The U.S. Justice Department is now going to investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio; something the liberals in congress and left wing human rights groups have been pushing for. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been a very effective warrior in the battle against illegal immigration.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s office and in particular Sheriff Joe Arpaio are now under investigation by the Justice department. The investigation has come at the request of congressional democrats and activist groups who say that the office has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.
Here is the list of geniuses who have instigated the investigation; John Conyers (D-MI), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Robert Scott (D-VA). Activist groups launched petition drives for the investigation as well; including ACORN. That’s what I would do if I were under investigation like ACORN, I would try and petition to have Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office investigated for upholding the law.
In a letter dated March 10, 2009 from acting assistant attorney general Loretta Smith says:
“This is to inform you that the United States Department of Justice is commencing an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (”MCSO”) pursuant to the pattern or practice provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,42 U.S.C. §14141 (”Section 14141″) and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968,42 U.S.C. § 3789d (”Safe Streets Act”), and pursuant to the prohibitions against national origin discrimination in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7 (”Title Yr’) and the Safe Streets Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c).”
The letter continues: “The investigation will focus on alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO, and on allegations of national origin discrimination, including failure to provide meaningful access to MCSO services for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals.”
“In conducting the investigation, we will seek to determine whether there are violations of the above laws by the MCSO,” the letter says.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio has drawn criticism in the past for the way he has enforce immigration laws; but in this day and time of political correctness run amuck, a guy like Joe Arpaio should expect to be investigated by the DOJ and have every liberal activist group screaming at the top of their lungs.
In the past 18 months, the Maricopa county sheriff’s office has determined that over 16,000 inmates in their jail have been illegal aliens living in the state of Arizona. That number 16,000 represents about 1/3 of all inmates in the country who have been placed on hold after being identified as illegal aliens. Twenty percent of the inmates in the Maricopa county jail are illegal aliens, and of those some 70% had committed a felony. Sheriff Joe Arpaio makes no apology for the way he fights crime. We need more Sheriff Joe Arpaios.
The congressional democrats who asked for this investigation have also asked that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, former governor of Arizona, investigate the training provided by Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio Video
March 12th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
This makes me heartsick….I adore Sheriff Joe. He has done NOTHING wrong!
March 12th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Sheriff Joe rocks! I wish there were more like him. Many more.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Sheriff Joe is a ego driven fool, who cares more about getting on TV and winning elections than fighting crime!! I have no problem with his Immigration sweeps, do it in your down time but to go after day workers and landscapers when there is 40,000 outstanding felony warrants here in Maricopa county is bad business! I worry a hell of lot more about violent felons than I do mexican day workers!!!!!!!!!
March 13th, 2009 at 5:03 am
For someone who lives in Maricopa county, it sounds like you are not very well informed:
“The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.”
Sounds to me like Joe is doing a fine job.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:55 am
What a shame. We can’t have this man enforcing the law. It looks bad for Barry in Charge and his chance of getting re-anointed in 2012.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Good thing we know who the real bad guy is.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Arrest records from crime sweeps conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office add substantial weight to claims that deputies used racial profiling to pull Latino motorists over to search for illegal immigrants.
The records show that most people arrested were Latinos, even when the sweeps were held in predominantly White areas. The sweeps frequently targeted heavily Latino areas or day-labor corridors, and most of those arrested during highly discretionary stops for reasons such as cracked windshields were Latinos, the records show. Immigration enforcement also seemed to be a main goal of the operations, which is prohibited: In five of the eight sweeps, immigration arrests outnumbered other types of arrests, the records show.
The arrest logs show that deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos during each of the eight crime sweeps. Several of the patrols were conducted in largely Hispanic areas of the Valley or in areas where Latino day laborers congregate, such as 32nd Street and Thomas Road, Bell and Cave Creek roads in Phoenix and the town of Guadalupe.
