Glenn Beck has some fun at Arpaio's expense on Beck's Fox TV show
I normally loathe Glenn Beck and his smarmy posturings, but I may have to reconsider that attitude after watching Beck mercilessly mess with our geriatric top gendarme on his Friday show. At points, Beck openly makes fun of Arpaio, laughing at his insistence that there's a "federal law" that essentially allows Arpaio to profile, in absence of a 287(g) street agreement.
"I'm just trying to understand this," Beck wonders at one point. "They say you can't enforce the federal laws. So how are you going to enforce it and still be a man of your word?"
"Because I'm going to enforce the state laws," responds Arpaio. "And there is a federal law that they don't seem to understand is there, that I will enforce also."
"Which is what?" asks Beck.
"Which is, if local law enforcement comes across some people, that have a erratic, or scared, or whatever, you know, they're worried," Joe responds, "and if they have, their speech, what they look like, if they just look like they came from another country, we can take care of that situation. But I don't need that anyway, Glenn, I can still do the job."
"Hang on," says Beck. "When was that law written? Because all I hear about is that sounds like profiling. And the government is saying you can't profile anybody."
Arpaio claims this license to profile is buried somewhere in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Huh? There's nothing in the '96 law that says that. He might be talking about some DOJ memorandum on racial profiling, and twisting it to meet his needs. But it's not in the IIRIRA.
Amusingly, Beck later wonders if this means Arpaio is looking for people wearing sombreros.
Beck asks Joe why people guilty of what is essentially a federal misdemeanor should be in jail, and Arpaio insists that all undocumented immigrants are "criminals." There's then a discussion of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's recent announcement that ICE will seek alternatives to detention for low-risk aliens.
Arpaio insists this plan won't work, in part, because, "They [presumably Mexican immigrants] like to fight each other."
Just more evidence of Joe's role as Archie Bunker with a badge. Add it to similar statements recorded by GQ magazine writer Alexander Provan in his recent, damning profile of Maricopa County's ancient lawman.
In other Joe-related news, the Reverend Al Sharpton returns to Phoenix on October 16, the same day of Joe's first non-287(g) sweep. Sharpton will be at the AE England Building of Downtown Phoenix Civic Space Park for a civil rights forum sponsored by ASU's Center for Community Development and Civil Rights. This, according to a recent e-mail the center sent out to all and sundry.
The forum is from 8 to 9:45 a.m. Maybe afterwards, the participants, who include state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, could join the anti-Arpaio activists in observing MCSO deputies deprive brown folk of their rights. Why talk about oppression when you can watch it unfurl before you?
You'll recall that Sharpton was here in June. He spoke at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, did his radio show from Mary Rose Wilcox's El Portal restaurant, met briefly with Arpaio, and later spanked Arpaio publicly in a debate on Lou Dobbs' CNN show. If we're lucky, perhaps they'll cross swords again.
The e-mail announcement says seating is limited, and a free ticket will be required for entry. You can pick up tickets October 12 through 15, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the ASU Mercado Building, Center for Community Development & Civil Rights, 542 E Monroe, Suite D100, in Phoenix.
