PHOENIX — After sixteen months of improving relations between Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE with the state of Arizona, the state agency's leader, Alonzo Peña, has been transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

Former Arizona ICE chief, Alonzo Peña, begins his new duties at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico in April.
(Source: Phoenix New Times)

Achieving important results with his work to combat human trafficking, Peña is starting a new chapter in his professional career working with internal security at the diplomatic headquarters in Mexico City's Districto Federal. He assumes his new duties on April 7.

Peña's replacement in Arizona, Matthew Allen, said that his department will now be focusing on assisting local and state police agencies on immigration calls while targeting employers who hire undocumented workers.

"We can't arrest our way out of this problem," Allen said. "No one in the U.S. government -- whether that's (the Department of Homeland Security) or (Department of Justice) -- has the capacity to arrest, go out and physically arrest, every alien who is here illegally.

"That's why it's important to focus on the root cause of much of America's illegal immigration -- jobs offered to immigrants."

Allen also plans to have his agents get to know the local realtors in an effort to combat drop houses where immigrant smugglers hide their clients and collect payments before transporting them to their final destinations. Phoenix is estimated to have 1,000 drop houses.