Kropf to Patrol The Skies Over The U.S.-Mexico Border

Catch Reports From Jeff Kropf During His U.S. Border Patrol Mission on Salem-News.com.

(SALEM) - Republican State Representative Jeff Kropf from Sublimity will be flying his own plane down to a private ranch in Tucson, Arizona on Sunday to work with U.S. Border Patrol Agents and the Minutemen to patrol the U.S border in an effort to stop the influx of illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border into the U.S.

Kropf says he will be flying his Cessna 150 with a spotter on four to five hour patrol missions each day, and he hopes that by going down there he can get a better idea on just how bad the problem of illegal immigration is today.

Back in 1996-97, Kropf owned a pumpkin farm near the Texas-Mexico border near Rio Grande River and had groups of illegal immigrants crossing his land two to three times a week.

On Saturday and Sunday last week, the U.S Border Patrol`s Tucson sub-station arrested 440 illegal immigrants, 140 dodged authorities and are either now somewhere in the U.S., returned back to Mexico, or in the worst case got lost in either the Sonoran Desert or the mountains of Arizona and died.

Arizona authorities say they receive many calls every month from ranchers and farmers who have found dead illegal immigrants on their land. In some cases the immigrants who are either picked-up or are found dead crossed the border with a coyote who just left them to fend for themselves.

In Maricopa County Arizona, county attorney Andrew Thomas, a Republican, said his office has secured indictments against 48 illegal immigrants whom sheriff's deputies arrested along with their alleged smuggler. They were found in an overcrowded truck during a routine traffic stop.

Thomas is prosecuting the 48 illegal immigrants on felony conspiracy charges under his interpretation of Arizona's anti-human smuggling, or "anti-coyote" law. Thomas says that since the suspects paid the coyotes to transport them across the border, they are complicit in their own smuggling and therefore guilty of conspiracy.

This is the first-ever such action in the U.S., and Thomas' interpretation has sparked controversy as state lawmakers who authored the legislation say it was never meant to be used as a means to prosecute people who many see as victims.

The "anti-coyote" law went into effect last year, and defines smuggling of human beings as: "the transportation or procurement of transportation by a person or an entity that know or has reason to know that the person or persons transported or to be transported are not United States citizens, permanent resident aliens or persons otherwise lawfully in this state." Violation of the law is a Class-4 felony and carries a maximum prison sentence of nearly four years. However, as first-time offenders none of the accused illegal immigrants would likely not see any jail time Thomas said.

Maricopa County Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio supports Thomas' interpretation of the law.

He said that he will continue to make arrests in these types of cases. Arpaio added that a grand jury indicted the 48 people for conspiracy to be smuggled, which shows our citizens agree that this is a significant crime Arpaio said.

Arizona's Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard, disagreed, arguing that Thomas' zeal is misplaced and that the county attorney is going after the wrong people.

Goddard said the law does not give us credible reason to prosecute individuals, but we're going after coyotes and that's been his focus from the beginning. He added that they have stopped a significant number of wire transfers that go to coyotes and interrupted millions of dollars.

For the month of February, the Tucson U.S. Border Patrol sub-station arrested over 42,000 illegal immigrants.

Kropf said stopping illegal immigration is crucial for Oregon because 80 percent of the meth found in the state comes from Mexican super-labs, in most cases delivered through illegals crossing the border, and before they siphon way state and federal taxpayer resources.

Cracking down on those crossing the border is a matter of national security Kropf said. It`s not just Hispanics, it`s Pakistanis, Iraqis, Chinese, and other nationalities trying to get into the U.S. to get jobs illegally, run drugs, commit crimes, or a terrorist attack he said.

U.S. Border Patrol Agents in Tucson said they have arrested illegal immigrants who already had good paying jobs waiting for them in the U.S. after they crossed the border. They said most of jobs were in new home construction from the east coast to the west coast.