repeat offenders, those violent criminals.”

The Pinal County attorney added that his office has identified data that suggests just 5% of the immigrants subject to criminal offenses are committing about 90% of the total crime.

With the county’s positioning between Phoenix and Tucson, Miller said the ICE partnership will only enhance their ability to dampen the range of illegal activity. The two agencies will be sharing information with hopes to put a stop to drug and human trafficking.

PCAO announced Monday that it joined the nationally-available 287(g) program, which expands its ability to do the following:

• Identify and process immigrants with pending or active criminal charges
• Enforce immigration authority with the oversight of ICE
• Serve and execute administrative warrants on immigrants in its prison.

Within these new collaborative capabilities, Miller said his office will now be able to assess illegal country re-entry cases and examine them for past criminal activity even if an individual had made a plea agreement.

“Even though they may had pled to an illegal re-entry, they may have in fact committed a violent act. And we can now deport those folks,” Miller said.

Pinal County, ICE partnership not targeting just any immigrant

Earlier this year, Arizona Republican and Democrat representatives went out of their way to protect an undocumented Chinese immigrant who owns a restaurant in Peoria. She had been detained by ICE in May at a monthly immigration meeting and is married to an American and has an American daughter.

For those with friends or family like Kelly Yu in this example, Miller said this is not the people PCAO and ICE are going after.

“We are going to be a part of a specific task force to target specific individuals,” Miller said. “And people say, ‘Well, there’s lack of due process.’ That’s also 100% incorrect. What we do is we have targeting lists. Because we have a 30,000-foot view, we get certain intelligence.

“We have this target, this target, this target. … We’re going to go after specific individuals. We don’t go into a community and target a community. We don’t go and just blanket an area and have checkpoints.”

Miller said PCAO has been given the authority to prosecute these people, but everything will be done “in conjunction with the federal government” after receiving search warrants from a judge.

“I believe the people of Pinal County have elected me to have the safest community possible, and so, we’re not going to look the other way even at misdemeanors,” Miller said.

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