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Lost in the hoopla over Arizona's immigration law is the fact that state and local authorities for years have been doing their own aggressive crackdowns in the busiest illegal gateway into the country.

Nowhere in the U.S. is local enforcement more present than in metropolitan Phoenix, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio routinely carries out sweeps, some in Hispanic neighborhoods, to arrest illegal immigrants. The tactics have made him the undisputed poster boy for local immigration enforcement and the anger that so many authorities feel about the issue.

"It's my job," said Arpaio, standing beside a sheriff's truck that has a number for an immigration hot line written on its side. "I have two state (immigration) laws that I am enforcing. It's not federal, it's state."

A ruling Wednesday by a federal judge put on hold parts of the new law that would have required officers to dig deeper into the fight against illegal immigration. Arizona says it was forced to act because the federal government isn't doing its job to fight immigration.

The issue led to demonstrations across the country Thursday, including one directed at Arpaio in Phoenix in which protesters beat on the metal door of a jail and chanted, "Sheriff Joe, we are here. We will not live in fear."

Meanwhile, Gov. Jan Brewer's lawyers went to court to overturn the judge's ruling so they can fight back against what the Republican calls an "invasion" of illegal immigrants.

Ever since the main flow of illegal immigrants into the country shifted to Arizona a decade ago, state politicians and local police have been feeling pressure to confront the state's border woes.

In addition to Arpaio's crackdowns, other efforts include a steady stream of busts by the state and local police of stash houses where smugglers hide illegal immigrants. The state attorney general has taken a money-wiring company to civil court on allegations that smugglers used their service to move money to Mexico. And a county south of Phoenix has its sheriff's deputies patrol dangerous smuggling corridors.

The Arizona Legislature have enacted a series of tough-on-immigration measures in recent years that culminated with the law signed by Brewer in April, catapulting the Republican to the national political stage.

But the king of local immigration enforcement is still Arpaio.

Arpaio, a 78-year-old ex-federal drug agent who fashions himself as a modern-day John Wayne, launched his latest sweep Thursday afternoon, sending about 200 sheriff's deputies and trained volunteers out across metro Phoenix to look for traffic violators who may be here illegally.

Deputy Bob Dalton and volunteer Heath Kowacz spotted a driver with a cracked windshield in a poor Phoenix neighborhood near a busy freeway. Dalton triggered the red and blue police lights and pulled over 28-year-old Alfredo Salas, who was born in Mexico but has lived in Phoenix with a resident alien card since 1993.

Dalton gave him a warning after Salas produced his license and registration and told him to get the windshield fixed.

Salas, a married father of two who installs granite, told The Associated Press that he was treated well but he wondered whether he was pulled over because his truck is a Ford Lobo.

"It's a Mexican truck so I don't know if they saw that and said, 'I wonder if he has papers or not,'" Salas said. "If that's the case, it kind of gets me upset."

Sixty percent of the nearly 1,000 people arrested in the sweeps since early 2008 have been illegal immigrants. Thursday's dragnet led to four arrests, but it wasn't clear if any of them were illegal immigrants.

Critics say deputies racially profile Hispanics. Arpaio says deputies approach people only when they have probable cause.

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio and some other folks there decided they can make a name for themselves in terms of the intensity of the efforts they're using," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center. "There's no way to deny that. There are a lot of people getting caught up in these efforts."

The Justice Department launched an investigation of his office nearly 17 months ago over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures. Although the department has declined to detail its investigation, Arpaio believes it centers on his sweeps.

Arpaio feels no reservations about continuing to push the sweeps, even after the federal government stripped his power to let 100 deputies make federal immigration arrests.

Unable to make arrests under a federal statute, the sheriff instead relied on a nearly 5-year-old state law that prohibits immigrant smuggling. He has also raided 37 businesses in enforcing a state law that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

"I'm not going to brag," Arpaio said. "Just look at the record. I'm doing what I feel is right for the people of Maricopa County."
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---------- Post added at 08:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 AM ----------

o snapz. nother cartel dude killed in mexi

Quote:

Soldiers killed a top leader of the Sinaloa cartel in a raid on his posh hideout, dealing the biggest blow yet to Mexico's most powerful drug gang since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against organized crime in 2006.

Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a reputed founder of Mexico's methamphetamine trade, was gunned down trying to escape soldiers in the western city of Guadalajara. Mexican authorities says he fired on soldiers as helicopters hovered overhead and troops closed in.

Coronel was a close associate of Mexico's most wanted man, Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and was No. 3 in the organization after Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.

"Nacho Coronel tried to escape, and fired on military personnel, killing one soldier and wounding another," Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said at a news conference in Mexico City. "Responding to the attack, this 'capo' died."

The raid "significantly affects the operational capacity and drug distribution of the organization run by Guzman," he added.

Coronel's downfall came amid persistent allegations that Calderon's administration appeared to be favoring the Sinaloa cartel, or not hitting it as hard as other drug gangs.

Those allegations have drawn angry denials from the president and his top law enforcement officials, who point to the 2009 arrest of Vicente "El Vicentillo" Zambada — the son of Ismael Zambada — as proof they were going after the gang.

Coronel's death was also the biggest strike against Mexican cartels since drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva and six of his bodyguards were killed in a Dec. 16 raid by Mexican marines in the central city of Cuernavaca. Beltran Leyva, whose gang was once allied with the Sinaloa cartel, had become an enemy of Guzman's organization by the time of his death.

The mysterious Colonel was believed to be "the forerunner in producing massive amounts of methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories in Mexico, then smuggling it into the U.S.", according to the FBI, which offered a $5 million reward for the 56 year old.

Coronel allegedly controlled trafficking through the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima and parts of Michoacan — the "Pacific route" for cocaine smuggling.

"The scope of its influence and operations penetrate throughout the United States, Mexico, and several other European, Central American, and South American countries," according to an FBI statement.

Colonel ran his criminal cell out of Zapopan, according to the Mexican government, an upscale suburb that has been the scene of previous cartel arrests. Guzman's son was accused of killing two people outside a bar there in 2004.

In 2006 raids on four Zapopan homes, federal police arrested five of Colonel's lieutenants and seized more than $2 million in cash, along with expensive watches and jewelry — but failed to find Coronel himself.

During Thursday's raid, soldiers appeared to search at least two homes and arrested Francisco Quinonez Gastelum, alleged to be Coronel's right-hand man and the only associate allowed to accompany him to his mansion.

"Coronel used two homes as safe houses ... and employed the tactic of being accompanied only by Quinonez Gastelum, to keep a low profile and not draw attention to himself," Villegas said.

Coronel was born in the northern state of Durango, the home state of many of Mexico's drug traffickers and was groomed to be a drug lord from an early age.

He rose up under Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the so-called "Lord of the Skies" and leader of the Juarez drug cartel who died in 1997. After Carrillo's death, Coronel joined the Sinaloa cartel and rose through the ranks to become the cartel's No. 3.

Little was known about him.

On its website of most wanted drug traffickers, the Mexican federal attorney general has three photographs of Coronel and gives his nickname, "Nacho." There are only blanks after "age," "place of origin," and "personal characteristics."