The Subtext of DHS Pulling the Plug on Sheriff Joe

[Rick Oltman]

A 2008 DHS audit of Sheriff Joe Arpaio praised his Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff’s Department for professionalism and adhering to the
287(g) guidelines. Regardless, and keeping in mind that Phoenix is the North America (illegal alien) kidnap capital, DHS has pulled the plug on Sheriff Joe's field arrests of the afore mentioned illegal aliens. Why are we not surprised?

Executive Summary of the audit: http://bit.ly/7uRtN

287(g) Is a Law Enforcement Partnership between the feds and state and local agencies to enforce immigration law.
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/070622factsheet287gprogover.htm

Now it seems that DHS only wants to allow jail checks.

Sheriff Joe, well understanding the modern media environment, has issued a four page press release that is well worth reading:
http://www.mcso.org/include/pr_pdf/287g%20curtailed%20News%20Release.pdf

Being investigated by the Department of Justice hasn’t slowed Arpaio’s zeal for enforcing immigration laws. The temporary place-holders at DoJ thought they could scare him off. Well, it has now dawned on these desk bound commandos that he is not going to stop, so without a reason DHS has terminated the program. Not because it was unsuccessful, but because it was successful.

Maricopa County Attorney (District Attorney) Andy Thomas has said that Sheriff Joe’s enforcement of illegal immigration violations and subsequent prosecution of thousands of illegal alien cases has resulted in a drop in the overall crime rate in Maricopa County.

Thomas was first elected in 2004 and one of his campaign issues was enforcing immigration law. He was re-elected in 2008. Clearly the people of Maricopa County approve of him and Sheriff Joe, who was elected in 1992 and re-elected every four years since.

The subtext of this move is obvious to everyone. DHS and DoJ didn’t find any violations and couldn’t scare him off, so they are just pulling the plug.

Why? Two reasons:

1. This is a message to other law enforcement agencies in the country. If you actually enforce the immigration law to the point that it discourages illegal aliens from coming to your jurisdiction, you will lose our support, money, training and everything else.

2. Businesses in those same communities are losing access to the cheap labor and new customers that illegal aliens become with that first paycheck. So, we, the federal government, will try to stop immigration enforcement at the local level, like we have curtailed immigration enforcement at the border and in the work place.

Never mind that crime has dropped. That means there are fewer victims of crime. (Attention: political appointees at Justice) Never mind that this is exactly one of the things that needs to be done to deter illegal immigration.

Business, that supports the election and re-election of politicians at every level of government, has bought these elected officials. And, they are more interested in servicing their patrons than enforcing the law.

At least Sheriff Joe can continue to screen for illegal aliens prisoners in his jail. But the usual whiners want that stopped, too.

I know there are some Arizona laws that deal with illegal aliens, employment, etc. I would be willing to bet that Sheriff Joe is looking at those laws right now and deciding how he can continue to enforce the law and make his community safe for citizens, and businesses.

Read about the Maricopa County Sheriff's Depatment and Twitter Sheriff Joe: http://www.mcso.org/

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