Thread: {Hold Nose}Joe Arpaio's Anti-Immigrant Witch-Hunts

Joe Arpaio's Anti-Immigrant Witch-Hunts Defunded by the State of Arizona

Center for American Progress. Posted May 19, 2008.






Our guest blogger is Henry Fernandez, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund focusing on state and municipal policy.


Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unconstitutional Latino witch hunt will no longer be subsidized by the State of Arizona. It turns out that while Arpaio had his deputies stopping anyone who looked like a Latino immigrant, there were 60,000 real felons running around Arizona. Apparently Governor Janet Napolitano has had enough. This week she took $1.6 million from Arpaio and redirected it to a new state-run fugitive task force to get real criminals off the street. Of course this was supposed to have been Arpaio’s job all along.



For those not familiar with Arpaio, he is a media hound, once even doing a pilot for a comedic Fox TV police reality show. On another occasion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down his efforts to run his own reality show via webcam over the internet because it violated prisoner rights. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. How any of this clowning would have reduced crime remains unclear.



Without his own show, Arpaio encourages TV news cameras to ride along with his deputies as they hunt down undocumented immigrants. Lacking any particular insight into who is or is not an immigrant, Arpaio’s tactics have consistently disrupted the lives of Latino U.S. citizens and terrorized families in Phoenix and surrounding towns. He even requires that victims and witnesses of crime prove their immigration status. This absurdity actually encourages crime by ensuring that many immigrants will not report crime.



48,000 individuals charged with or convicted of felonies, including violent crimes, are currently on the loose in Maricopa County. Despite the obvious need to apprehend these people, Arpaio spends his time elsewhere. Cameras in tow, he sweeps into Latino neighborhoods with large numbers of deputies and stops as many people as possible on the basis of alleged motor vehicle violations, looking for undocumented immigrants. That these immigrants are generally hard working and not a threat to anyone, does not matter to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office. Nor does the fact that lots of citizens who do not realize their tail light is burned out are subjected to interrogation to prove their right to reside in the United States.



The Bush Administration’s Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) has cheered on Arpaio’s behavior. ICE’s lack of concern for the civil rights of Latinos is not surprising given the large number of lawsuits currently pending against ICE by Latino citizens who allege that their homes were invaded by gun wielding federal agents demanding that they prove their right to reside in the country in which they were born.



Reasonable elected officials in Arizona have long called for an end to Arpaio’s defiance of the Constitution. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has asked the FBI to investigate Arpaio for a “pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests.â€

A very narrow minded single sided point of view. No need to question Arizona citizens on how sheriff Joe is improving their way of life!

Once again, a so called journalist talking out of his hat.

It should be very clear to anyone of any intelligence that it is not just the responsibility of Joe Arpaio's office to clear warrants. Individual police departments covering the jurisdiction where the warrant originated and DPS....the AZ version of State patrol......are just as responsible for clearing warrants.

Depending on what the warrants are for, other agencies, such as the US Marshal Service, DEA, etc. will also have a hand in it.

Therefore, there are multiple levels of responsibility in clearing those warrants.....it doesn't rest solely on the Sheriff's Dept.


48,000 individuals charged with or convicted of felonies, including violent crimes, are currently on the loose in Maricopa County.

And just how many of those warrants are for illegal aliens? Funny, those same 48,000 dangerous criminals have been running loose here for quite some time without any concern whatsoever from Napolitano until the Sheriff's office took on the responsibility of actually upholding the law and doing the job they are paid to do.

And Napolitano has admitted to the fact that the funding was pulled to stop his efforts at immigration enforcement so we'll see, in a year's time, just how effective her "task force" has been. My guess is not very since her goal is really not to clear warrants at all, only to keep funds out of Joe Arpaio's hands.

No matter....let her have her fun. In case she hasn't heard......thousands of us taxpayers are making sure our money goes where we want it to go which is toward stopping illegal immigration, not subsidizing it.

Just call him "Sanctuary City" Henry Fernandez

Henry Fernandez
Senior Fellow
Henry Fernandez is a Senior Fellow at American Progress focusing on state and municipal policy.

Fernandez has worked broadly in local government, including as Economic Development Administrator for New Haven, Connecticut where he oversaw the city’s seven development departments as well as the Port Authority, Development Commission, and Redevelopment Agency. He led downtown and neighborhood growth strategies, negotiated deals, and represented the city to investors, developers, and community groups. He was responsible for lobbying the Board of Aldermen as well as state and federal governments. He supervised housing, retail, higher education, theater, public infrastructure, and commercial development projects totaling over $1 billion.

Fernandez has helped lead local and state political campaigns, including the early campaigns of Ken Reeves, Cambridge, Massachusetts’ first African American mayor and John DeStefano’s primary and general election campaigns for governor of Connecticut.

Fernandez was the founding Executive Director of LEAP, a nationally recognized child development program serving over 1,200 low income youth, primarily public housing residents, in Connecticut. He is principal of Fernandez Advisors, LLC a strategic and management consulting firm counseling businesses, foundations, non-profits, and government agencies. He has been interviewed by a diverse set of media ranging from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal, to Variety, Black Enterprise, and “Good Morning America;â€

[b]“Today I Am Proud To Call New Haven My Hometownâ€

Witch hunter?
I sent Joe a check today for his brave efforts, we need him to continue his work. I don't give my money lightly and I live in Pennsylvania but Joe is fighting for us all.