Arpaio’s Arizona: So Much for the Rule of Law

America's Voice Blog

Posted 10/19/09 at 04:33pm

Arpaio Reports from late last week and through the weekend are coming in regarding Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his latest “crime” sweep, this time in the aptly named town of Surprise, Arizona.

Sheriff Arpaio signed his first 287g agreement with the Bush Administration, and has since been given free rein to commit civil rights abuses and terrorize the Latino community in Maricopa County. Last week, Obama’s DHS acted to limit his authority, by signing an agreement that only allows his to check the immigration status of inmates in county jails. As my colleague Adam Luna argued last week, DHS and Napolitano did not go far enough in limiting his power.

It’s no surprise is that Sheriff Joe decided to go ahead with his 12th crime sweep of a Latino-heavy neighborhood to date. He seems to be thumbing his nose at federal officials, vowing to continue his intimidation tactics, regardless of what the law says:

According to Sheriff's Office spokesman Brian Lee, Arpaio has vowed to continue his enforcement of all aspects of immigration laws and says that the federal government’s move to strip deputies of their ICE agent status will not change anything.

Citing a 1996 federal law, Arpaio said officials are allowed to detain someone briefly if that person is in the country illegally.

In fact, Arpaio distributed a copy of “Federal Law” to reporters during a press conference last week. The Arizona Capitol Times wrote on the source of the “Federal law” that Arpaio cites , and it’s the website of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

An online search for the text Arpaio was citing revealed that the document existed - but not in federal code. It was plastered all over the websites of anti-illegal immigration groups.

One of the groups that had published the text, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, noted that it was only an analysis of federal law and offered a disclaimer that it was not to be used as a substitute for actual legal advice.

The Arizona Republic , in an editorial today, had some harsh words for “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, categorically denying that the Sheriff has any federal or state authority to continue conducting these sweeps:

Joe Arpaio's self-promoting "sweeps" may be a lot of things. But "legal" isn't one of them. Clearly, there is some part of that word the Maricopa County sheriff does not comprehend.

Arpaio claims he has the authority to continue wasting his scarce resources chasing down broken tail lights on cars and terrorizing Hispanic neighborhoods.

Others beg to differ, including the federal Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency
For the record, state law authorizes law-enforcers to pursue the likes of human-smuggling gangs, not to conduct immigrant-hunting sweeps.

The reality is that Arpaio is currently under a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for racial profiling and other civil rights violations—we’re eagerly awaiting the results. In the meantime, when will DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rein in this bully once and for all?

For now, the answer seems—disappointingly—to be “nada.” So much for the rule of law.