Sheriff Joe Arpaio outside
of Uncle Sam's Restaurant
On Wednesday, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) sent
over fifty law enforcement officials to conduct an immigration raid on two family-style restaurants in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
The officials arrested ten
people at the restaurant chain Uncle Sam on charges of identity theft and
forgery, but are still looking for sixty other individuals in connection to the
charges. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his anti-immigrant stance,
alleges that since October 2012, the restaurant employed 121 people under false
pretenses. All ten of the arrested suspects at the Uncle Sam areLatino.
On the day of the raids,
Arpaio tweeted that his “73rd workplace ID theft operation [is] underway.” But he
insisted to the media that the raid was not immigration-related, but a result of a nine
month investigation.
But there is reason to
doubt Arpaio’s motives in conducting the raids now. Earlier this week, the
federal government dropped dozens of deportation
proceedings against undocumented
immigrants living in Maricopa County. Immigration advocates like Puente Arizonabelieve
that Arpaio conducted the raids on Wednesday as retaliation against the federal
government dropping those cases.
The raid also follows a
federal judge’s decision in May to temporarily suspended Arpaio from launching
immigration-related raids, ruling that he racially profiled Latinos. The Department of Justice (DOJ) also sued the MCSO for unconstitutional policing in 2011. Indeed, Arpaio has
a long history of indiscriminately arresting
immigrants.
Carlos and Sandra Figueroa
with their children (Credit: notonemoredeportation.com)
Christmas came early in Arizona as the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency stated that it would drop the deportation
proceedings against dozens of people, the New America Media reported on Monday. The decision for ICE to exercise prosecutorial
discretion for these immigrants living in one of the most anti-immigrant
states shows not only its
commitment to stop the deportation of low-priority undocumented immigrants, but
its close scrutiny of arrests made by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The news was an unexpected
joy to Carlos and Sandra Figueroa, who have been in deportation proceedings
since 2009. The couple was picked up after ICE raided the car wash where they
worked. The incident occurred in Maricopa County where Sheriff Arpaio and a
television crewwere on hand to document the capture. The Figueroa’s nine-year old daughter
Katherine witnessed the event on live television. She later told immigration advocates that she started to cry. “I was waiting for them to come home
again and that wasn’t going to happen that day,” she said. “I found out on the
TV.”
ICE’s decision to close
deportation cases in Arizona highlights its shift away from Arpaio’s racial
profiling tactics which arrests people based on suspicion instead of solid
proof. Partially because of limited resources, ICE indicated that it will focus
on removing criminal immigrants instead of low-priority cases. Other federal
officials have rejected Arpaio’s tactics. In June, a federal judge ruled for
Arpaio’s office to temporarily suspend immigration
enforcement because his patrol officers
profiled against Hispanics. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
also sued the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) for racial profiling.
Meanwhile, Arpaio’s office
stuck to its proverbial guns. Arpaio issued a statement to The Arizona Republic,
“If the Obama administration wishes to permit convicted felons who are legal
residents of another country to take up residence in the United States…that is
the U.S. government’s decision to make.”
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