Thread: DoJ to Sheriff Joe: Speak Spanish in jails

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Updated: 1:54 p.m. on Friday, July 17, 2015
224 comments

The Justice Department announced a deal Friday requiring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to provide services in Spanish to his jail inmates, settling part of a two-year-old discrimination complaint the Obama administration filed against the man known as "America's Sheriff."

Federal authorities will also become permanent overseers for all worksite raids, with the power to demand information about any raids that deputies perform. The Justice Department says it will scrutinize them to make sure they're following the Constitution.

Still to come is a ruling by a court on charges that sheriff's deputies discriminated in targeting Hispanics for traffic enforcement.

But Friday's deal settles many of the complaints about how Sheriff Arpaio runs the county jails and how it conducts its worksite raids.

"The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office changed many of their practices after the commencement of our litigation, and these agreements ensure that progress continues and the constitutional rights of the people of Maricopa County will be protected for the long term," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Kappelhoff said.

The case is the culmination of the Obama administration's effort to push Sheriff Arpaio out of the business of enforcing laws against illegal immigrants, and federal authorities have been mostly successful.

Sheriff Arpaio had already agreed to stop enforcing a controversial state identity theft law, and disbanded its Criminal Employment Unit that had been the spearhead for those efforts.

If he wants to restart those operations, he'll have to write up new procedures, get Justice Department approval of them, and turn over information about any raids, including video, to federal authorities for review to make sure the actions were legal.

The sheriff's office said it would comment "at the appropriate time" on the deal.

According to the terms of the 26-page settlement, Sheriff Arpaio also agreed to provide bilingual services for inmates and other members of the public, and will also make sure that classes for inmates are provided in Spanish and other appropriate languages.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...spanish-jails/

I just do not know what to think about my nation that allows its finest to be dictated to when those dictates prove that the disciplinarian is unmistakably enforcing the rule of "DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO." I surely cannot endorse our behavior. I cannot endorse letting our friends take a beating for standing for us when we would not stand for ourselves. Very disappointing, but it is similar to the past behavior of Americans, no surprise.