Does the Arizona Republic give a flip about these victims of Arpaio and Montgomery? Their loved ones were nabbed in a work site raid, not a sweep
The gaggle of physics professors over at the Arizona Republic's editorial board have outdone themselves, this time with a solution to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's racial-profiling ways.
See Also: Joe Arpaio Recall: Arizona Republic's Falsehoods, Hypocrisy, and Delusional Self-Importance Joe Arpaio and the MCSO Need a Court-Appointed Babysitter in the Melendres Racial-Profiling Case Coddling Joe: How Do You Collaborate With a Felon?
Ready? Here goes: Stop funding Arpaio's controversial anti-immigration sweeps.
Great idea, dudes and dudettes, you're only about, oh, five or six years late. Also, Arpaio's last sweep took place back in October of 2011, more than a year and a half-ago.
I can't wait for the Rep's next thought-provoking essay on the Reagan administration's arms-for-hostages scandal.
Did the folks who said grace over the unsigned editorial, "Stop funding Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration sweeps," bother to read federal Judge G. Murray Snow's blockbuster 142-page decision on the ACLU's big racial profiling case, Melendres v. Arpaio?
If so, remedial reading skills may be in order.
The sweeps were a big issue in the lawsuit, but the problem is much broader and deeper than sweeps the MCSO has discontinued. Though, as the judge points out, the MCSO had maintained that it still possesses the authority to do its Latino round-ups, if it wishes.
See, Snow's finding that the MCSO engages in biased policing, and his injunctions forbidding such activity in the future, affects several layers of the MCSO's anti-immigrant agenda.
For instance, MCSO's Human Smuggling Unit and the enforcement of Arizona's Human Smuggling Law is affected. Ditto Arpaio's Criminal Employment Squad, and CES raids on local businesses.
Normally, such raids are done under state forgery and ID theft laws, but these operations are still impacted by the decision, which is one reason the MCSO has temporarily halted work site raids.
Furthermore, the MCSO's policy in turning non-criminal aliens over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been neutered by Snow.
Indeed, the ruling affects all of Arpaio's 900 sworn deputies, as the MCSO had all of them erroneously trained with misinformation about immigration law.
Any contact between the MCSO and Latinos is therefore subject to suspicion and possible legal action.
The MCSO's gendarmes must be retrained, under the guidance of a court-appointed monitor. A comprehensive, written policy against racial profiling must be created and enacted.
It goes without saying that the MCSO has a lot of work to do in mending relations with a community that it has demonized, discriminated against, and terrorized for so many years.
Then there's the U.S. Department of Justice's ongoing civil rights lawsuit against Arpaio's office, which covers some of the same ground as Melendres.
In that suit, the DOJ is also concerned with abuse of power allegations, the MCSO's mishandling of sex crimes investigations and the systematic abuse and discrimination of Latinos in Joe's jails.
Regarding the CES's raids on businesses, the DOJ notes in its December 15, 2011 letter to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery that,
"The CES targets worksites where most, if not all, of the employees are Latinos."
The Rep obviously finds the sweeps morally reprehensible. Or at least it does now. Back in 2008, it wrote of the sweeps that, "It would also be an oversimplification to dismiss what Arpaio is doing as entirely without merit."
How times have changed.
What about the raids and the way undocumented workers are treated by Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery?
Do the weeping children and sobbing family members in the video above from Puente stir any indignation in the Rep's scribblers?
Finally, the Rep apparently believes that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, essentially the county purse, can attach strings to and even deny funds to certain law enforcement activities with which it disagrees.
Why would that authority over the county kitty be lessened when deciding whether or not to fund an appeal of Melendres?
Sure, Arpaio can appeal all he wants, as long as he pays for it. Racial profiling is illegal. County taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for morally indefensible actions by Arpaio and his men that violate federal law.
