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What if Joe could put CEOs in pink?

Valdez
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Aug. 6, 2006 12:00 AM

I told Sheriff Joe he might not like what I was going to write about him. He said it didn't really matter. If I write something bad, his poll numbers will just go up.

Joe Arpaio isn't bragging when he says he outpolls 'em all and "even Janet."

The more the media and the intellectual elites treat him like a crazy old aunt, the more the public loves him.

He puts inmates in pink underwear because "they hate pink." He feeds them green baloney to save money. He houses them in tents where, he says with glee, it got to be 141 degrees the other day.

I toured the tents last week, saw the cots covered in pink sheets and the fans blasting away in futility. I couldn't get outraged over what looked like a professionally run operation.

The tents house those serving convictions of a year or less. Those awaiting trial are in air-conditioned jails that range from slightly obsolete to high-tech. All are clean.

Tent City residents have a cool place to eat and get in out of the heat. Unlike the residents of most jails, they can see the sky day or night.

Sheriff Joe has about 10,000 people in his detention centers. Most of the ones I saw on a half-day tour weren't the kind of people you would want hanging around your house.

But the sheriff does have 258 people in jail that you might be happy to hire to trim your trees. These are people who might have worked in your favorite restaurant.

They are illegal immigrants who were arrested for conspiracy to smuggle themselves into the country. The rationale for these arrests comes from County Attorney Andrew Thomas' goofy interpretation of a law that was written to give the state authority to go after smugglers.

Sheriff Joe says that when the law was passed, he thought it applied only to smugglers. Now, he says he agrees with Thomas, whose opinion is being challenged in court.

When I pointed out that the sponsors of the bill say it was never meant to apply to the people being smuggled, Sheriff Joe said, "They are pretty stupid legislators when they don't even know what they are passing. . . . If that's not what they meant, then they should go back and change the law. Let's see if they have the guts to do that."

Undoubtedly, they don't. Doing anything that looks even remotely soft on illegal immigration is political suicide these days.

So Sheriff Joe is going to continue to lock 'em up. He hopes to reach 500 by the end of the year. He says this will make illegal immigrants think twice about coming to Maricopa County.

That kind of tough talk on the nation's most popular wedge issue put him back on national TV, where the glare of the lights brings out the twinkle in his eyes. He loves publicity like a hound dog loves to hunt.

People love the fact that he actually is doing something about a problem that every other politician is trying to talk to death. But he's doing the wrong thing.

During my tour of the jail, I talked to several of the men arrested as part of Thomas' misinterpretation of the law. They had been in jail since May. One said he had lived and worked in California for the past 15 years. He went home to Mexico when his father died. The posse nabbed him on the way back. Now, he wonders how his family in California is going to pay the rent.

Sheriff Joe says every felon has a sob story. "We should feel sorry because 'How is the family going to pay the bills?' Where do we draw the line?"

At justice, maybe? Most felons know the crime they are committing could land them behind bars. Most immigrants know that if they can get past the border gantlet, they will be left alone to work. That's how it has been for decades.

The policy of the United States has been to make a great show of trying to stop illegal immigrants at the border, while doing virtually nothing to hinder the business owners who break the law by hiring them. The practice has been de facto amnesty for both sides of a law-breaking partnership.

It remains politically risky to go after the employers. They make campaign donations and carry clout. Illegal immigrants are fair game.

"It's sad in a way, isn't it?" Sheriff Joe says. "Don't think I don't know that. But I still enforce the law."

Just think what Joe could do in a real fight against illegal immigration.

If the Democrats in Arizona's Legislature had succeeded in their efforts to pass a state law sanctioning those who employ illegal immigrants, his take-all-prisoners approach could have made a difference. The law they proposed only called for fines. The Republicans who control the Legislature blocked that bill in favor of a more sweeping measure that invited and got the governor's veto. If the Dems' version had passed, some creative interpretation of it could have given Sheriff Joe the chance to put a few CEOs in pink underwear.

That would have meant big-time clucking by the media and the intellectual elites.

But the masses would cheer. And so would I.



Reach the writer at linda.valdez@arizonarepublic.com.





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