Joe Arpaio is enforcing all of the immigration laws: poorly

Joe Arpaio will tell anyone who will listen that he's the "only person enforcing all of the immigration laws." We're here to show that not only is that completely untrue, but of all of the major police agencies in the County, the Sheriff's office is the least effective in enforcing immigration laws. Making matters worse, there is ample evidence that Arpaio's obsession on the easy pickings of day laborers, minor traffic violations of poor, brown-skinned people and corn vendors has come at the cost of making Maricopa County a safe haven for felons including murderers, gangs, methamphetimine dealers, sex offenders, and auto thieves.

What is the Sheriff's job?

No matter how you spin it, the first job of the Sheriff is to " Preserve the peace." His second duty is to "Arrest and take before the nearest magistrate for examination all persons who attempt to commit or who have committed a public offense." That's what it says under "Powers and duty" of the Sheriff in the Arizona Revised Statutes. To most people, that would mean making sure known criminals (e.g., those with arrest warrants) are arrested and those in the process of committing a crime are caught as quickly as possible. His job is to make sure people's lives and property are protected. But not Joe Arpaio. His first duty is to arrest undocumented immigrants and tell those communities who question his methods to "get your own police force." As a result, response times to life-threatening emergency calls is now over three times the county standard. Several communities have or are in the process of terminating contracts with the MCSO because of poor performance. Is this the tip of the iceberg?

East Valley Tribune: Reasonable Doubt: Public safety shortchanged throughout county

AOL News: Residents pay price for Arpaio's immigration focus

Town of Youngtown: Police Dispatch and Call Wait Time Explained

ABC15: Law enforcement to be terminated for Town of Guadalupe

Video: East Valley Tribune: Store owner talks about late emergecy response times

The Great Arpaio Flip-Flop

Back in 2005, Arpaio told the Associated Press, “I don’t expect to concentrate on some guy in a truck with six illegals. I want to go after the professional smugglers who do this for money, the top people.” Since then, as an apparent result of Arpaio sticking his fingers to the political winds, his opinion has changed to where undocumented immigrants are his sole mission in life--at the expense of fighting the most serious of crime problems in Maricopa County. Arpaio has spent millions of taxpayer dollars in his efforts to rid the county of corn vendors, day laborers, and dishwashers – even as his department fails to investigate many violent crimes.

According to police records, the vast majority of the undocumented immigrants he has arrested have committed no other crimes. And for all his talk about going after the top people, he has caught mostly the immigrants he said he would not concentrate on, and a handful of guards and drivers. The City of Phoenix cooperates with Arizona DPS and most other Valley law enforcement agencies in a Human Smuggling Task Force which targets the coyotes and violent human smuggling gangs. That task force has put more than 40 drop houses out of business in less than a year. But Arpaio has refused to participate, apparently because he gets more TV face time when his office arrests corn vendors.

Arizona Republic: Law agencies cool to new 'Coyote' Law (PDF)

Crime fighting takes a back seat to Arpaio's self-serving political interests

The willingness of Sheriff Joe to “flip-flop” and even compromise Maricopa County’s safety for his own political gain was noted by the respected former County Attorney, Republican Rick Romley, who worked closely with Arpaio in the years when Arpaio preferred to go after violent criminals rather than snow-cone sellers. Romley told the East Valley Tribune “If something, some way of engaging a law enforcement issue, can politically benefit Joe, or keep him in good favor with the public, Joe seems to go that way,” Romley said. “He can flip on a dime. And I think he did that with illegal immigration.”

East Valley Tribune: Reasonable Doubt part 1: MCSO evolves into an immigration agency

Arizona Republic, E.J. Montini: Tale of two tough guys: Arpaio vs. Gascón.

Furthermore, Arpaio’s policy of arresting undocumented immigrants who are witnesses to crimes has made it harder to enforce the law in Maricopa County. A whole class of people who may have been witnesses to or victims of serious crimes such as kidnapping, assault, even rape or murder, are now too scared to come forward, for fear that they or family members could be deported. The result is that the violent criminals whom these people could help put away are still walking our streets, preying on Maricopa County residents. The tips provided by such people have been instrumental in the arrests by Phoenix Police of dangerous smugglers. By criminalizing witnesses, Arpaio has protected criminals, ensuring that silence reigns and serious crimes go unreported.

The Cost of Arpaio's Illegal Immigration Sweeps

The cost to Maricopa County of Arpaio’s new focus on immigration enforcement was detailed in the East Valley Tribune’s recent investigative series, Reasonable Doubt. The report showed how law enforcement has suffered since the Sheriff’s focus shifted to politics. The reporters found that since 2005, when Arpaio began to enforce federal immigration laws:

     • Deputies are failing to meet the county’s standard for response times on life-

     threatening emergencies. In 2006 and 2007, patrol cars arrived late two-thirds of the      time on more than 6,000 of the most serious calls for service.

     • MCSO’s arrest rate has plunged the past two years even as the number of criminal      investigations has soared.

     • The sheriff’s “saturation” patrols and “crime suppression/anti-illegal immigration”      sweeps in Hispanic neighborhoods are done without any evidence of criminal activity,      violating federal regulations intended to prevent racial profiling.

     • Rampant overtime spending on immigration operations drove the agency into      financial crisis and forced it to close facilities across the county. Although MCSO      officials have said state and federal grants covered all the expense, illegal immigration      arrests actually are costing county taxpayers millions of dollars.

     • Despite the money and manpower expended, the sheriff’s office has arrested only      low-level participants in human smuggling rings: drop house guards, drivers and the      immigrants they ferry.

     • Deputies regularly make traffic stops based only on their suspicion that illegal      immigrants are inside vehicles. They figure out probable cause after deciding whom to      pull over.

          East Valley Tribune: Reasonable Doubt: Key findings of the Tribune’s project

Joe Arpaio's single-minded focus on immigration is forcing Maricopa County taxpayers to pay twice for immigration enforcement: once with the taxes paid to the Federal government and again with taxes paid to the county. The Federal government is the only government charged with controlling immigration and while there's plenty of room to criticize them for doing too little, there are plenty of other crimes occuring in Maricopa County that should be the focus of Arpaio's time and energy. We can think of 70,000-plus of them.

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, spoke to the EVT for the investigation. “A lot of this is the trade-off,” she said. “If the local police are doing federal law enforcement, other law enforcement responsibilities get a lower priority by default.” As is clear from the EVT’s reporting, it is emergency response and the enforcement of violent crimes that are now getting a lower priority than Mr. Arpaio’s political games.

It is now clear that Mr. Arpaio has sacrificed the safety of Maricopa County residents for his own political gain. He has personally addressed white supremacist hate groups like Rusty Childress’s United for a Sovereign America, which has honored American Nazi Party organizer Elton Hall as a “patriot,” and embraces noted neo-nazi J.T. Ready. Arpaio has even told CNN’s Lou Dobbs that being compared to the Ku Klux Klan is “an honor.” As Arpaio panders to the white supremacists, it is the safety of Maricopa County residents that suffers.

Can you help?

Do you have a story that helps explain why Joe has got to go? Send it to us at
info@joesgottogo.com