The ACLU and a group of faith leaders are asking two Arizona counties to stop referring calls of migrants in distress to the Border Patrol, saying it’s an unconstitutional discriminatory practice.
The sheriff’s departments in Santa Cruz and Pima counties have a policy or practice of “selectively referring” certain 911 calls to the Border Patrol’s search and rescue unit, said the ACLU’s Tucson-based attorney James Lyall, citing a March article from Al Jazeera America.
“We are writing to advise you that Santa Cruz County has a legal obligation to provide emergency services in a nondiscriminatory manner,” Lyall said. “Any policy or practice which fails to do so violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
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But officials from both departments denied the allegations and said referrals to the Border Patrol depend on availability of resources and location.
“Our department is not a big one and our resources are limited,” said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. “What’s just and correct is to use all the resources that are available to us regardless of whether the person is legal or illegal.”
In a place where there are nearly 1,000 Border Patrol agents with many more resources, he said, it only makes sense to ask them for help.
“We feel comfortable we are doing everything we need to do in the most appropriate way based on our resources,” Estrada said.
Chris Nanos, chief deputy of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, was more critical of the letter.
“It’s a little bit of an insult or slap in the face as a law enforcement agency,” to suggest its primary concern is deportation and not helping someone who needs help, Nanos said.
The county’s search and rescue teams constantly work together with those from neighboring counties and the Border Patrol, he said.
“The key is to help someone as quickly as possible,” Nanos said, and sometimes calling Border Patrol is a matter of logistics.
More than 2,700 border crossers have died since 1998 and “so many of these deaths are the result of government policies that close our nation’s doors to immigrants while simultaneously funneling those who arrive into remote and deadly regions of the border,” reads the letter from 17 Southern Arizona faith leaders.
