Beebe: Just heard of alien law
Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007
Gov. Mike Beebe said Wednesday that he didn’t know until recently about a state law passed in 2005 allowing Arkansas State Police to enter an agreement with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws, despite the issue being debated in his 2006 gubernatorial race.
Beebe said state police director Col. Winford Phillips told him about it.
“It was brought to me that we haven’t done anything about it, and I said we ought to follow the law,” Beebe told reporters. “I didn’t know about that 2005 statute during the campaign. I was attorney general at the time. I was not in the General Assembly, nor was I the governor.”
On Tuesday, Phillips told a legislative committee investigating the cost of illegal aliens in Arkansas that last week he sent a letter to the federal government to start the process of possibly entering into such an agreement.
The law, Act 907 of 2005, doesn’t require the state police to enter the agreement but authorizes the state police to do so.
Beebe’s Republican opponent last year, Asa Hutchinson, called for the state police to enter the agreement.
Beebe at the time didn’t specifically say whether he supported the idea, but he criticized Hutchinson when Hutchinson brought it up.
In response to Hutchinson’s push for the agreement, Beebe last year said “state police is stretched pretty thin just doing the jobs we have now” and that Arkansans are “paying tax dollars for the federal government” to guard the borders.
During one debate when Hutchinson brought up the idea, Beebe responded by saying that Hutchinson failed to secure the borders when working for the federal Department of Homeland Security. When Hutchinson criticized Beebe for not having a plan to combat illlegal immigration, Beebe said he didn’t want state police to drive to the Mexican border to drop off illegal aliens.
Hutchinson said he only wanted the state police trained to process illegal aliens until they could be picked up by federal agents.
Beebe said Wednesday that “nothing’s changed” in his position from the campaign.
“What I’ve said all along is that we’ll enforce the laws and we’ll cooperate with the federal government but we won’t have a separate initiated effort to do the federal government’s job,” Beebe said.
During the campaign, Beebe also said that as governor he would use the “bully pulpit” to urge Congress to tackle the issue.
Asked Wednesday if he has done that and what he thinks Congress should do, Beebe said, “The real way to stop [illegal immigration ] in my opinion is to have stiff penalties against employers who knowingly or willingly or negligently hire illegal aliens. After all, all the evidence suggests that may be the biggest deterrent.”
He wouldn’t say whether he thinks the state should institute such penalties.
Act 157 of 2007, which Beebe signed, prohibits state agencies from doing business with anyone who employs illegal aliens.
It doesn’t provide enforcement but requires contractors to certify in writing that they don’t employ or contract with illegal aliens.
Phillips became state police director in May, replacing Steve Dozier, who went to work for Wal-Mart.
Dozier held the position that the state police didn’t have the resources to enforce immigration law.
The 2005 law was sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, RLittle Rock, Asa Hutchinson’s nephew.
Jeremy Hutchinson, now a lobbyist, said Wednesday that he “tends to believe” that Beebe didn’t know about the law. He said he never discussed it with Beebe or his staff at the attorney general’s office.
“He was certainly aware of the concept,” Hutchinson said. “It was part of the discussion in the campaign. I don’t guess that particular statute was discussed.”
Bill Sadler, the state police spokesman, said several steps remain before the state police enters into an agreement, which could take 18 months.
He said the agreement would require even more troopers than the 50 new troopers funded by the Legislature this year.
“What we’re hearing is that the process for booking and transferring [illegal aliens ] to a holding facility can take upwards of two hours or more,” Sadler said. “So you’ve tied up a trooper for half his shift.”
Sadler said that before entering into the agreement the state police would have to find out from the federal government where and how long illegal aliens would be held before being turned over to federal authorities.
Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample said Tuesday that the federal government “needs to handle the detention and deportation” of illegal aliens before the state would enter into an agreement.
Beebe on Wednesday said that’s something the federal government may not agree to.
DeCample later said Beebe “does not intend to add additional immigration duties to the Arkansas State Police. He wants to make sure they can effectively carry out the duties they already have. That requires cooperation with the federal government.”
He said that “right now” Beebe isn’t open to giving state police more training for enforcing immigration laws and having them process illegal aliens.
Richard Rocha, a spokesman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said the nature of the program the federal government has with state and local officials is “based on the understanding that they would be taking additional responsibilities.”
He said that generally those added responsibilities are questioning possible illegal aliens about their immigration status and starting deportation proceedings.
He said the federal government would reimburse local jails for holding illegal aliens until they can be picked up.
DeCample said Arkansas law enforcement officials have complained that the federal government won’t pick up people thought to be illegal aliens.
Rocha said the federal agency must “prioritize enforcement efforts.”
Rocha said as of Tuesday Immigration and Customs Enforcement had established agreements for 287 (g ) programs with 28 state or local law enforcement agencies.
Five of those are with statewide agencies: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Georgia.
Those agencies have almost 600 local or state officers signed on to take part. Information for this article was contributed by Laura Kellams of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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