News (Noticias) Tagged ‘Maricopa County’

CONTACT: Maria Archuleta, ACLU national, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Alessandra Soler-Meetze, ACLU of Arizona, (602) 650-1854
Laura Rodriguez, MALDEF, (310) 956-2425; lrodriguez@maldef.org
David Bodney, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, (602) 257-5212

PHOENIX – Today, five individuals and Somos America, a Latino community-based coalition, sued Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) and Maricopa County, charging that they or their members were unlawfully stopped and mistreated by law enforcement because they are Latino. The class action lawsuit - which builds upon a complaint filed last December - is before the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

The amended complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and lead counsel Steptoe & Johnson LLP. The lawsuit charges that the policies and practices of Arpaio and the county are discriminatory and unlawfully violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Arizona Constitution.

“In this country we value fairness and equality. There’s nothing fair or equal about armed deputies pulling people over and treating them differently because of the color of their skin,” said ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda. “Sheriff Arpaio does not have the right to profile people because they look Latino regardless of their immigration status. His job is to uphold the law, not violate people’s rights.”

Sheriff Arpaio has made no secret that he believes physical appearance alone is sufficient reason to stop and question individuals regarding their immigration status. Arpaio has also touted the fact that he has directed his deputies to target people they perceive as immigrants in so-called “crime suppression sweeps” in Latino neighborhoods and areas where Latinos work as day laborers.

MCSO’s rampant racial profiling has created a culture of fear in Maricopa County. Latinos in the community have good reason to worry that a trip to the grocery store or to work will end with interrogation by armed officers on the roadside and possible incarceration at the county jail.

One plaintiff in the coalition’s lawsuit, Manuel Nieto, Jr., a U.S. citizen, was unlawfully stopped and detained in front of his family’s auto repair shop after police heard him listening to music in Spanish.

“It was very humiliating to be handcuffed in front of my family’s business, in front of customers and neighbors,” said Nieto. “It’s not a crime to be Latino or listen to a Spanish-language radio station but you wouldn’t know that by the way Sheriff Joe and his posse treat people.”

David J. Bodney, an attorney with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, said, “At the sheriff’s hand, an atmosphere of fear and hostility has swept across the valley. It takes courage and commitment for these individual plaintiffs to come forward in the name of equal justice under law to stop this discriminatory treatment for everyone who lives here.”

Maricopa County residents and local officials alike have complained that the conduct of the sheriff and his office go well beyond the scope of the MCSO’s legal authority and far too often results in the harassment of Latinos. Many complain that the sheriff’s obsession with enforcing federal immigration law has come at the expense of his office pursuing serious criminal matters.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has denounced Sheriff Arpaio and last April, after the MCSO engaged in sweeps in the town of Guadalupe, Gordon formally requested that U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey launch a Justice Department investigation into Sheriff Arpaio’s and the MCSO’s “discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests” of Latino persons in Maricopa County. Gordon has also publicly stated that the sweeps are interfering with the work of undercover city police officers and federal agents.

“Police should not be in the business of acting as immigration agents; everyone’s safety is jeopardized when they do,” said MALDEF staff attorney Kristina Campbell. “In Maricopa County, as in other parts of the country, when local police try to take on the job of being immigration officers, immigrants and their family members often get the message that they should fear coming forward if they are the victim or witness of a crime.”

Increased attempts by local police to involve themselves in federal immigration law enforcement have been accompanied by a troubling rise in complaints of racial profiling across the nation.

“As charges of discrimination have mounted, Sheriff Arpaio has only dug in his heels, and the federal government has thus far done nothing to rein him in,” said Robin Goldfaden, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Unfortunately, court intervention is necessary for the Constitution to be upheld.”

Lawyers on the case, Ortega Melendres, et al. v. Arpaio, et al., include Goldfaden and Mónica M. Ramírez of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project; Pochoda of the ACLU of Arizona; Campbell and Nancy Ramirez of MALDEF; and Bodney, Peter Kozinets, Karen Hartman-Tellez and Isaac Hernandez of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

The complaint is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35998lgl20080716.html

The Letter from Mayor Gordon to Attorney General Mukasey is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35981res20080404.html

When it comes to immigration enforcement, outside of ICE or the Department of Homeland Security, only one other law enforcement department has become as synonymous with conducting hunts for undocumented immigrants — Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, or the one name that embodies the infamous department, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.”*

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Monday launched another crackdown on immigration and other criminal violators in Mesa”*

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans to begin a crackdown Thursday on immigration and other criminal violations in Mesa.

