With less than 50 days until the second term for President-elect Donald Trump begins, his chosen immigration lead is already at Arizona's border making inroads ahead of a wave of expected policy changes.
Trump's appointed "border czar" Tom Homan is anticipated to take charge of the mass deportation operation Trump touted throughout his 2024 campaign. Homan was hosted by Sheriff Mark Dannels in Cochise County on Wednesday, where he met with Customs and Border Protection leaders, members of the National Sheriffs' Association, Sierra Vista Mayor Clea McCaa, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, incoming Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple, and others.
Homan's trip was filmed with TV personality Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, and marked his first publicized visit to Arizona since being named border czar.
Dannels described Homan as a "cop's cop."
"Having him [in Cochise County] tells me he sends a message to my community, he sends a message to the state, and he sends a message to America's sheriffs that were participating yesterday with me and the mayor here in Sierra Vista and others, that I want to be a partner," he said.
The focus of Homan's visit, according to Dannels, was to begin building relationships with law enforcement leaders.
"We're resetting the stage here," he said Thursday.
The longtime border sheriff gave few details of what Homan and law enforcement leaders discussed, describing it as "a meeting of confidence." However, he told ABC15 there was an emphasis on understanding and meeting the needs of local sheriffs' offices, a key point as many local law enforcement agencies are dealing with their own internal challenges.
Those challenges include reported chronic understaffing and a lack of experience in immigration enforcement, both of which could make it hard to enforce mass deportations without impacting the existing work of those agencies.
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Those limitations were outlined during ABC15's conversation with Jorge Maldonado, the Democratic mayor of border town Nogales.
While Maldonado said it was hard to comment on policies he didn't know many details about yet, he said Nogales police simply do not have the training to implement immigration enforcement at this time.
"Going through the process and all that? That is certainly, I know, out of our city police jurisdictions and knowledge," he said. Maldonado added that when local police deal with border issues, their standard practice is to refer those cases to Border Patrol.
Further north in Arizona's most populous county, incoming Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan echoed the limitations of Nogales' law enforcement.
"The first thing I would tell [Trump] is that the Sheriff's Office is supposed to have 4,006 employees and right now we're maybe at 26-, 27-hundred, so I don't have enough people to do the job that I need to do to keep the people safe and to keep those jails running and keep those inmates safe, much less do something else," Sheridan, a Republican, said.
Still, it's clear Trump and Homan are making a point to work with local law enforcement. Dannels has been a border sheriff for 12 years and says he's never seen such proactiveness in an incoming administration, including for Trump's first term.
"It's a sign that you think this is going to be a good relationship going forward?" ABC15 political reporter Rachel Louise Just asked.
"Oh it is, it tells me that," Dannels said. "And that's what the message was."
Trump will be inaugurated on January 20, 2025.
