Thread: Sheriff Joe Arpaio setting up separate Tent City for illegal

Inmates marched to segregated area of Tent City
by Eddi Trevizo Derek Cooley - Feb. 4, 2009 05:13 PM
The Arizona Republic
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio marched 220 chained illegal immigrant inmates into a segregated enclosure of Tent City Wednesday afternoon, despite protests from some County officials and civil rights groups who thought the procession violated human rights.

The 220 inmates walked from the Durango Jail complex to Tent City near 35th Avenue and Durango Street in Phoenix about 1 p.m. Wednesday. The inmates were chained at the feet and wore handcuffs while carrying bags full of personal belongings. The procession took about 15 minutes.

According to Arpaio the inmates will not be treated any differently than other inmates with two exceptions: Arpaio plans to have the inmates instructed in U.S. immigration law and have the inmates who violate jail rules put in a chain gang to work to clean areas of the Valley affected by human trafficking.

Protesters and some County officials believe the move was degrading and unnecessary.

"Shackling and marching fellow human beings for all to see is not in line with the values of the American people. While Guantanamo (Bay) is being closed, another one is being started in Arizona," Kevin Appleby, the Director of Migration and Refugee Policy with U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said.

About 30 protesters gathered in front of the County Juvenile Court Center, near the Durango Jail complex, carrying signs that read "Human beings are not your circus animals" and "No more circus media."

"There is absolutely nothing dignified about marching illegal immigrants in chain gangs," Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Phoenix, said.

The inmates were transferred from the Durango Jail complex to an area of Tent City as a cost-cutting move, according to a statement released by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Tuesday.

However, protesters and Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said the cost-cutting effects of the move are negligible.

According to Wilcox, Arpaio has failed to submit a detailed budget-cutting proposal, despite a request made by the county's office of management to identify 20 percent of each department's budgets that could be cut.

"He's trying to justify this as a 'budget savings,' and I'm just appalled. It's just another publicity stunt. He doesn't outline how he'll save costs," Wilcox said.

Despite the protesters' belief that the segregation and separation of inmates is inhumane, separating inmates is not unconstitutional unless the illegal inmates are treated differently from other Tent City inmates, Meetze said.

Inmate separation is the exception and not the rule, according to the Pima County Sheriff's Office and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Texas. Both agencies experience a steady flow of illegal immigrant detention. According to both agencies crime severity and health issues are often the only criteria used to separate inmates.

Inmates at the Pima County Jail are not separated based on immigrant status or race, according to spokeswoman for the Pima County, Dawn Barking.

"We separate the ones that cannot live with others because of crime severity or mental issues," Jesse Tover, El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman, said.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... 04-ON.html

"There is absolutely nothing dignified about marching illegal immigrants in chain gangs," Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Phoenix, said.

Neither is there anything dignified about being the victim of a crime. ACLU better change their name to Illegal Alien CLU, as these pathetic legal eaglets have gone beyond the pale in their stringent work against the interests of American citizens.

"That's one of the most inhumane things I've ever heard," said Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who has consistently voiced concern over Arpaio's illegal immigration related policies. "He's trying to justify this as a 'budget savings,' and I'm just appalled. It's just another publicity stunt, and he doesn't outline how he'll save costs.

Hey, if American prisoners are treated this way, why is it wrong for ILLEGAL INVADERS? They deserve LESS than legal citizens.

I think they should be segregated because at the end they should be getting deported, not released into our society. Why sort them out later?
Thomas criticizes Arpaio on segregating illegal immigrants
90 commentsby Michael Kiefer - Feb. 5, 2009 05:15 PM
The Arizona Republic
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas broke ranks with his closest political ally Thursday by criticizing Sheriff Joe Arpaio's decision to segregate illegal immigrants in the county jails.

Arpaio announced the policy on Tuesday as a cost-cutting measure, and on Wednesday marched 220 convicted inmates from the Durango Jail to Tent City.

Thomas called it a disagreement among friends and said that the two had discussed the issue.