An estimated 200 people working for the sheriff’s office will focus on Arizona’s third-largest city in what’s expected to be a 2-day crackdown.”*

The number of suspected illegal immigrants arrested under the state’s felony human smuggling law surpassed 1,000 when Maricopa County deputies arrested 25 suspects earlier this week.”*

Frustrated by a steady flow of illegal Mexican immigrants into Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has decided to take matters into his own hands.

Arpaio dispatches teams of sheriff’s deputies into Hispanic communities where they stop people and arrest anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U.S. resident.

Now he faces an onslaught of criticism from Hispanic activists, local lawmakers and the Phoenix mayor, who call his crackdown on immigrants a clear case of racial profiling in which only people who look Hispanic are targeted.”*

Another Arizona law-enforcement agency is joining the growing ranks of those touting their efforts at tackling problems arising from illegal immigration. The Department of Public Safety on Monday released statistics that showed officers of a specialized unit have discovered 40 drophouses since the unit started investigations six months ago, arresting 99 suspected human smugglers and nearly 500 suspected illegal immigrants in the process.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has frequently contended that his agency is the only one in Arizona enforcing immigration laws, and privately DPS officials conceded that they want to differentiate the efforts of its Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension Co-op Team from those of the Sheriff’s Office forces. “*

He’s been described as Hitler and a member of the Klu Klux Klan by Hispanic critics and immigrant rights groups, but Sheriff Joe Arpaio prefers to see himself as an equal opportunities advocate. “We lock everybody up,” he says.

Arpaio, the self-styled “toughest sheriff in America” has ruled his fifedom in Arizona’s Maricopa County with a steely, zero-tolerance that has enraged human rights activists but delighted headline-writers the world over.

Demonstrations and picket lines follow his sweeps of largely Hispanic neighborhoods. He’s been criticized by mayors and the governor of Arizona.”*

A raid on two busy water parks and the arrest of nine workers suspected of being illegal immigrants might become the first case to test Arizona’s new employer sanctions law.

The law, which went into effect in January, carries penalties that suspend or revoke business licenses of employers who “knowingly” hire illegal immigrants. It has yet to result in a prosecution.

The raid, which was carried out on Tuesday by Maricopa County deputies, followed a four-month investigation of hiring practices at the water parks, Golfland Sunsplash in Mesa and Waterworld Safari in Phoenix, said the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Both parks are owned by Golfland Entertainment Centers, which is based here and operates three parks in Arizona and six in California.”*

How close did I come to getting arrested by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies today? As Maxwell Smart would say, “Missed it by that much.”

The problem: I had the nerve to want to look at the same public records that sheriff’s deputies were scouring at the City of Phoenix public records counter.
…

I strolled up to the deputies, identified myself, and asked who they were. They refused to reveal their names, but that’s them in the picture at the top of this article. I told the pair I was interested in seeing what documents the city had released to them, and asked them if it was all right if I took a peek at some of the documents in the box that they weren’t using at the time. They said no way, then turned over some of the public records that had been face-up so I couldn’t see them.

I stated that I had the right to simply reach into the box and look at the records, but the deputy in the blue shirt said he “wouldn’t advise that.” Which I took to mean, by the words and his tone, that he’d arrest me.”*

In poll after poll, illegal immigration comes in as No. 1 on the list of issues concerning Arizonans. It’s a subject that resonates across demographic lines: Republican or Democrat, male or female, urban or ex-urban. Even Hispanic voters will list this as a major concern. The term “wedge issue” seems almost invented for illegal immigration but probably not in the way the GOP has envisioned. This defining issue is now driving some of the most important fractures in the Republican Party’s base and its impact is likely to be felt far beyond this year’s presidential contest.

Although it was spectacularly ineffective in the 2006 cycle, many Republican politicians still see illegal immigration as a vehicle for advancement. Congress has its grandstanders like retiring U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado but Arizona locals have been sure to get in on the action. For instance, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has targeted Hispanic communities with sweeps designed to nab illegal immigrants but which also routinely net brown-skinned American citizens.”*

Annie Loyd is a longtime community activist who last year decided to run for Congress. What she learned during her efforts surprised and saddened her, and she recently dropped out of the race to focus on some of the issues that came up.

Key among them is illegal immigration, more importantly, how the community is dealing with it.

