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Once again, the Pinal County Sheriff is attempting to place fault for the termination of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract at the doorstep of the Board of Supervisors.
The sheriff is also blaming Pinal County’s former County Manager for raising the ICE contract issue. County Manager Fritz Behring brought to the board’s attention that county taxpayers were losing between $3 to $4 million dollars annually on this contract. Behring would have been totally negligent in his duties had he not raised this issue.
The Sheriff knew for a long time that the ICE contract needed to be renegotiated to stop the bleeding of taxpayer dollars. This didn’t pop up overnight, everyone from the Supervisors to the Sheriff were on the same page following several meetings about the details of the contract.
Yet, Sheriff Babeu continued to grandstand and “bad mouth” the federal government and Homeland Security in the press, for a variety of reasons. He would intentionally go out of his way to “slam” Homeland Security Director, Janet Napolitano and ICE on immigration topics.
Well guess who ICE reported to? Yes, Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security!!
And the Sheriff can’t figure out why the ICE contract with Pinal County Sheriff’s Office was NOT renegotiated by the feds??!!
The sheriff may have had a good working relationship with middle management workers in ICE. But when it came to negotiating with decision-makers in Washington D.C., even our Congressional delegation that was attempting to help Pinal County, asked the sheriff to stay away.
The failure to renegotiate the ICE contract and the scores of detention officers and families that lost their jobs lies squarely at the foot of the Sheriff’s Office. And all because Sheriff Babeu couldn’t resist grandstanding and mugging for the TV cameras.
Pinal County Supervisor Pete Rios
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