"I believe that racial and ethnic segregation by the government is unconstitutional." Thomas said. "That is why I filed a federal lawsuit challenging the race-based courts in this county's superior court system and to be consistent, I have to take the same approach to segregation elsewhere in our government."

Thomas was referring to his ongoing battle with the Maricopa County Superior Court over a DUI probation program conducted in Spanish. That case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District.

Thomas said he had no intention of suing Arpaio over the "disagreement."

But he cited a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rejected an unwritten policy of segregating prisoners by race - ostensibly to prevent gang battles - by the California Department of Corrections.

Arpaio said that his segregation of convicted illegal immigrants is for efficiency - to transport them after they serve their time, to facilitate visits from consular officials. And he pointed out that some of the prisoners were from Vietnam, Bosnia and Africa.

"They're not all from Mexico or Central America," he said. "I think it's a good management program."

As for Thomas' opinion, Arpaio said, "He said he had some concerns, and that's his opinion."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... s0206.html

Board asks Thomas to speak on jail policy
Comments 2 | Recommend 1

Gary Grado, Tribune

February 6, 2009 - 4:36PM


Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, left, orders approximately 200 convicted illegal immigrants handcuffed together and moved into a separate area of Tent City, inmates behind Arpaio, for incarceration until their sentences are served and they are deported to their home countries Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009, in Phoenix.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, left, orders approximately 200 convicted illegal immigrants handcuffed together and moved into a separate area of Tent City, inmates behind Arpaio, for incarceration until their sentences are served and they are deported to their home countries Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009, in Phoenix.
The Associated Press

County leaders want Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas to advise them on the potential financial and liability risks in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's new policy to segregate illegal immigrants from the general jail population.

Sheriff to house illegal immigrants separately

Supervisor Max Wilson, R-District 4, asked Thomas to appear before the Board of Supervisors at a special meeting on Monday.

Thomas has been quoted in the media as saying that racial and ethnic segregation by the government is unconstitutional.

"If this is the case, issues of potential liability and the related financial risks to Maricopa County are clearly implicated," Wilson wrote in a letter to Thomas on Friday.

Barnett Lotstein, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, said the request is unusual because lawyers typically meet with their clients behind closed doors, not in a public meeting.

The County Attorney's Office also gives legal advice, but it doesn't assess financial liability, he said.

"This is unusual and looks more like a publicity stunt than legal advice," Lotstein said.

Over the years, the crimes associated with illegal immigration have taxed local law enforcement.

Arpaio and Thomas have also been political and law-enforcement partners in the fight against illegal immigration.

Arpaio has announced plans to keep illegal immigrants separate from the rest of the inmate population. On Wednesday he accompanied about 200 inmates from one jailhouse to Tent City, where convicted inmates serving less than a year are housed.

He argued Friday that the inmates are segregated by immigration status, not by race, ethnicity or nationality.

"We have Vietnam, Romania - that's not too close to Mexico - Africa, South Korea, Jamaica, Argentina," Arpaio said.

Arpaio said segregation is a common practice in jail management, either by crimes or risk level.

For instance, sex offenders are at a higher risk to be harmed, so they are typically segregated.

Arpaio is keeping the convicted illegal immigrants apart from the general population to make it more convenient for them to meet with their foreign government officials and to centralize their deportation process.

The inmates are typically deported when they have finished serving their state sentence.

Lotstein hinted that Thomas would not personally appear at the special meeting on Monday.

"We'll be represented," Lotstein said. "The office will forward the appropriate advice."

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/135119

He should be head of homeland security can you imagine how much would get done!

County Supervisors Want Input From Andrew Thomas on Sheriff Arpaio's Segregation of Undocumented Inmates
By Ray Stern in NewsFriday, Feb. 6 2009 @ 4:52PM

First, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors strips County Attorney Andrew Thomas of the right to handle civil litigation for the county, causing Thomas to sue the board.

Now, the five-member board wants to bring Thomas in to a special meeting on Monday to get his advice on -- you guessed it -- potential civil litigation.

The issue at hand is the possible risk of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's latest publicity stunt -- the segregation of illegal immigrant jail inmates.