Joe Arpaio own words that it is an honor to be compared to the KKK, Is enough for most to understand his prejudice nature.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:41 am
“The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.�
Yeah sure The MCSO’s Press release, keep drinking the kool aid
March 13th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Joe Arpaio’s Guards Break Woman’s Arm (Allegedly), ICE Releases Her on Own Recognizance
By Stephen Lemons
Thursday,
Mar. 12 2009 @ 10:03PM
http://blogs.phoenixnewtime...
Maria del Carmen Garcia Martinez, after being released from ICE custody.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a suspected illegal immigrant Thursday night after it was determined that her arm had been broken while she was in MCSO custody.
Maria del Carmen Garcia Martinez was released on her own recognizance, her left arm slung in a cast after she received treatment at St. Joseph’s. She had been turned over to ICE earlier in the day by the MCSO. ICE took her to St. Joseph’s for medical attention, photographed her injuries and released her with a pending court date around 8 p.m. from its offices on Central Ave.
Martinez, being greeted by her family outside ICE’s Central Avenue HQ.
Martinez, 47, was met by her family, Respect/Respeto activist Lydia Guzman and a couple of reporters, including yours truly. Her left arm was swollen as was her leg and ankle. As her daughter Sandra translated, she explained that she was recently arrested by the Phoenix Police Department, after she was questioned about posting signs for a yard sale.
She said she was arrested for a having a fraudulent I.D., even though her I.D. was an out-of-date I.D. card from California, according to her. Martinez was then collared and booked into MCSO custody.
(Oddly, the Phoenix PD’s on-call spokesperson, an Officer Holmes, said he could find no record of Martinez in their system.)
While in custody at Lower Buckeye Jail, Martinez said she was brutalized by six MCSO detention officers, who were trying to get her to put her fingerprints on a voluntrary removal order, a document wherein an undocumented foreign national gives his or her consent to be repatriated.
(Lydia Guzman asserted that sometimes MCSO will attempt to get a fingerprint instead of a signature for the VR form. An ICE spokesman had no immediate explanation for this procedure.)
Martinez refused, as was her right, but the officers tried to force her, she said. They stepped on her, twisted her arm, and beat her. She noticed that one of the officers was Hispanic.
“Why are you doing this to me, when you came from Mexico also,” she told the Hispanic guard.
She was placed in a cell by herself, and later that night she was visited by eight MCSO officers, who warned her to sign the VR, or, “We’re all going to get you,” she said they told her.
Martinez’s right hand was swollen, and stained with blue ink.
A fellow inmate advised Martinez’s daughter that her mother had been beat down. She feared for her mother’s life, and advised her lawyers, who filed an emergency stay on Martinez’s behalf.
According to her daughter Sandra, Martinez was a housemom, who stayed home and took care of the family. Martinez’s husband works as a handyman. They came here three years ago from California, looking for a less expensive way of life.
“I’m proud of her, and I’m glad that she’s out,” said Sandra, her eyes welling with tears. “I couldn’t sleep. I would think of her, and cry every night because I missed her so much.”
Ironically, because the MCSO has apparently abused her, Martinez may get to stay in this country permanently, noted Guzman, who has been following the case since Martinez was arrested.
March 14th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I read somewhere he was proud of saying he was able to feed his prisoners in his tent cities on as little as $1.67 or something a day. I don’t see how you can feed anyone a reasonably balanced nutritional diet for that little. So if you get picked up on some parking violation in the county for an unpaid ticket expect to be nutritionally starved.
March 14th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I like how you snidely criticize the investigation without ever discussing whether Arpaio is guilty. Your “reasoning” was (a) Arpaio is tough on illegal immigrants so (b) he shouldn’t be investigated regardless of the allegations, evidence, etc. This website really defines downward what it means to be a “pundit.”
March 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Oh, and the little you say about the investigation is completely wrong: the alleged wrongdoing isn’t simply “that the office has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.” A key allegation, supported by identified witnesses, is that Arpaio stops and detains people, including citizens, just because they look Latino. Stopping and detaining citizens based on nothing but their race is illegal — but even if you think it should be legal, the claim isn’t just that Arpaio “violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.”
