Last Update:  Friday, 03 December, 2010 09:15

Investigating the sheriff for enforcing the law?

Illegal aliens have civil rights?

Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law
Thursday, March 12, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer


(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) requested the investigation, and activists groups such as National Day Laborer Organizer Network and ACORN launched petition drives and rallies in support of the probe.

The investigation focuses on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and dozens of officers under his command who were trained through the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS), which partners federal and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. (The Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division is known popularly as ICE.)

In a letter dated March 10, 2009, Loretta Smith, acting assistant attorney general at the DOJ, detailed what her department would be investigating:

"This is to inform you that the United States Department of Justice is commencing an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (''MCSO'') pursuant to the pattern or practice provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,42 U.S.C. §14141 ("Section 14141") and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968,42 U.S.C. § 3789d ("Safe Streets Act"), and pursuant to the prohibitions against national origin discrimination in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7 ("Title Yr') and the Safe Streets Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c)."

The letter continues: "The investigation will focus on alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO, and on allegations of national origin discrimination, including failure to provide meaningful access to MCSO services for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals."

"In conducting the investigation, we will seek to determine whether there are violations of the above laws by the MCSO," the letter says.

Sheriff Arpaio's efforts to enforce immigration laws have been the focus of previous criticism, but Arpaio has defended his department and the results his ICE-trained officers have netted.

Concerning the DOJ’s investigation, Arpaio told CNSNews.com: “I will not back down. What I am doing is upholding the laws of the state of Arizona, and I will not be persuaded to turn my back on my oath of office as sheriff of this county.”

In an August 2008 press release, Arpaio's office detailed those results.

"While the Sheriff’s illegal immigration and human smuggling operations conducted on the streets and roadways here have netted nearly 2,300 arrests, another very successful effort to locate illegal aliens has been quietly happening inside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails," the release said.

It continues: "Despite the growing criticism of the Sheriff’s illegal immigration fight by some valley politicians and activists, Sheriff Arpaio says 60 detention officers trained by ICE officials have conducted over 106,000 interviews and investigations of inmates booked into jail since April of 2007.

"In those 18 months, 16,000 inmates were determined to be illegal aliens. Either they have already been deported or will be deported after being tried and/or serving their sentences for crimes committed in the valley. The work being done be Arpaio’s detention staff is a likely contributor to the recent reduction in crime in the valley,” the press release added.

"That number of 16,000 represents a full one-third (1/3) of all inmates in the United States who have had holds placed on them after being identified by jail or prison officials as illegal aliens."

The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.

Those felony crimes committed included the following: forgery, 12 percent; kidnapping, 10 percent; aggravated assault, 7 percent; driving under the influence, 7 percent; drug charges, 27 percent; robbery, 3 percent; murder, 3 percent; and theft, 4 percent.

The Democratic Congress members have also asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to launch an investigation into the training provided by ICE.




All original CNSNews.com material, copyright 1998-2009 Cybercast News Service.

04/08/2009 - Judicial Watch:

NAACP: No Racial Profiling In Immigration Crackdown

The nation’s oldest civil rights group rejected a request to portray an Arizona sheriff who enforces immigration law as a racial profiler in congressional hearings.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) actually turned down the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee by refusing his invitation to describe Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies as racial profilers during recent immigration hearings on Capitol Hill.

The Judiciary Committee Chairman, Michigan Democrat John Conyers, has spearheaded a federal investigation into Arpaio’s high-profile immigration arrests and he recruited a series of open borders advocates to testify in congressional hearings last week.

In his desperate effort to prove the popular sheriff is a discriminating and perpetual civil rights violator, Conyers enlisted the president of the local chapter of the NAACP to trash the entire department for doing its job.

The NAACP answered the call by saying it had no racial profiling complaints about the sheriff’s office or other local law enforcement agencies. Conyers still found Latino rights groups to testify against Arpaio at the hearings although they could hardly offer the weight of the country’s best known and most established civil rights group.

The Maricopa Sheriffs Department is the biggest law enforcement agency to participate in a federal program that allows local agencies to enforce immigration laws. The crackdowns were actually requested by numerous county business owners and city leaders desperate to remedy the illegal immigration crisis that has overwhelmed their border state.

The sweeps have helped rid the area of numerous illegal aliens—some violent criminals who fell through the cracks—who should have been deported long ago and helped restore much-needed law and order in a Phoenix business district (36th & Thomas) rife with solicitation, trespassing, loitering and public health ordinance violations.

In the past two weeks alone 108 illegal immigrants were arrested by Maricopa deputies and more than half were booked on felony charges, including human smuggling, identity theft and forgery. Conyers’ highly publicized hearings were inspired by a Justice Department investigation into allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures on the part of Maricopa deputies who patrol the Phoenix metropolitan area.