Thread: Border courage, Arpaio style: I'd put my money on Joe

Border courage, Arpaio style

Posted: October 26, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009

It must be bizarre for a lawman to be told by the federal government not to do his job, which is to enforce the law.

It's especially bizarre when he's the only law enforcement official in the country under such orders.

Bizarre, yes – but true.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., finds himself in just that situation, but he's fighting back, saying he says he's won't comply.

The core issue for Arpaio is illegal immigration. His county, which includes Phoenix, is a hotbed of illegal alien activity. He sees dealing with that problem as an important part of his job to keep his county as safe as possible.

No doubt, the law-abiding citizens of his jurisdiction agree since they're often the victims of crimes perpetuated by illegal aliens.

Another measure of the "agreement" of law-abiding citizens is that they've re-elected Joe Arpaio four times. He's doing something right!

Arpaio says when people cross the U.S. border without proper immigration documentation, they are here illegally. That means they're criminals and he will continue to round them up, turn them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the Border Patrol or lock them up locally.

What he's doing is perfectly legal. The Immigration and Nationality Act has a section, 287-G, that allows the detainment and arrest of illegals by state and local law officials on civil and criminal grounds. It allows ICE-trained state and local police to perform immigration law enforcement. Twenty-six states have those memos of agreement with the feds. Arizona is one of them.

In October, it was announced that 67 agreements were renewed. Only one lost the authority: the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, Joe Arpaio's department.

The feds, under Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, issued the order for Arpaio to stop rounding up illegals in his jurisdiction.

It means that immigration checks can only be made after booking into county jails. Deputies cannot check immigration status during routine stops, raids or inspection operations.

Arpaio's reaction to that was to go ahead with a planned sweep the very next day!

During the Bush administration, there were no complaints from Washington about Sheriff Arpaio's sweeps and raids, which netted thousands of illegal aliens in his county, but scarcely had Barack Obama been elected and Janet Napolitano installed as DHS secretary, an investigation of Arpaio began.

His many enemies in immigrant rights and Hispanic rights groups charge him with racism. Picketing and shouts of "racist" and "KKK" and "Nazi" are common.

The Justice Department under Eric Holder is investigating Arpaio's office on allegations of "racial profiling, discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures."

When asked what had changed between the two administrations, Arpaio said, "Politics has changed, because they don't like us going on the streets to catch illegals."

Arpaio says that his department has arrested and detained more than 33,000 illegal aliens; that's 25 percent of the total for the whole country. He says the feds don't like his success, that his department is "too successful."

Is it personal between Napolitano and Arpaio? She was Arizona governor before she went to Washington. Arpaio says no and that he worked with Napolitano for 17 years, getting along until the last year she was governor.

"She didn't like some ways I enforced the illegal immigration laws and took back about $1.6 million that the legislature gave me directly."

Arpaio summed it up: "I don't report to governors; I report to the people."

He says Napolitano now takes orders from the White House, and, therefore, part of the blame for the current decision falls on Barack Obama, the man who is president.

Considering that amnesty for illegals is on the front burner for Obama, there's no doubt the White House is keeping an eye on this issue.

Unfazed, half a day after the announcement of the orders from Washington, Sheriff Arpaio carried out another planned sweep. They arrested 66 people – 30 were illegal aliens, arrested as suspects in human trafficking. They also raided a car wash.

He says he still has the authority to arrest illegals under a state smuggling law and that federal law gives local police limited power to detain suspected illegal aliens. He also wants a state trespassing law passed so illegals can be picked up under state law.

One of Arpaio's concerns is that if illegals can't be held locally, and if the Border Patrol doesn't take them, he'll have to release them on the street. That, he says, presents a real problem.

The issue is that illegal aliens have broken the law the moment they cross the border. But beyond that, law enforcement deals with crime and danger affecting everyone. American citizens pay the salaries of law enforcement to do a job: work against crime and keep the streets safe.

Not only are there thousands of illegals passing through Maricopa County weekly, but there are the ongoing crimes of identity theft, human smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, massive drug and weapon dealings and the street crime always accompanies such illegal activities.

According to Arpaio, since they began rounding up illegals, they've "put 1,600 Class 4 felons in jail and they can't get out."

He also targets businesses and employer sanctions. He says they've done 23 businesses and about two-thirds of those employees had fake identification.

The confrontation between the feds and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department is one of states' rights and promises to be a massive legal battle before it's settled to say nothing of the upcoming administration push for immigration amnesty.

Joe Arpaio put it succinctly: "It doesn't bother me, because we are going to do the same thing. I am the elected sheriff. I don't take orders from the federal government."

If I were a gambler, I'd put my money on Joe!

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114035

GO SHERIFF JOE!!

Now ask yourself why no one else in the country does this...

Is the answer Federal money?

Originally Posted by tiredofapathy

Now ask yourself why no one else in the country does this...

Is the answer Federal money?

No, not Federal money, Drug money. The foreign drug cartels need a steady flow of illegal aliens to carry the drugs in, distribute the drugs, collect the money and deliver it back to the foreign drug lords without being hassled or detained by local police and ICE. I support drug legalization with regulation and taxation so we can shut down this black market drug business controlled by foreign cartels sucking our money out of the country while pouring illegal aliens into the country. I think legalization of the illegal drug trade so Americans can grow, process, manufacture and sell these drugs without crime, in accordance with regulations that prevent sales to kids, that limit the quantity to safe amounts, that ensure the quality is as correct as possible to avoid bad mixes that cause overdose and death, and the transactions should be taxed, preferably with the FairTax which I totally support, and then instead of spending $70 billion a year in a futile LEO effort against a foreig drug trade, we collect $70 billion a year in drug taxes and use a portion of the revenues to better educate the public about the risk and consequences to discourage new users and provide free rehabilitation on demand without stigma for those who want or need it.

Here's some information on why we should legalize from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) website:

www.leap.cc

Here's a video from their site:

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=28

I realize it's controversial, but after people really think about what the right thing to do is, I believe they'll support legalization as I do and as others are as they learn more about all the dark sides and horrible consequences of the War on Drugs.

And I'm convinced that the resistance by DHS and Mayors and many police departments to enforcing our immigration laws is related to their cut of the illegal drug trade.