Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues in Phoenix, Arizona
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Sheriff Arpaio's Second Weekend of Anti-Immigrant
Sweeps Assailed
Sweeps Assailed
Press Release - March 26, 2008 35th Street and Thomas Committee
Tucson, Arizona May 16, 2010 - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio issued a news release last week
claiming that business owners wanted him to combat purported crimes near the intersections mentioned
above, but he produced only two business people to back him up. The ensuing six-square-mile hunt for
undocumented persons went far and inexplicably beyond 32nd Street and Thomas. The Phoenix Police
Department reports that the area targeted for last week’s sweeps has experienced a steady decline in
crime during the last ten years. Arpaio was forced to admit that the “crime wave” he was battling was
limited to the offenses of alleged “loitering, littering and petty theft,” hardly the kind of public safety
threat capable of justifying the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars in manpower and equipment
to do nothing more than stop cars for minor traffic infractions. And as for the low-level “crimes” he
contends were scourging the community, Arpaio provided no reports nor documentary evidence that they
had ever occurred.
What will happen this weekend will be more of the same, again under the pseudo-justification that
business owners want him to crack down on loitering and littering. His deputies will once again destroy
weekend business, because so many members of the community will stay home, terrified to go
anywhere. The undocumented will be shut-in for fear of being arrested and deported, and U.S. citizen
Latinos will venture out less for fear of being racially profiled, stopped for being brown. Business
owners, far from appreciating the attendant loss of revenue, will rue Arapio’s grandstanding at their
expense.
Besides the charade of a handful of business people who were approached by Arpaio’s agents to say
they want him in the area, this weekend’s sweeps will again fail to connect the stated “crimes” of
loitering, littering and pretty theft with the singular activity of the Sheriff’s deputies, which is to pull over
motorists. Stopping good people for cracked windshields or failure to put on a turn-signal are hyper-
technical traffic code infractions; however, the exercise WILL NOT NET A SINGLE LOITERER, LITTERER NOR
ANYONE COMMITTING PETTY THEFT. Arpaio’s (1) deceitful claim that business people want him to
destabilize several square miles of the city plus (2) the inane excuse that deputies will put a stop to
trifling offenses, ones cannot be prevented by harassing automobile drivers, expose what is really going
on.
What is really going on is the aggressive stopping of motorists at saturation levels in areas known to
have high concentrations of Latinos. During daylight hours, the deputies focus on pulling over cars
having brown-looking people within. Then the interrogation begins about citizenship. When cars are
pulled over at night and brown people are encountered inside, deputies immediately demand to know
their citizenship, even before addressing the reason for the stop. Drivers who appear to be Anglo are
not interrogated about citizenship or immigration status, are cited and let go. Undocumented persons,
who do not know their rights and think they have to answer questions about where they were born and
whether they have “papers,” get deported.
While Arpaio uses artless excuses for the traffic sweeps, his real purpose is to arrest and deport
undocumented immigrants, persons who are not criminals, much less felons. If guilty of any crime, it is
the petty misdemeanor offense under 8 U.S.C. §1325(a) of entering the U.S. without authorization. This
is a petty offense less dangerous to the public order than the misdemeanor crime of exceeding the
speed limit by more than 20 miles per hour. Speeding can kill, and we are all guilty of speeding. In
contrast, entering the country to work at low wages has contributed mightily to the nation’s economy
and is just barely an offense.
The people are entitled to have a true lawman for Sheriff, someone who goes after real criminals, not
gardeners, cooks, nannies and pregnant mothers. America’s “toughest sheriff” must stop making
mothers and fathers disappear in the middle of the night, callously leaving vulnerable, terrorized children
at home alone. He can turn a new leaf and start protecting the public by serving the county’s 70,000
arrest warrants that he has allowed to remain outstanding.
claiming that business owners wanted him to combat purported crimes near the intersections mentioned
above, but he produced only two business people to back him up. The ensuing six-square-mile hunt for
undocumented persons went far and inexplicably beyond 32nd Street and Thomas. The Phoenix Police
Department reports that the area targeted for last week’s sweeps has experienced a steady decline in
crime during the last ten years. Arpaio was forced to admit that the “crime wave” he was battling was
limited to the offenses of alleged “loitering, littering and petty theft,” hardly the kind of public safety
threat capable of justifying the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars in manpower and equipment
to do nothing more than stop cars for minor traffic infractions. And as for the low-level “crimes” he
contends were scourging the community, Arpaio provided no reports nor documentary evidence that they
had ever occurred.