Max Wilson, chairman of the board, had a letter hand-delivered to Thomas this morning, (reprinted below), in which he asks Thomas to come to the meeting and advise the supervisors "about the legal implications and potential financial risk to the county resulting from the sheriff's actions."

The county has decided to outsource its other civil litigation matters, and the reason why the officials now want Thomas' opinion seems obvious:

To embarrass him and the sheriff.

Thomas and Arpaio have been close political allies in the last four years, and nowhere has that been more obvious than the tag-team assault on the supervisors that ramped up following the indictment of County Supervisor Don Stapley.

But Thomas drew a line in the sand yesterday, and Arpaio was left standing on the other side. The county attorney has been fighting a legal battle for a couple of years against the county Superior Court's use of a separate legal system for Spanish-speaking DUI defendants. Thomas now also takes issue with segregating inmates based on their immigration status.

"It's a matter of principle, and we have to be consistent," one of Thomas' top aides, Barnett Lotstein, tells New Times.

The principle stands even though the segregation isn't based on ethnicity or race, Lotstein says. In the DUI case, the defense argued against Thomas' position that the special DUI courts didn't segregate by race, but only by language. Lotstein says Thomas believes the result of such legal finessing -- both in terms of immigration status or language segregation -- would still look like racial segregation.

And Thomas has a point on this one. After all, just imagine the outcry if a public school system decided to open an elementary school just for "Spanish-speakers." There's little doubt many folks would see that as an under-handed attempt to separate students by ethnicity.

There's also little doubt Arpaio's inmate segregation could lead to a lawsuit. (What can't lead to a lawsuit these days?) That's definitely something on which the county needs to seek legal advice. But putting Thomas on the spot to give legal advice in a public setting -- that's the type of media-friendly move we usually see from -- hmm, let's think -- Arpaio and Thomas. Remember the way they showboated the investigation of state Attorney General Terry Goddard?

Lotstein says of Wilson's letter: "It seems to us it's more like a publicity stunt than a legit request for legal advice."

He adds it's even possible that, by having such a public discussion of the potential of lawsuits over Arpaio's plan, it may encourage people to sue.

Of course, that actually may be a good thing, depending on where you stand on the issue.

Now, you may be wondering why, if Thomas cares so much, he's not suing Arpaio like he's suing the court system over the DUI thing.

We sort of assume it has something to do with the strong political bonds between Arpaio and Thomas. Lotstein denies that, saying the real reason is that Thomas has weak legal standing to sue on the inmate issue.

In order to push forward a lawsuit, you have to prove you've been affected negatively by the issue at hand. Lotstein says the county attorney's office has "legal standing" in the DUI case because its employees have been forced to attend the special court trials as prosecutors, but that's one of the matters in dispute. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has the issue under advisement.

With the inmate segregation, no such legal standing or proof of harm can be alleged, Lotstein says. Individual inmates may be harmed by the policy, but not necessarily the county attorney's office. On the other hand, if the 9th Circuit Court ruled in Thomas' favor in the DUI case, it could bolster a potential claim to legal standing in the inmate case, Lotstein says. Nevertheless, Lotstein won't say whether Thomas would sue Arpaio eventually over the segregation policy.

Lotstein says he can't confirm whether or not Thomas plans to be at the supervisors' meeting.

Valley Fever will be there either way.

Text of Wilson's letter to Thomas follows:

I am very concerned about the potential financial implications to Maricopa County of the recent actions by the Maricopa County sheriff to segregate inmates who are undocumented immigrants from the general jail population. I am aware that you have been quoted in the Arizona Republic newspaper on Friday, 2/6/09, by stating "I believe that racial and ethnic segregation by the government is unconstitutional."

If this is the case, issues of potential liability and the related financial risk to Maricopa County are clearly implicated. It is urgent and I request that you personally appear at a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors I have scheduled on Monday, February 9, at 2 p.m., to advise the board about the legal implications and potential financial risk to the county resulting from the sheriff's actions.

Sincerely,



Max Wilson

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valley ... _input.php