Troops to Border? Investigate Sheriff Arpaio Instead

by Roy C | March 12, 2009 at 09:21 pm

313 views | 52 Recommendations | 7 comments

Going as far back as November 1996, the Washington Post reported that Mexican government officials had asked that the US become proactive in the interception of arms trafficking, which involves the drug cartels purchasing weapons and ammunition in the US and taking it back to Mexico.

Those same requests have been heard and seen on various media from Mexico in the past few weeks. What is new is that the recent waves of violence have spilled over into the cities in the US where drug traffickers set up distribution. We now have reports of increased violent crime involving drug traffickers from Phoenix, Arizona to Atlanta, Georgia.

Phoenix has, in fact, become the No. 2 city in the world for kidnapping, behind Mexico City. Dismemberment for kidnapped individuals not ransomed quickly enough has been reported.

Instead of an intervention involving the armed forces of the US to quell possible border violence, and curtail gun running from the US, the Obama Administration has chosen to investigate the local enforcement of immigration laws in the border state of Arizona, and opened an investigation into the enforcement practices of Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County.

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:...more..

The Sheriff had responded with his own press release in August 2008 :

"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.

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Roy C

at 21:42 on March 12th, 2009

Yes, and thanks for your recommendation. The Sheriff should do everything in his power and nothing beyond it.

But it is ironic and dangerously out of line with what is needed to put the energy of his administration into this alone, leaving the border undermanned.

The Mexican government has asked for a long time for us to stop arms trafficking into Mexico from the US, but we do nothing at all about this.

Part of the great Wall Street NAFTA "vision" and the democrats' vision of legalizing a lot of future democrat voters: that was this is.

The answer is so obvious that only moral sloth can explain this.

tikun

at 21:57 on March 12th, 2009

Sometimes someone does his/her job and the troops come out and shoot the "victim". Is this a trick article? Is the official who is actually doing his job getting raked over the coals because he is arresting illegals?

If so, then this is truly an upside down world.

Roy C

at 22:27 on March 12th, 2009

" I see no reason that he cannot do both at once." Esta has it right.

Arpaio is overly aggressive, if we are to believe his critics, but it is clear that Obama has his "bouts of passivity", as Maureen Dowd called them in her article.

This might be a classic confrontation of two opposing attitudes, but Obama has a greater duty to us to enforce the border.

I once heard a guest on the O'Reilly show that if someone crossed the border and brought about a terrorist attack of any real success, there would be a call to impeach then Prez Bush for that.

Obama is playing with fire, and his aloofness is not "cool'. It is "detachment".

Paschen

at 04:28 on March 13th, 2009

Thank you for the post on this Roy.

Barry Artiste

at 04:33 on March 13th, 2009

Good stuff about time someone tough on crime is actually true to his word

TheCameraObscura

at 14:12 on March 13th, 2009

Amazing how Mexican drug cartels can kill as many Americans as they want, and yet they will never be hated like the innocent Iraqis who never set one foot on US land.