Ariz. Sheriff Says His Office Does Not Racially Profile, Plans to Keep Enforcing Immigration Law
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
By Penny Starr




Arizona's Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) - Facing a Justice Department investigation of his department’s practices, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told CNSNews.com that his deputies do not racially profile people, that they enforce federal immigration laws in keeping with the training they received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and that his Democratic critics in the U.S. Congress, who called for the Justice Department to investigate him, are politically motivated.

Arpaio's department, like many other local law enforcement agencies around the country, has entered into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division under what is known as section 287(g) of the 1996 immigration law.

As the Government Accountability Office explained in a January report: "Under these agreements, state and local officers are to have direct access to ICE databases and act in the stead of ICE agents by processing aliens for removal. They are authorized to initiate removal proceedings by preparing a notice to appear in immigration court and transporting aliens to ICE-approved detention facilities for further proceedings."

Arpaio said that his department’s partnership with ICE has resulted in the removal of 24,000 illegal aliens from Arizona without racial profiling.

“We don’t racial profile," Arpaio told CNSNews.com. "They can say whatever they want. They quote the information from newspaper columnists--they don’t even go to get the facts--from activists that every day are in front of my office for two years, calling me every name in the book.â€