Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be more aggressive when it comes to questioning illegal immigrants about wildfires, echoing Senator John McCain's baseless claim that immigrants started fires currently burning in southern Arizona.
Arpaio made the announcement in a press release this afternoon. New Times, however, did not get a copy of the press release, and was flat-out ignored when we asked for one. Perhaps the MCSO didn't like our earlier critique of Arpaio's "exceptional" year.
ABC 15 got a copy, and reports the following:
Deputies arrested 20 immigrants as they made their way through Maricopa County Wednesday morning.
All were reportedly from Mexico and said they were headed to locations in Texas, Tennessee, and New York state.
They all entered the border near where the fires are burning in southeast Arizona, according to the news release.
"It's a long shot I know," Arpaio said. "But since we already gather information from them about their U.S. entry points and travelling routes and methods, this is simply one more area of intelligence to explore that may help us to determine the origins of these fires."
Chances are, hounding illegal immigrants about wildfires won't determine the fire's origin. It will, however, appeal to the brown-bashing voters who keep electing this guy -- and continuously turn a blind eye to the millions of dollars of their money he pisses away.
In any event, it seems Mexico's in need of a new national anthem -- courtesy of Billy Joel.