Arizona Takes Aim at Migrant 'Drop Houses'

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PHOENIX (AP) -- State officials are picking new targets in their efforts to stop illegal immigration in Arizona: the ''drop houses'' where human smugglers hold customers until they pay up.

Gov. Janet Napolitano, addressing the opening day of the Legislature on Monday, said the state should go after property managers who knowingly rent homes to smugglers.

''Strengthen the law, so we can get to that middleman,'' said the Democratic governor, who offered no specific suggestions on how the state should hold such rental agents accountable.

Napolitano posted an executive order Monday that lets state real estate regulators and state police share information on drop houses so they can prepare reports and make recommendations on the problem.

Smugglers store customers in drop houses while they collect their fees and make their travel arrangements. The locations host some of the worst abuses in immigrant smuggling, such as assaults, rapes and hostage-takings. Some smugglers force their way into drop houses to kidnap rival traffickers for ransom.

The Phoenix metropolitan area is believed to have about 1,000 drop houses.

Immigration has emerged as a pivotal issue in the Republican presidential race, and Arizona's Tucson sector is the busiest illicit entry corridor on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Republican state Rep. Russell Pearce, the Legislature's staunchest advocate for tougher immigration enforcement, said he intends to propose a bill that would target the assets of people involved in immigrant smuggling.

''If they are knowingly harboring illegal aliens and facilitating drop houses, they should lose everything they have,'' Pearce said.

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