From the article. Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot recalls the days before Operation Streamline, a policy developed in 2006 in which local, state and federal law enforcement agencies formed a partnership with a common mission – 100 percent prosecution of those illegally entering the country. At one time, Yuma County had the worst record in the country for illegal entries, he said. There were huge influxes of people illegally crossing the border near Yuma, often preyed on by criminals who robbed, beat and raped them. And there were the heartbreaking cases of people dying in the desert. The incident when a group of 16 young Mexicans were found dead after being abandoned by smugglers in a desolate part of the desert still haunts Wilmot. He noted that there were 140,000 apprehensions in the Yuma Sector in 2006. Last year, there were 6,000 apprehensions and there haven’t been any recent deaths in the desert. Wilmot credits Operation Streamline and the message there was zero tolerance for those crossing the border illegally in the Yuma area. He related that a defendant in a smuggling case told investigators he and others were moving to other areas because “if you are caught in Yuma, you will go to jail.” Wilmot is afraid all that effort will be undone after learning the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona has changed its guidelines set forth in Operation Streamline, raising the threshold for when it will prosecute illegal aliens. The sheriff said his officers heard about the policy change when they attended a briefing with the Yuma Sector Border Patrol.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:09:44 +0000
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