An Arizona lawmaker has introduced a bill to revise the state's statutes on organized crime and fraud by defining "domestic terrorism" in such a way that members of the Minuteman Project or other border-patrol groups could be prosecuted and forced to serve a minimum six-month jail term.Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, introduced HB 2286 in the Arizona House on Thursday.
Sinema, formerly of the Green Party, had earlier submitted a bill asking the legislature to make changes to a law used to prosecute customers of immigrant smugglers as conspirators under Arizona's human trafficking law.
"None of us every dreamed it would be used in a co-conspirator fashion," Sinema said.
As WND reported, it was federal inaction that motivated Arizona lawmakers to approve the new law creating the crime of smuggling in 2005. Maricopa County District Attorney Andrew Thomas announced he would interpret the law to mean illegals caught with a smuggler could be prosecuted as co-conspirators if they paid a coyote to transport them across the border.
"If the customer pays a dope peddler money, he's violated the law," said Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who compares the relationship between coyotes and illegals to drug dealers and their customers. "(Here), they're paying for transport."
That law was upheld last year by a county judge after defense attorneys questioned its constitutionality. Last month, the same judge who upheld the law also overturned the first jury conviction of an illegal immigrant charged as a conspirator under the law, Associated Press reported.