Reached for comment, a teary Geraldo Rivera sputtered, “It’s just like Nazi Germany. Except this time, they send you to Tijuana.”

Okay, he didn’t say that. But he will this afternoon on “The Big Story.” Stay tuned!

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday launched a hotline for Valley residents to report information about undocumented immigrants.

Details of exactly how the hotline will work and which tips will merit further investigation have not been ironed out. Officials say they aren’t sure how many and what types of calls will come in.

Still, Arpaio said deputies would investigate people only if they had “probable cause.”

What’s the obvious analogy here? Neighborhood watch, right? Wrong, Nazi.

“It makes every citizen, by proxy, an immigration cop,” said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute’s Office at New York University School of Law. “This hard-line (plan) is a direct line on vigilantism,” he said.

Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said she approves of Arpaio’s enforcement plan, but not the hotline.

“I think a lot of innocent people will get caught up in this, just because their skin’s brown,” Wilcox said. “We just need to make sure we’re not violating people’s civil rights, or get into racial profiling. The county may open itself up to a lot of liabilities.”

The Minutemen get that “vigilante” accusation tossed at them endlessly notwithstanding the fact that the weapon they’re most likely to confront illegals with is a water bottle. The left is forever fearful of the wave of violence that’s about to descend on illegals but not so fearful of violence actually committed by illegals themselves.

100 calls in the first 24 hours, incidentally.