By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 19, 2006
In a campaign to choke off smugglers’ finances, the Arizona attorney general in recent years has periodically seized money wired in large amounts from people outside Arizona, and even some money sent from other states to Mexico.
The authorities have amassed $17 million in four years from suspect transfers, singling out those exceeding $500 and believed to be sent as payments to smugglers who have just transported people or drugs into Arizona, the busiest illegal crossing area on the border.
But the effort has come under legal attack, first from Western Union, which handles most of the transactions, and now through a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Phoenix by three legal immigrants and an immigrant advocacy group representing the immigrants. They say their transactions are legal and have been caught up in the campaign of the attorney general, Terry Goddard.
“They just decided it was a lot easier to sweep everybody on in and make people prove their innocence,†Matthew J. Piers, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said at a news conference in Chicago, where the advocacy group is based. “In this country, we do it the other way around.â€
Smugglers take immigrants into Arizona, call a “sponsor†— usually a relative or friend of the person smuggled — who then wires payment for the trip across the border. Mr. Goddard said that over the last year suspect transactions into Arizona dropped sharply but increased by about the same amount in Sonora, an indication that smugglers had shifted to picking up the money there.
He said Arizona could seize those transactions because they originated with a phone call by the smuggler in Arizona.
Mr. Piers and the advocacy group, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the three people filing suit were legal immigrants who had wired money for legitimate purposes but who for plausible reasons could not satisfy demands for information on the transfers.
One plaintiff, Javier Torres of Burbank, Ill., said he had resold a car he had just bought and transferred ownership documents before law enforcement officers demanded them as proof that his wire transfer was legitimate.
The two other defendants — a woman from North Carolina and a woman from California — had wired money to relatives in Arizona and Mexico, and said they could not meet officers’ demands to speak with the recipients of the transfers because the relatives did not have telephones and the women had lost track of them.
Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois group, said it was investigating other cases, including some referred by Western Union.
The company, calling Mr. Goddard’s tactics an unconstitutional overreach of his authority, won a court order in September halting the latest round of seizures. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30.
Western Union, the biggest wire-transfer company, sued to block warrants Mr. Goddard obtained involving transfers to the Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona. Investigators say Sonora has emerged in the past year as the primary destination of the transfers.
Mr. Goddard said in an interview that he had not yet seen the complaint that was filed yesterday, but he defended his tactics as legal and productive, saying they had disrupted smuggler networks.
“All actions we have taken have been approved by courts from the get-go,†said Mr. Goddard, a Democrat currently seeking re-election.
The authorities have refunded seizures in 10 percent to 15 percent of the cases after recipients spoke with law enforcement officers. Mr. Goddard said that he offered last week to check into any misguided seizures the Illinois group found but that it had not provided such information.
Libby Sander contributed reporting from Chicago.
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