Guadalupe made it clear that Joe Arpaio’s attacking anyone with brown skin

Arpaio's sweep in Guadalupe has also forced the hand of Arizona's notoriously milquetoast governor. Governor Napolitano didn't completely acknowledge that Guadalupe was a factor in her recent decision to pull $1.6 million in immigration funds from Arpaio's coffers. But during her regular Wednesday press conference not long after the costly slap in the face to her former ally, Arpaio, she made this slippery, legalistic statement:

"To the extent that the sheriff was using state money to fund sweeps that were causing trepidation in the immigration community, that state money will no longer be available."

Mordicai Sulk

Mordicai Sulk

Related Content

• Joe Arpaio/MCSO Lawyer Explains Some Actual Objections to Justice Department Monitor
  May 14, 2012
• Joe Arpaio and MCSO Officially Sued by the Justice Department for Racial Discrimination
  May 10, 2012
• Joe Arpaio on Blast by Tom Perez, Courtesy of Dennis Gilman
  May 11, 2012
• Justice Department Lets MCSO Know It's Suin', While Joe Arpaio Releases Booklet Detailing How His Office Ought to Operate
  May 9, 2012
• Victims Wonder Why Arpaio Let Sex-Abuse Cases Languish
  February 16, 2012

More About

• Patty Jimenez
• Joe Arpaio
• Calle Guadalupe
• Politics
• Local Politics

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to stick by Arpaio, who has 160 federally trained 287(g) officers under a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE, but sometimes even ICE hedges its bets. ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard recently pointed out that ICE had nothing to do with the stops and arrests that the MCSO was making under state law.

"We have no oversight of how [the] Maricopa County Sheriff's Office conducts its state authority," Picard said.

Arpaio's response to it all has ranged from sounding hurt to appearing outright psychotic. It's forced him into damage-control mode: having his PR staff schedule long Q&As with local dailies, set up appearances on Sunday-evening radio shows to curry favor with moderates, seek donations from well-wishers to make up the $1.6 million the governor just ripped from his department's budget.

All so he can continue hunting Hispanics.

Even the MCSO's foray into Arpaio's backyard — white-bread Fountain Hills (where deputies managed to scrape up 16 suspected illegals in two days by halting nearly every old truck with landscaping equipment in it during the morning hours) — was tailor-made to refute the contention that Arpaio goes only into brown areas like Guadalupe.

"We don't go into certain neighborhoods, like people accuse me of doing, like the mayor of Phoenix [accuses him of doing]," the sheriff told reporters on the first day of the Fountain Hills operation. "We go everywhere!"

But Arpaio wouldn't have gone to Fountain Hills if it hadn't been for Guadalupe blowing up in his face. Nor would he have paused his anti-immigrant sweeps for four weeks. Or hesitated to march into Mesa and stick it to the Hispanic community there.

Guadalupe made Arpaio back down. And should Arpaio's forces blanket the Hispanic sections of Mesa or some other Valley town tomorrow, the sheriff will further compound the ill will he's created for himself and mobilize his opponents.