Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office oversees the 5-year-old program, which is intended to deprive smugglers of the money that is “the core motive” for their operations.

An immigrant-rights group sued Arizona on Oct. 18, saying the lives and property of innocent people are unfairly snared by a state program intended to combat migrant and drug smuggling by intercepting money transfers.
The suit filed by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said the warrants authorizing the interceptions are too broad and snare innocent people in violation of constitutional protections on search and seizure. Rights for legal due process also are violated because notices outlining ways to challenge the seizures aren’t being posted, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.
Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union has already gone to court separately to fight aspects of the program run by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. It recently was expanded to include transfers of $500 or more sent to specific places in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, state officials said, because smugglers had responded to seizures in Arizona by rerouting the transfers to south of the border.
A federal judge last month rebuffed Western Union’s challenge to the expanded program, but a state judge later temporarily halted the program pending an Oct. 30 hearing.
Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office oversees the 5-year-old program, which is intended to deprive smugglers of the money that is “the core motive” for their operations.
Mr. Goddard said the suit will not deter his office’s longstanding fight against human smuggling and coyotes operating in Arizona.
“Our investigations and seizures are helping us disrupt human smuggling, secure Arizona’s border and make our neighborhoods safer,” Mr. Goddard said.
For several years, the Attorney General’s Office along with the Department of Public Safety and Phoenix Police Department have been conducting investigations of organized coyote organizations operating in Arizona. The Attorney General’s Office has seized more than $17 million in coyote assets and disrupted their operations. The information collected has led to more than a hundred arrests of coyotes and money launderers involved in human and drug smuggling operations in Arizona.
Goddard: Suit protects corporate profits
“This lawsuit is really about protecting corporate profits. If it is successful, our human smuggling investigations would be crippled, and Western Union and other money transmitters would continue to profit from illegal activity,” Mr. Goddard said.
All money seizures by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office of funds intended for coyotes (human smugglers) were made pursuant to court orders.
“Every effort has been made to prevent the seizure of any funds from people not involved in human smuggling. We have met with Arizona community organizations to be sure that anyone receiving legitimate money transfers would be able to claim their money,” Mr. Goddard said.
Along with being a major location of drug smuggling, Arizona is the nation’s busiest illegal crossing point for illegal immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico.
Authorities say illegal immigrants typically won’t carry large amounts of cash and frequently arrange to have relatives or friends send money to “coyotes” for payment once crossings are made.
The lawsuit challenges approximately $12 million intercepted in 11,000 transfers during the past two years.
Mr. Goddard’s office said the seizure warrants have led to hundreds of arrests of smugglers and drug dealers and “played a role” in the forfeiture of more than $17 million in transit as well as numerous businesses.
Coalition Executive Director Josh Hoyt acknowledged that some of the transfers are for illicit purposes. But he said the group’s investigation shows the procedures also snag “little people” who mostly are just trying to send money to relatives.
“He’s taking a lot of innocent people along with the guilty,” Mr. Hoyt said of Mr. Goddard.
Coalition representatives met last week with Mr. Goddard in Phoenix but were unable to resolve their differences, Mr. Hoyt said.
The lawsuit, which names Mr. Goddard and a top aide as defendants, asks the court to block use of the seizure warrants and order restitution for seized transfers and payment of legal fees and costs.
Mr. Goddard’s spokeswoman Andrea Esquer said the office hadn’t had a chance to review the lawsuit and couldn’t immediately comment, but the office’s briefing paper said the procedures used to screen cases are like Customs inspections or police roadblocks to catch drunken drivers and “are national models of due process.”
“The law enforcement goal in each operation is to determine which are the subject cases as quickly as possible and send the others on their way with little disruption,” according to the briefing paper.
However, one of three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, Illinois truck driver Javier Torres, said he lost $1,000 that he tried to send to a friend in Arizona to pay for a car that Mr. Torres said he quickly resold for profit.
Mr. Torres, a Burbank, Ill., resident who said he has been a legal resident of the United States since 1994, said Arizona authorities declined to return the money when he couldn’t provide specific documents.
“I never had the car in my name,” Mr. Torres said by telephone from the coalition’s office in Chicago. “They told me ‘when you have those documents you can call me back,’”
The suit’s other two named plaintiffs are Alma Santiago, of Charlotte, N.C., and Lia Rivadeneyra of Daly City, Calif.
Matt Piers, a Chicago attorney representing the immigrant coalition, said the group had received information from Western Union regarding the transfers and previously had accepted unrestricted grants from the Englewood, Colo.-based company but was not acting on its behalf.
The suit said money was seized in transfers from residents of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
This article includes information provided by the Attorney General’s Office.
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