What will happen this weekend will be more of the same, again under the pseudo-justification that
business owners want him to crack down on loitering and littering. His deputies will once again destroy
weekend business, because so many members of the community will stay home, terrified to go
anywhere. The undocumented will be shut-in for fear of being arrested and deported, and U.S. citizen
Latinos will venture out less for fear of being racially profiled, stopped for being brown. Business
owners, far from appreciating the attendant loss of revenue, will rue Arapio’s grandstanding at their
expense.
Besides the charade of a handful of business people who were approached by Arpaio’s agents to say
they want him in the area, this weekend’s sweeps will again fail to connect the stated “crimes” of
loitering, littering and pretty theft with the singular activity of the Sheriff’s deputies, which is to pull over
motorists. Stopping good people for cracked windshields or failure to put on a turn-signal are hyper-
technical traffic code infractions; however, the exercise WILL NOT NET A SINGLE LOITERER, LITTERER NOR
ANYONE COMMITTING PETTY THEFT. Arpaio’s (1) deceitful claim that business people want him to
destabilize several square miles of the city plus (2) the inane excuse that deputies will put a stop to
trifling offenses, ones cannot be prevented by harassing automobile drivers, expose what is really going
on.
What is really going on is the aggressive stopping of motorists at saturation levels in areas known to
have high concentrations of Latinos. During daylight hours, the deputies focus on pulling over cars
having brown-looking people within. Then the interrogation begins about citizenship. When cars are
pulled over at night and brown people are encountered inside, deputies immediately demand to know
their citizenship, even before addressing the reason for the stop. Drivers who appear to be Anglo are
not interrogated about citizenship or immigration status, are cited and let go. Undocumented persons,
who do not know their rights and think they have to answer questions about where they were born and
whether they have “papers,” get deported.
While Arpaio uses artless excuses for the traffic sweeps, his real purpose is to arrest and deport
undocumented immigrants, persons who are not criminals, much less felons. If guilty of any crime, it is
the petty misdemeanor offense under 8 U.S.C. §1325(a) of entering the U.S. without authorization. This
is a petty offense less dangerous to the public order than the misdemeanor crime of exceeding the
speed limit by more than 20 miles per hour. Speeding can kill, and we are all guilty of speeding. In
contrast, entering the country to work at low wages has contributed mightily to the nation’s economy
and is just barely an offense.
The people are entitled to have a true lawman for Sheriff, someone who goes after real criminals, not
gardeners, cooks, nannies and pregnant mothers. America’s “toughest sheriff” must stop making
mothers and fathers disappear in the middle of the night, callously leaving vulnerable, terrorized children
at home alone. He can turn a new leaf and start protecting the public by serving the county’s 70,000
arrest warrants that he has allowed to remain outstanding.
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Arpaio issued a news release last
week claiming that business owners
wanted him to combat purported
crimes near the intersections
mentioned above, but he produced
only two business people to back
him up. Photographs by Eduardo
Barraza / Barriozona
week claiming that business owners
wanted him to combat purported
crimes near the intersections
mentioned above, but he produced
only two business people to back
him up. Photographs by Eduardo
Barraza / Barriozona
DIVISIVENESS Today's news
media often posit problems such as
immigration in a bipolar way,
ignoring the complexity of the issue,
as well as the majority of
perspectives that fall between two
extremes.
Photo by Eduardo Barraza/Barriozona
media often posit problems such as
immigration in a bipolar way,
ignoring the complexity of the issue,
as well as the majority of
perspectives that fall between two
extremes.
Photo by Eduardo Barraza/Barriozona