Arpaio's Kumbaya moment comes around 28 minutes in...
See also: Puente Kicks Off "Undocubus" with Pro-Immigrant March See also: The complete slideshow of Puente's "Undocubus" Pro-Immigrant March
Well, I reckon we can just forget about that racial-profiling trial underway against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in federal court, because Sheriff Joe believes in comprehensive immigration reform.
That's right, CIR may be anathema to the nativist junta that rules the Republican Party, but to listen to Joe on the National Public Radio show "On Point," you'd think he and President Obama could sit right down and hash out this immigration issue once and for all.
"Let's have some comprehensive immigration reform, if that will ever happen," Arpaio told host Wade Goodwyn during Tuesday's broadcast. "Let's hope that next year something does happen and get this settled. If you need more visas, work permits, that's OK. I'm for all that. Just don't cross that border [and] come into this country illegally. That's all."
A video about the Undocubus from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Arpaio's Kumbaya moment came during a discussion of the Undocubus's trek from Phoenix to Charlotte, NC for the Democratic Convention beginning September 4. Sponsored by the local human rights group Puente, the passengers are undocumented men and women, willing to risk arrest by simply declaring their immigration status publicly through this trip.
His insincere support for CIR aside, the "shurf" made it clear that he thought the Undocubus riders should be busted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"If another crime's being committed, and then law enforcement start's checking the immigration status, you will call ICE and ICE will come and pick them up," Arpaio said. "That's what we do here, I'm not just talking about young people.
"Of course the new policy now is that they won't pick them up, and so you have a form of amnesty, and I don't think that's right."
Never mind that Arpaio currently operates under his own grant of amnesty from the U.S. Department of Justice, which despite suing Arpaio's office in federal court over the MCSO's discriminatory policing, has yet to bring indictments against Arpaio for his flagrant, criminal violations of abuse of power statutes.
So give us all a break when you're talking about "amnesty," Joe. You're the biggest unindicted lawbreaker in the state. An undocumented mom or dad or teen can't compete with your gross criminality.
The riders of the Undocubus didn't let Arpaio off the hook, however. One called in from the bus and asked the sheriff about the hundreds of uninvestigated sex crimes in El Mirage.
And Tania Unzueta, a guest on the show and an Undocubus rider from Chicago, let the octogenarian have it right between his beady little eyes.
"It's like Sheriff Arpaio and us are living in two different worlds, but the reality is that we're not," she said, adding, "This is a sheriff who has referred to his jail as a concentration camp, and he's said to be proud...to be considered KKK, and is finally answering for it on trial."
Such statements set Arpaio on his predictable rants, but he can bluster all he wants. When federal Judge G. Murray Snow rules in Melendres, Arpaio finally will have to comply with the constitution or face contempt of court, crushing fines and at least hypothetical arrest.
A federal judge outranks you, sheriff. And before the bar of justice you will finally bow.
As for the Undocubus passengers, as the video above attests, they are the Freedom Riders of the 21st Century, and they will prevail.
To follow the Undocubus's journey to Charlotte, check out its website at nopapersnofear.org.
