It would be remiss of us not to comment on the recent media blitz Sheriff Joe Arpaio has stirred up over the last couple of weeks. It all began when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), headed by former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, unveiled an attempt to repair the immigrant detention system rife with human rights abuses. It seems a letter written by Reps. Nydia Velazquez, D-NY and Luis Gutierrez, D-IL, along with concerns raised by organizations like ours, prompted the reconsideration and action.
The Gutierrez/Velazquez letter chided federal officials for their failed oversight of rogue law enforcement under existing law. “We do not believe that allowing state and local police to racially profile and target our immigrant communities inspires confidence in our ability to enact (comprehensive immigration reform),” the Gutierrez/Velazquez letter stated. “It is our experience that state and local law enforcement officials actually use their expanded and often unchecked powers under the program to target immigrants and persons of color. It is our opinion that no amount of reforms, no matter how well-intentioned, will change this disturbing reality.”
Maricopa County has emerged as the test case. In Maricopa County, the new agreement between DHS and Sheriff Joe Arpaio is intended to limit Arpaio and his deputies to checking only the immigration status of jail inmates.
But this assertion of federal authority has prompted Sheriff Arpaio to declare his open and aggressive defiance of federal oversight through word and deed. Congressmen Gutierrez and Velazquez raise the disturbing possibility that future defiance of federal authority may include outright refusal to follow federal statute should some version of comprehensive immigration become the law of the land this spring.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Finally, perhaps the feds are paying attention to the abuses we have been living with for so long.
ReplyDelete