Kidnappings spark new task force

[OvrAndOvrAgn]

A spike in immigration-related kidnappings and other Latin American-style violence has led the Maricopa County attorney to launch a special task force to attack the problem. Valley police have submitted 204 cases this year in which a victim or victims were kidnapped and held for ransom, County Attorney Andrew Thomas said. If the rate continues, there will be 275 cases by the end of the year, setting a record for Maricopa County. In a news briefing Sunday, Thomas said the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association has traced the growing trend to illegal immigration. For those cases in which kidnapping for ransom is the highest charge, 74 percent of those sentenced in 2007 for the crime in Maricopa County were in the United States illegally, Thomas said. Thomas noted at least 10 people were killed in a gunfight in Nogales on Oct. 23. Nogales and other Mexican border cities have become battlegrounds for Mexican drug cartels fighting to control smuggling routes into Arizona and other parts of the United States, the county attorney's office said. To prevent the violence from spreading further into Maricopa County, Thomas said his office has reached out to Valley police by assigning specific prosecutors from the Special Crimes Bureau to handle these cases. The bureau already handles the office's human-smuggling cases. "These kidnappings threaten the safety of neighborhoods all over the Valley," Thomas said. "We have to stop this trend before the violence escalates."

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[Details]

Illegals - really says it all.

They're here illegally - no background check for a criminal record, criminal history in their home country. They're here illegally - already selected for being willing to commit at least one crime. They're here illegally - hard to trace, hard to track. They're here illegally - no quotas bringing in only as many people as we can handle at a time. They're here illegally - no selection for people with a desire to become part of America.

This type of stuff is common in other countries, and as their people come here, particularly as their criminals come here, unfiltered by our immigration system, the problems of those other countries come with them, the criminals come with them, the crimes come with them.