Arizona Senators Introduce Amendment To Aid Law Enforcement Support Center

Press Release

U.S. Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl today filed an amendment to the McCain-Kyl border security funding legislation they introduced last week to also provide $20 million for 150 additional law enforcement specialist positions at the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), which provides immigration status information to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

As with the legislation introduced last week by the Senators, the funding for this amendment is fully paid for with unobligated stimulus funds and funds from the SBINet "virtual fence" the Department of Homeland Security recently suspended.

In the recent U.S. Arizona District Court ruling that blocked the implementation of the major provisions of SB 1070 (Arizona's immigration enforcement law), the court cited the potential difficulty the LESC might have in responding to immigration status inquiries it could receive from Arizona law enforcement officials as a result of the new law. The court ruled that the federal government would be unduly "burden[ed]" by the state law. The judge in the case, Judge Susan Bolton, relied on the testimony of LESC Unit Chief, David Palmatier, who said that the additional status inquiries resulting from the Arizona law "risks exceeding the capacity of the LESC."

According to Mr. Palmatier, the LESC currently employs 153 Law Enforcement Specialists, enough personnel to handle approximately 1.5 million status inquiries per year. Currently, the LESC handles around a million requests a year.

"Despite evidence introduced by the federal government that the LESC currently has the capacity to handle an additional 500,000 status inquiries, the amendment we filed today will make certain that the LESC has sufficient resources to handle all status requests, even if laws like Arizona's dramatically increase the number of requests in future years. By doubling the number of law enforcement specialists, there will be no doubt about the LESC's capacity for responding to any potential additional status inquiries from Arizona or other states. Our amendment will permit the LESC to hire an additional 150 Law Enforcement Specialists and handle up to three million status inquiries per year, approximately three times the number of inquiries the center handled in 2009," said Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl.

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