ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Arizona Uses New Weapon To Fight Illegal Immigration
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard recently began obtaining warrants to seize Western Union electronic money transfers of at least $500 going to the Mexican state of Sonora, just south of the Arizona border. The Wall Street Journal reports that Goddard acted after:
† A sting last year found some Western Union clerks accepting bribes for accepting bogus or shoddy identification from a recipient.
† A state audit found that in certain outlets more than half of the recipients of money transfers used fake Social Security cards to pick up funds.
† A five-year investigation resulted in hundreds of deportations, dozens of prosecutions of alleged traffickers (or "coyotes"), and $17 million in seizures of cash, mostly from coyotes' safe houses.
Western Union is challenging the seizures, arguing that Arizona doesn't have legal authority to order the U.S.-to-Mexico money transfer seizures, which comprise 10 percent of all money transfers.
The Arizona warrants were in effect for just three days before a court ordered a stay. The state can argue for the stay to be lifted at a hearing scheduled for Oct. 30 in Arizona's Maricopa County Superior Court.
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