Thread: ICE pulls Arpaio's arrest authority

ICE pulls Arpaio's arrest authority

October 5, 8:17 AM Tucson Conservative Examiner Andrew Montalbano
Maricopa Co. Deputies arrest illegal aliens.


Immigration and Customs Enforcement chose not to renew its federal immigration arrest authority agreement with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Friday. "This just includes the jail, and deep down, I feel that I ought to take it and rip it all up," Arpaio said. Federal officials also refused to comment further.

Under the new agreement deputies and detention officers could continue screening individuals once they are booked into the Maricopa County jail, but federal authorities had not offered to allow Arpaio's street-level immigration enforcement to continue. Under the new agreement it looks like Arpaio no longer has authority to make arrests of illegal aliens accused of committing serious crimes.

Through pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro illegal alien advocacy groups ICE has caved. The ACLU is currently representing two clients in separate lawsuits accusing Arpaio's deputies of racial profiling. "He's not going to be able to arrest people for those kind of routine civil-immigration violations," said Alessandra Soler-Meetze executive director of the ACLU in Arizona. (The Arizona Republic). Wrong, the immigration violations that Sheriff Arpaio was using to arrest and detain illegal aliens are not civil, they are administrative violations under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Violating federal immigration laws are not "routine" civil matters. I wish these ACLU attorneys would understand the law before they make comment. ICE does not have the time or the resources to make "routine" arrests like Arpaio's deputies could. Sheriff Arapio was found guilty of racial profiling in the eyes of public opinion with the help of pro illegal alien advocacy groups. Looks like Phoenix is well on its way to becoming another sanctuary city for illegal aliens thanks in large part to our ACLU.

http://www.examiner.com/x-25474-Tucson- ... -authority

This is sickening....people better speak out!!! NOW! STOP OUR OPEN BORDERS!

There needs to be state level coordination to move illegals to ICE or the logistics quickly overwhelm the resources available to ICE.

homepage this asap please!

Alright, we need to coordinate a massive effort to let ICE and the Feds know our displeasure on this!! It is unacceptable to remove Arpaio's authority!!

Guess this is one of the first steps in shutting us down. I am ashamed of my Government once again...

added to the homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article4564.html

Obama should be impeached or forced to resign in disgrace like Nixon! Napolitano should be fired, investigated, and considered for charges of treason against America, Americans, and the US Constitution.

This is an absolute outrage and will cost American lives thanks to marauding illegals that will now pass through jails in AZ without deportation.

W

2010 can't come quick enough........

Sheriff Arpaio may lose some immigrant authority

by JJ Hensley - Oct. 3, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The controversial agreement that authorized Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies to act as federal immigration agents on the streets appears to have ended, Arpaio said late Friday afternoon.

The sheriff said he signed a new agreement Friday that will allow deputies and detention officers to continue screening every inmate booked into Maricopa County jails to determine their immigration status. But he said federal authorities had not offered an agreement to extend Arpaio's street-level immigration enforcement.

"This just includes the jail, and deep down, I feel that I ought to take it and rip it all up," Arpaio said. "On the other hand, I feel it's very critical to have the jail."

Federal officials on Friday refused to comment on the agreement.

The jail-screening effort helped officials catch nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants since the program began in February 2007, but it was the street-level enforcement that caused the most controversy and produced less substantial results, capturing about 264 illegal-immigration suspects.

Without an agreement that authorizes immigration screenings on the street, deputies will need probable cause to detain a suspected illegal immigrant until federal agents can determine the suspect's immigration status.

"He's not going to be able to arrest people for those kind of routine civil-immigration violations," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona.

Changing agreements

The Sheriff's Office had been operating under an umbrella agreement that authorized the street-level enforcement and jail operations, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced in July that all the contracts with local law-enforcement agencies were under review. Federal officials have come under increasing pressure from civil-rights, labor, religious and pro-immigrant groups to end the program, known as 287(g), because of fears of racial profiling.

Arpaio said he had been prepared to sign a new umbrella agreement, which stressed a focus on enforcing immigration laws only in cases of serious crimes, before ICE's Oct. 15 deadline.

Then, ICE's deputy assistant secretary for operations, Alonzo Pena, came to Phoenix late last week and presented the sheriff with a contract that would authorize the operations to continue only in the jails. Attorneys for the Sheriff's Office tried to contact ICE administrators for the past week to determine the outcome of the street-level agreement but failed to get a response, Arpaio said.

With the deadline looming to continue any sort of agreement with ICE, Arpaio signed the jail authorization on Friday. Arpaio said the deal required the approval of the county Board of Supervisors, which meets on Wednesday, the last meeting before the deadline.

"It looks like they're taking away my authority on the streets for political reasons," Arpaio said. "They don't have the guts and the courtesy to even come back and say in writing, 'We are not going to continue.' "

A local ICE spokesman said late Friday that the agency would review all the new 287(g) agreements but could not comment while the contracts were pending.

Enforcement rules

Even without an ICE agreement, Arpaio's deputies can continue to enforce various immigration-related laws. The state has laws against human smuggling, and laws on fraud and identity theft have led to many of the department's work-site raids.

The news was met with cautious optimism at the ACLU, which is working with plaintiffs in two lawsuits that accuse Arpaio's deputies of racial profiling in the normal course of their duties and in the "crime-suppression operations" the Sheriff's Office has conducted during the past 18 months.

Sheriff's deputies will still enforce the state's human-smuggling law, which allows illegal immigrants to be charged as co-conspirators in their own smuggling, but a conviction requires proving clear links to some sort of smuggling activity, said Dan Pochoda, Arizona ACLU legal director.

"It's not like they track them down six months later and say, 'We have evidence that you were smuggled,' " he said.

Pochoda said the effect of deputies losing federal immigration authority could restrict what deputies can do on the streets.

"It's more than a technicality," Pochoda said. "There are many people he's picked up in these sweeps under the 287(g) who are clearly not subject to prosecution under the state human-smuggling law."

A promise from the sheriff

A Republic analysis of arrest records from 10 of the sheriff's crime-suppression operations showed that more than half the illegal immigrants arrested during the sweeps were held on federal immigration violations and hadn't committed another crime.

During a crime-suppression operation in Chandler this summer, ICE agents told sheriff's deputies that they could not arrest suspected illegal immigrants who met that criteria and instead had to free them after giving them a "notice to appear" at ICE for processing.

If that situation repeats itself, Arpaio promised he will try to keep tabs on those suspected illegal immigrants.

"I may have to let them back on the streets, but I'm going to get their name, rank and serial number, and I'm going to monitor them," he said.


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... e1003.html

http://www.acluaz.org/New%20Revised%20E ... 0FINAL.pdf


ACLU 14 PAGE REPORT on Immigrant Rights During Workplace Raid

saw this on the Arizona ACLU home page.
how nice, its in english and Spanish on the home page
http://www.acluaz.org