Way to go criticizing a government action about which you didn’t bother to get informed at all. I hope all “right pundits” are as D-list opponents for the Obama admin!
March 14th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
20% or so of prisoners being illegal aliens is about correct across the country,
much of gang activity involves illegal aliens
March 15th, 2009 at 6:31 am
“lisab”, do you have a source saying that 20% of prisoners nationwide are illegal aliens? I think you’re BS’ing, and here’s why: if 20% is the figure for Arpaio’s county near the MExican border, the figrue must be lower for the vast majority of American counties not near a border. That is, I’m sure Apraio has a higher percent of illegal aliens in his prisons than most county sheriffs.
March 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I don’t know why you call them illegal aliens as its really a massive land invasion thats been going on over three generations and they now comprise a large part of the labor force both skilled and unskilled and have essentially grandfathered themselves in by paying “work and tax dues”. I am not saying be happy our country is being repeopled with a perpetually cheaper labor force as that keeps all our wages and opportunities in many cases down destroying the middle class as we formerly knew it. The American continents borders have been somewhat fungible to say the least, though now we like to think its finally settled. well its not. Since America is run by the corporations and special interests this labor niche has well planted itself because it has helped enable them. Even our military will take aliens in with the promise of a path to citizenship, so your being selective in your outrage. Given the higher birth rates among the illegals it will and has changed the face of the nation. So I am not sure just what Arpaio is really trying to accomplish at this point. He is a New York transplant himself. Think about that.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:06 am
[...] recently, the Feds have began investigating Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Arizona after local groups filed complaints, claiming that the Sheriff is violating the civil [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 6:34 am
The letter to Sheriff Arpaio also states:
“If …we conclude there are such violations, we will inform you of the findings …we
will identify any financial, technical, or other assistance the United States maybe able to provide to assist the MCSO in correcting the identified deficiencies.”
First the stimulus and now this!! This just adds insult to injury. The US government makes us take the wasteful stimulus and then when they tell the MCSO—incorrectly—that they are in violation of immigration law, they’re gonna use US taxpayers money and correct it!! WE NEED TO REVOLT!
BTW, you may notice that I have taken no time validating sources in Shannon’s article. At this point, I kinda think it is a waste of time. She just makes things up as she goes along.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I’m sorry David, I really wish you would “validate” for the other nitwits like myself.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:35 am
While I have no real objection to Arpaio’s control of illegal immigration, I still despise him because of his decades as a committed Drug Warrior. I heard him claim once that the notion of legalization is a “defeatist” attitude.
Anyone who thinks we can actually win the Drug War needs to have his head examined. How is jailing our people at a record rate not defeatist? In fact, ending prohibition is just about the most hopeful, trusting idea out there. And he calls it defeatist.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Are you insane? Joe Arpaio is the only Sheriff out there who believes and punishes the criminals who have broken the laws.My family has been a victim of a Child Molester.It has destroyed our lives.He is in prison and has only served six years, so far.He was convicted for 18 years and will probally get out in less than 9 years. We go to a parole hearing every 6 months.My children will never have a real dad. I’ve spent thousands on therpy for my family. My daughter will never Ever be the same little sweet girl.I also only receive 1.30 to maybe if I’m lucky a whole 55.00 for child support for my other two daughters. People who have not lived this kind of life have no idea the damage and the injustice AND SHOULD NOT get to say what happens to a criminal.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:10 am
We need to have all states sheriffs and prisons run in the same manner. They are criminals and deserve to be treated like the scum they are. They broke the laws. We should not have to have them live with the rest of society. We should not have to pay for them either. Why should they have protection and accomidation given to them when we are out here working for our homes, food etc. They screwed up and they get what they deserve.
We should all vote for others like him. He should be in charge of the Justice System. Maybe then we wouldn’t have repeated child molesters. What are you thinking???
July 27th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
JOE ARPAIO HAS BEEN LOOKING INTO MY HOME WITH DOPPLER RADAR VIOLATING MY RIGHTS AND IM A USA CITIZEN HE HAS MADE THREATS ON ME AND MY FAMILY