Earlier this week, a group of city police chiefs from the Southwest – including Tucson's Roberto Villaseñor and Phoenix’s Jack Harris – met with Attorney General Eric Holder to express concerns about Arizona's SB 1070 and similar immigration-enforcement measures being considered in neighboring states. The police chiefs say laws like Arizona’s place an undue burden on local law enforcement, making them less able to fight other types of crimes.
Other law-enforcement officials, however, have expressed strong support for the law, including Arizona sheriffs Paul Babeu of Pinal County and the infamous Joe Arpaio. So law-enforcement opinion on the Arizona law is just mixed, right?
Actually, there's a pretty predictable pattern: Those officials who support SB 1070 tend to be elected while those who oppose it tend to be appointed. It is no coincidence that the head of the Arizona Sheriff's Association – comprising elected county sheriffs – endorsed the measure while the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police – comprising appointed law-enforcement officials – condemned it. This largely reflects the fact that SB 1070 is a) bad public policy and b) widely popular.
Electing law-enforcement officials like sheriffs is meant to bring accountability to the office and foster community relations, but as Arizona shows, the need to appeal to voters can take precedence over the actual job of fighting crime. For the police chiefs whose main objective is keeping communities safe, the Arizona law is simply a hindrance -- with no political upside.
-- Nicolas Mendoza
