DANIEL GONZÁLEZ
The Arizona Republic

While police still allow groups of illegal immigrants to go free when federal immigration agents can't respond fast enough, they are doing it less since 50 federal agents were added last fall in Phoenix.
"We are very pleased with their response compared with two or three years ago," when immigration enforcement was handled by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Detective Tony Morales, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Then, he said, "there were times when our phone calls weren't even getting answered."

His comments were echoed by other Phoenix-area police officials Thursday in the wake of an incident Tuesday when Arizona Department of Public Safety officers and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents jointly released a group of 24 suspected illegal immigrants into a Mesa neighborhood rather than arrest them.

Before federal officials added the agents in October under Operation ICE Storm, police frequently allowed groups of illegal immigrants to go free because federal immigration officials lacked the manpower to help, local police officials said. But that rarely occurs now, they said.

"Now that ICE is instituted, they are much more responsive," said Sgt. Chuck Trapani, a spokesman for the Mesa Police Department, pointing out that police don't have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. "It seems like ICE has come out every time we've (called) them."

Kyle E. Barnette, acting special agent in charge of ICE's Phoenix office, called what happened Tuesday in Mesa an "anomaly."

ICE agents responded after DPS officers encountered two groups of illegal immigrants traveling east in vans on the Loop 202 freeway early Tuesday.

ICE agents arrived with a van and took one group of 18 suspected illegal immigrants into custody but released a second group of 24 into a Mesa neighborhood because they didn't have the manpower or room to transport them for several hours, according to Steve Volden, a spokesman for the DPS.

A DPS officer suffered a broken wrist when one of the immigrants resisted arrest, Volden said. The immigrant was charged with aggravated assault.

ICE agents and DPS officers were concerned the immigrants would bolt into the highway, posing a danger to themselves and motorists, Barnette said.

Barnette said he backed the decision of the ICE agents who released the immigrants but said he probably would have handled the situation differently.

"I would suggest that with my 21 years of experience I might not have made the same decision," Barnette said. "I think I would have tried to move the people to an area where there wasn't rushing traffic and they could be taken into custody."

Barnette said federal agents have responded to almost 200 calls for assistance from police since the federal government launched its collaborative anti-smuggling operation.

He noted that ICE responds to every request for assistance. But he acknowledged that even with 50 additional agents, ICE can't always respond to calls for assistance as quickly as police would like.

"We can't always be there when they want us to be there," Barnette said.

Within the past three weeks, Phoenix police released a group of 25 to 30 illegal immigrants discovered inside a drop house in the Maryvale neighborhood in west Phoenix after federal agents said they didn't have the manpower to respond right away, Morales said.

Morales called the incident "disconcerting" because there was no way to tell whether any of the people released had criminal backgrounds.

He said, however, he does not believe the incident signals a return to a time when federal officials frequently were unavailable to respond.

"I don't think that one incident is an indication of a problem. At least I certainly hope it isn't," he said.

Barnette said the 50 additional federal agents, which include 19 new permanent positions, will be on the job in Phoenix through Sept. 30, when the federal fiscal year ends.

The Phoenix ICE office has requested more permanent agents for the next fiscal year.