He is known as the lead figure in the illegal mass kidnapping and deportation of some 1200 miners and family members, many of them immigrants, from Bisbee, Arizona to New Mexico in 1917.

A crack shot with a rifle or pistol, Wheeler joined the Arizona Rangers in 1903 and was promoted to sergeant four months later.

[1][2] In 1907, Wheeler replaced Thomas H. Rynning as captain of the Arizona Rangers, and served as the agency's leader until its disbanding in 1909.

Wheeler spent much of his second and third terms in office enforcing Arizona's prohibition laws and combatting bootlegging and smuggling.

Armed with a Winchester rifle, Wheeler is believed to have killed at least one of the bootleggers, before the gang of outlaws retreated into the mountains.

A commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson investigated labor disputes in Arizona and concluded in its final report, issued November 6, 1917, that "The deportation was wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal."

Wheeler resigned as sheriff of Cochise County in March 1918 to enlist in the army at the rank of captain after the United States entered World War I.

But in United States v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281 (1920), Chief Justice Edward Douglass White ruled for an 8-to-1 majority that no federal law protected the freedom of movement for individuals.