The Truth...The Arizona Republic Ignores the Truth
On Sunday the Arizona Republic editorial board made the lamest attempt in weeks to mislead the public about what is really happening with Sheriff Arpaio's handling of the federal 287G immigration enforcement program. The editorial followed a week that was full of Sheriff Arpaio on national television and radio as he clearly exposed the lies and duplicitous cover up of the Obama administration spearheaded by Janet Napalitano. The Arizona Republic, solidly entrenched in the democratic political propaganda machine, took its usual position in its Sunday editorial that "Napalitano can do no wrong" and "Sheriff Arpaio can do no right."
The Arizona Republic calls the crime suppression sweeps a "preposterous, mean-spirited PR campaign." The fact is that in the 240 total hours dedicated to the dozen or so crime suppression operations, over six hundred arrests were made.
The editorial board once again shamefully lies to its readers and states that, "The financial waste has broken the Sheriff's fiduciary trust with the tax-paying public."
Statements like these are perhaps why so many people in Arizona have stopped reading the Republic. The paper's articles and editorials are chock full of false and politically motivated statements that have no basis in fact. To prove how out of touch the Republic is with its own readership, one only has to look at a recent three day poll comprised of over 1,179 readers of the Arizona Republic. It showed that 89% of those who participated in this poll agreed with Sheriff Arpaio's position on the crime suppressing operations and that the operations should continue.
So clearly we have the public's support. We also have the support of the Arizona State Legislature which gave Sheriff Arpaio over two million dollars a year to fight illegal immigration, monies which are separate and apart from the county budget. The move was necessary after Janet Napalitano used a childish political maneuver and took the funds away while she was still Governor of Arizona.
Despite the overwhelming support the Sheriff's Office has when it comes to the fight against illegal immigration, what is perhaps most amazing is the Arizona Republic's head in the sand arrogant belief that public opinion can be swayed by the paper's lies to the people of Arizona. The Arizona Republic no longer has any credibility and has been reduced to little more than a coupon yielding, liberal propaganda machine.
The truth about the latest 287G agreement is simple.
Janet Napalitano, through her eyes and ears behind the scenes Director of Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE) Suzy Barr (Barr having a similar 'tattle tale' position with the Arizona Department of Public Safety while Napalitano was Governor) found out at the last minute that Sheriff Arpaio was signing the new agreement that ICE managers and the Sheriff's Office had put together which included the street enforcement aspect of the new 287G agreement.
At nearly light speed, Napalitano dispatched from Washington D.C on a red eye flight a very embarrassed and contrite second in command of ICE to tell Sheriff Arpaio that ICE could not agree to the new contract if it included Sheriff Arpaio running street operations. The ICE commander brought with him a new version of the agreement that only included the jail operation.
Sheriff Arpaio, knowing that the Obama Administration was trying to set him up with a failed Department of Justice investigation, signed the new contract and then nationally exposed through television and radio interviews the outright fraud by the federal government to stop Arpaio's illegal immigration enforcement.
Janet Napalitano had the gall to then come out publicly with the statement that no final decision had been made on his law enforcement operations. This world class fabrication needed to be covered up quickly. The Arizona Republic had to step in and make it look like everyone in the federal government and everyone at the Arizona Republic wanted the jail agreement.
The Arizona Republic did its best to mislead the reader and minimize the Sheriff's huge and unprecedented contribution to the national illegal immigration effort when it stated "Agents of at least 65 other law-enforcement departments around the country also have been trained under the same program, known as 287(g), and those agents have identified and processed thousands more individuals found to be in the U.S. illegally."
Wrong again. The over 30,000 illegal immigration arrests made by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office represent one fourth of the total arrests made by all of the other 65 local law enforcement agencies in other U.S. States combined. This means that on average, the other agencies arrested approximately 1,400 illegal immigrants annually. With Arpaio's Office clearly in the lead in the number of arrests made, it is profoundly sad is that our own federal government is working so hard to put him out of business.
The editorial also claims that ratification of the 287G agreement was down to one vote from the Board of Supervisors. Well the Republic hasn't been paying attention again because most votes affecting the Sheriff's Office have been down to one vote. Ever since the indictment and arrest of Don Stapley and the investigation of Mary Rose Wilcox became public, it is rare to get their vote for the Sheriff's Office. The real question is why are they voting at all.
Now the real story behind the story is why the Obama administration, through Napolitano, is willing to throw so many Federal agencies under the bus to get Sheriff Joe Arpaio away from the street operations side of the agreement. Here it is. A little known fact about the 287G contract is that when ICE came begging to get Sheriff Arpaio involved in the program in 2006, one of the main selling points was that the Department of Justice would represent the Sheriff Office in any lawsuit.
This has turned out to be not only a lie, but a tool to violate the rights of 160 federally trained Sheriff's employees.
The not-so-overt plan is to remove Sheriff Arpaio from being able to say that the Deputies were doing what the federal government trained them to do. Once the Sheriff is on his own, the DOJ can make baseless accusations much more easily without having to pull their own people in as witnesses to testify that Sheriff Arpaio has done nothing wrong. The damage to the working relationship between federal enforcement agencies and local government has been severe. The blame for this lays squarely on the Obama administration and Janet Napalitano.
No doubt this Sheriff's Office will continue to be treated to a blatant stream of tactical and timed retaliation from the Arizona Republic in order to damage Sheriff Arpaio and his employees.
Regardless of the onslaught of attacks, the Sheriff will continue his duties in protecting the people of this county.