Prosecutor becomes immigration czar

[Coz]

Prosecutor becomes immigration czar
Dec. 18, 2007 12:00 AM
Arizona Republic
12-18-07

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has quietly staged a coup.

With a little help from an army of sheriff's deputies supplied by Generalissimo Joe Arpaio, Thomas has gone from simple prosecutor to self-appointed immigration czar.

We didn't see it coming because when Thomas ran for the office of prosecutor under a slogan of "stop illegal immigration," the county attorney had nothing to do with enforcing federal immigration law.

Once in office, however, Thomas found that in addition to the power and attention that come with putting away bad guys, Arpaio's cooperation meant that prosecuting immigration cases was possible.

Not only that, Thomas had the backing of a junta of politicians at the Legislature, which passed an employer-sanctions law that has sent shivers up the spines of 150,000 business owners in Arizona and put Thomas in a position to take the kind of aggressive action that completely overshadows Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Remember her?

Earlier this year, she signed House Bill 2577, which she said "imposes tough consequences on those who knowingly employ undocumented workers."

The governor said at the time that because Congress has failed to act, Arizona had no choice.

But then, Napolitano had no choice either, because the Legislature was going to push something through with or without her.

In signing the bill, Napolitano said that the law had a number of problems and that she might call the Legislature into special session to fix those problems. She didn't.

She spoke of insufficient funding for enforcement, meaning the money allotted to the Attorney General's Office. (This was before Thomas had co-opted the enforcement angle.)

She worried about overly broad language in the law that might lead to closing down a chain of stores because of an infraction by one.

And she wanted to include an exemption for hospitals and other facilities.

None of these changes has been made, however, and Thomas held a news conference Monday to announce how his office will handle enforcement of the new law.

In this day and age, a czar - even a self-appointed one - trumps a lowly governor. Nevertheless, I contacted Napolitano's office to ask if the governor still believed that the employer-sanctions law needed to be tweaked.

"Yes," came the response from Napolitano's spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer. "The governor has been clear in her desire that the law be fixed. We expect legislation will be introduced to address the problems with the bill as outlined in her signing statement."

In addition, L'Ecuyer said that the governor believes the law was meant for new hires, not existing employees.

But the law doesn't say that a business must not knowingly "hire" an undocumented immigrant, but that it must not knowingly "employ" such a person.

And because Napolitano and the Legislature didn't clear that up during the summer and fall, Thomas the Czar gets to make the call.

And while cases involving new hires may be easier to prosecute under the new law, Thomas said that it wouldn't preclude going after retroactive infractions.

Elected office holders at the Capitol who don't like that may do well to invest in a dictionary before writing any new laws. And while they're at it, they might look up the words "leadership," "character" and "guts," because I'm pretty sure they don't know what they mean.

Reach Montini at 602-444-8978 or ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com. Read his blog at montiniblog.azcentral.com.