Loyd said she has found a role as an immigration activist, going to all the locations where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has conducted anti-immigration sweeps, where she attempts to keep the peace.”*

The newest tactic in America’s quickening effort to gain control of its porous southern border starts with a cracked windshield, a broken taillight or even a failure to signal a right or left turn.

That’s all the probable cause sheriff’s deputies here in sprawling Maricopa County say they need to pull over a vehicle they suspect might be carrying illegal immigrants.

If the driver or the passengers fail to produce a U.S. driver’s license or a proper Immigration visa, if they speak only Spanish, or if they can’t otherwise convince the officer they are in the country legally, they are likely to be arrested, jailed and handed off to federal Immigration authorities for deportation”*

As of Tuesday, officials arrested 63 undocumented immigrants within a 24-hour time period just two days after the Arizona governor cut funding for efforts to enforce the laws against undocumented immigration.

Janet Napolitano cut the funding which sparked debate between Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Human Smuggling Detectives conducted several investigations throughout the county.”*

Editor’s Note: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unconstitutional Latino witch hunt will no longer be subsidized by the State of Arizona. It turns out that while Arpaio had his deputies were stopping anyone who looked like a Latino immigrant, there were 60,000 real felons running around Arizona. Henry Fernandez is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, focusing on state and municipal policy.”*

Gov. Janet Napolitano came closer than ever last week to a full-blown conflict with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio over their differing approaches to illegal immigration. The governor ordered $1.6 million in state money to be redirected from Arpaio’s operations to a state-led task force charged with arresting many of the state’s 60,000 fugitives. Arpaio and other Republican leaders reacted with outrage. Napolitano responded by saying her move wasn’t aimed at the sheriff, but at protecting the public from dangerous felons.

In recent weeks, Napolitano, Arpaio, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other top state and local officials have offered starkly different views on how to deal with immigration in the Valley. Here’s what several of them stand to gain or lose from the conflicts.”*

An executive order signed by Gov. Janet Napolitano has prompted state police to cancel a $1.6 million agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and, instead, use the money to create a fugitive task force.

The move effectively stripped two squads of Sheriff’s Office deputies from a statewide multiagency team designed to go after crimes dealing with human smuggling. It also took away Arpaio’s ability to tap some of the squad members to supplement immigration sweeps at the state’s expense.

In response, Sheriff Joe Arpaio accused the governor of orchestrating with others to pull the money from his department as political payback. House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, meanwhile, called for an audit of the Department of Public Safety.”*

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to give the sheriff’s office nearly $1 million to capture illegal immigrants, despite strong objections from small-business owners.

Members of the Arizona Small Business Association asked the board to hold onto the money until it was sure Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s saturation patrols were not using racial profiling.”*

The deportations have sent a shock wave through the large and fast-growing network of Latino evangelical churches in Arizona and across the nation, many of which are filled with undocumented immigrants.

Local pastors fearful of stepped-up immigration enforcement are canceling retreats north of the Phoenix area. Some national church leaders are concerned the deportations could open the door for immigration raids at churches.

The Prescott deportations echoed incidents in the Valley that have raised tensions between church leaders and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. A crime sweep by sheriff’s deputies in September resulted in arrests of undocumented day laborers near a church sanctuary in Cave Creek, and another on Good Friday led to arrests of illegal immigrants in east Phoenix.”*

The League of United Latin American Citizens denounces the Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the Arizona capitol today on a day when immigration marches are being held nationwide calling for a national day of action.

“Sheriff Arpaio has embarked on a policy of random racial profiling and violation of civil rights. We must all do our part to stop these violations,” said Rep. Ben Miranda.

“Joe Arpaio’s sweeps have drawn complaints from local politicians, police and clergy members, who say the operations are at best equivalent to racial profiling,” said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. “The sheriff denies the accusations, saying his deputies are trained to avoid such practices but is spreading fear throughout the communities.”

Two years ago, massive protests were held in Phoenix and other cities across the nation, drawing more than 1 million demonstrators who wanted humane reforms to U.S. immigration laws. This year the immigrant groups are not as vocal afraid of the repercussions of the sheriff’s use of fear tactics.

LULAC will continue to influence Congress which still needs to solve the immigration problem and implement a comprehensive immigration bill that is fair and workable.

“These are people that are working hard for our nation. They are picking our food. They are building our homes. They are taking care of our children. They are cleaning our offices. And all they want is the same opportunity that your ancestors and my ancestors had,” LULAC National President Rosa Rosales said.

The League of United Latin American Citizen advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide. “*