Tucson Region

State grants Pima $415K in border-emergency funds

Pima County has received about $415,000 of $1.7 million in state funds made available when the governor declared a border emergency last month. The total disbursement, which includes $200,000 from federal Homeland Security grant funds, was split among Pima, Santa Cruz, Cochise and Yuma counties as well as the Tohono O'odham Reservation and the Department of Public Safety, said Cam Hunter, spokeswoman for the Arizona Office of Homeland Security. Immigration experts and county officials call the distribution minuscule, made as more of a political move than to address any legitimate problems Southern Arizona faces related to the border with Mexico. In Pima County, which County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said spends about $10 million to $15 million a year to address border-related crime, $3.8 million in reimbursements was sought, but the state determined only $756,524 of the expenses were eligible for reimbursement and allocated only $415,488.52. Huckelberry said $65,000 of the state emergency funds will go to the Medical Examiner's Office and about $400,000 will go to the Sheriff's Department for overtime pay and costs associated with medical care provided to illegal entrants who go to the county jail. "Everything helps," Huckelberry said. But the amount provided to the county shows that the Legislature is "hiding from the problem," he said. Hunter said the intent of the disbursement is to help agencies along the four border counties "cope with the increased illegal activity resulting from illegal immigration." The border entities involved requested funds to recoup expenses for autopsies on illegal entrants in Pima County, night-vision equipment for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department and removing brush along one section of Yuma's border with Mexico where border-related crimes such as sexual assaults have occurred, Hunter said. Disbursements to other counties and entities were: ● Cochise County, $458,502. ● Tohono O'odham Nation, $105,795. ● Santa Cruz County, $186,792. ● Yuma County, $116,220. ● Arizona Department of Public Safety, $217,200. The state's disbursement was made under tight protocols that stipulated how the money could be used, Hunter said. Sheriff's departments and tribal police, for example, can use the money to pay for police overtime but not for regular pay. The money cannot be used for regularly budgeted expenses, she said. Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency on the border on Aug. 15, three days after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson declared one in his state. The declarations allowed the governors to use emergency funds, typically used to respond to natural disasters, to provide some financial relief to areas affected by illegal immigration and cross-border crime. Illegal-immigration experts were not impressed with Arizona's distribution, saying $1.7 million does little to address issues affecting border counties. "It goes to show how superficial the governor's declaration is. It might be helpful in some small way, but it isn't really addressing the problems that are still there," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors tighter border controls. "This is something that has to be dealt with on a federal level."