Arizona needs a new ‘tent city’

OPINION:

There is no question about what’s happening at our southern border. It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it.

But what’s also clear is that President Biden is unwilling to address it. In fact, his administration has taken every step to incentivize what now amounts to an invasion, and Republican governors must stand up and take the lead before it’s too late.

That’s why we’re proposing that Arizona open a new tent city.

Most people have heard of tent city. But many only understand it through the lens of left-wing activists intent on smearing tough-on-crime policies. So, here’s the truth.

In 1993, we — the authors of this opinion piece — served as Maricopa County sheriff and Arizona state senator, respectively. Maricopa was a county on the rise, home to 2.3 million people and growing fast. Great news for the economy. Not so great for local communities where street crime was becoming prevalent.

Our county jail system already was over capacity at about 5,000 inmates. Unlike liberal cities that let criminals roam free, we certainly weren’t going to tell families across Arizona to watch out for the bad guys in their neighborhoods because there wasn’t any space for them in jail.

So, we created more space.

Maricopa County opened an outdoor facility to house nonviolent work-release inmates and “trustees” with a record of good behavior. It had running water, portable toilets and access to showers, television and other amenities in a nearby building — and, most importantly, it solved our jail system’s capacity issue so that dangerous offenders were imprisoned in the way they needed to be.

The successful outdoor facility was called tent city, and we need a new one. Because today, although there’s no doubt that street crime is on the rise, Arizona’s more urgent problem is border security.

Look at the numbers.

U.S. border agents reported approximately 1.9 million arrests in 2021. During the latter months, the Yuma Sector suffered a 2,647% increase in migrant encounters. It’s not just illegal immigration, either. A few weeks ago, agents at the Port of Nogales seized more than 130,000 fentanyl tablets — now the leading cause of death for young people in Pima County.

The conflict facing law enforcement today is that the crisis at our border has become so pronounced under the Biden administration that there simply is not enough jail space to properly deal with all of those who break the law at our border.

The legislature can help here.

Thanks to years of smart, conservative governance, we currently enjoy a budget surplus of at least $1.3 billion, a number expected to grow as our population explodes and our economy expands. Now is the perfect time to invest a down payment in a new tent city pilot program that will pay significant long-term dividends in cost savings for our law enforcement.

In partnership with sheriffs’ offices who need it, this opt-in program will provide our counties with state-financed and locally-run infrastructure, allowing them to address jail-capacity issues without picking and choosing which criminals they arrest.

Our sheriffs can choose to house low-risk inmates in their new tent city (like we did in Maricopa County), freeing up space in their existing facilities, or reserve their new tent city for those who commit crimes at the border, staffed by officers specifically trained to deal with immigration issues.

It is unfair for our county sheriffs to be stretched thin by a weak Biden administration whose negligence shows no end in sight.

The legislature can step up to the plate and offer these offices the financing and flexibility they need to secure our border while nipping this crisis in the bud in a way that will benefit taxpayers by saving statewide agencies, like the Arizona Department of Public Safety, time and resources in the long run.

Arizona’s sovereignty is too important to leave to chance. Let’s get this done and send a message to illegal immigrants that if they trespass into our state, they will be arrested — because space will never be an issue.

• Joe Arpaio, former Maricopa County Sheriff, is a Republican candidate for mayor of Fountain Hills. Matt Salmon, former U.S. congressman, is a Republican candidate for governor of Arizona.