I sent the following e-mail to Max Wilson, the Supervisor who represents my district on the Maricopa County, Arizona Board of Supervisors:

Dear Supervisor Wilson:

I hope the Board of Supervisors will act immediately to pass a criminal trespass bill.  HR2280, which recently died in the state House of Representatives after being passed by the Senate, would have made it a class 1 misdemeanor under state law for anyone to be in Arizona who was not in the country legally.  It would also have required all law enforcement agencies in Arizona to cooperate in the enforcement of immigration law.  Maricopa county should swiftly adopt a comparable ordinance.

You probably know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer take custody of illegal aliens apprehended by Sheriff Arpaio unless they committed some additional crime.  This is a step toward amnesty.  The taxpayers of Maricopa County will suffer unless the BoS provides the Sheriff with a law he can use to arrest illegal aliens during his crime suppression sweeps.  Arizona's Human Smuggling Law and Employer Sanctions Law are not sufficient by themselves.

For many years, I have been very frustrated with the federal government's refusal adequately to enforce immigration laws.  I had hoped that after Janet Napolitano left for Washington, D.C., that the legislature would be able to enact a criminal trespass bill--but they found a way not to do that this year, even with a Republican governor in office. 

The next line of defense is the county.  I am sorry about the stressful Sheriff's Office investigations going on involving some board members. I hope those problems will not stop you from working with our Sheriff, who is doing the people's work in the area of illegal immigration more than anyone else in this state.

For the sake of all its law-abiding residents, I hope Maricopa County will make itself the least hospitable county in the country for illegal aliens.  If illegals were made to spend six months in Sheriff Joe's tents before deportation, I think there would soon be a mass exodus of that population from our county.  This would lower our crime rate and lessen the burdens on our county's social services.

Sincerely,

John Lyon