By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX -- A deputy who helped develop the first smuggling conspiracy cases against illegal immigrants under an Arizona law testified Monday that two drivers’ suspicious behavior led him to stop vans that turned out to be packed with migrants.
Sheriff’s Deputy George Burke said he was patrolling a remote desert road used mostly by farmers in Arizona’s sprawling Maricopa County when he spotted the vans heading in his direction. The vans abruptly turned off the road and went down a trail.
One van had an American furniture store decal on its side but Mexican license plates, Burke told a Superior Court jury. “I thought this kind of didn’t fit.”
Burke’s testimony came at the start of the first trial of migrants to be charged with conspiracy under a prosecutor’s unique interpretation of a 2005 state law, which was intended to help local authorities crack down on migrant smuggling.
Two of the defendants are immigrants who were among the first 48 customers of smugglers to be prosecuted under Arizona’s 10-month-old law. The other immigrant on trial is accused of working as a smuggler.
Prosecutors said during opening statements that the immigrants formed a group to sneak themselves into the country. Defense attorneys said not having legal papers and being found with a large group of immigrants is not evidence of smuggling.
The law makes it a midlevel felony punishable by up to 2 1/2 years in prison to smuggle illegal immigrants.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has drawn criticism from immigrant advocates for using the law to bring charges not only against smugglers, but also against their customers as conspirators to the crime.
While one of the law’s authors has said it was never intended for use against immigrants who use the smugglers, Thomas has maintained his interpretation is necessary in order to hold ordinary llegal immigrants accountable for breaking the law.
The interpretation was upheld a month ago by a trial court judge, and lawyers for one of the immigrants said he intends to appeal the decision.
The law has been used mostly in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, a hub for smugglers transporting illegal workers across the country.
Authorities elsewhere in the state have said they do not have enough money or employees to enforce the law on a wide scale.
Twenty-eight of the original 48 to be charged under Thomas’ interpretation of the law have pleaded guilty to the lower-tier felony of solicitation to commit immigrant smuggling. They were sentenced to one or two years of supervised probation and expected to face deportation proceedings.
Five cases were dismissed. Fifteen others were set for trial.