Marija Nenadovic, group F

Arpaios campaign against immigrants takes a hit from ICE

I am the elected sheriff. I dont take orders from the federal government, said Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, upon receiving news that the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has stripped him of some of his power to make federal immigration arrests. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating this controversial Arizona sheriff and his department because of hundreds of complaints about discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures they received from citizens. However, the investigation has not deterred Arpaio, known for his aggressive tactics when dealing with illegal immigrants, from launching the 12th round of his infamous sweeps, during which he and his deputies arrest, mostly under unspecified charges, anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant. The immigrants are then jailed, not in regular jails, but in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire, where they are fed meals that cost 20 cents per day and people are chained to eachother to prevent some of the prisoners escaping. Such actions have brought on heavy criticism and allegations of racial profiling from immigration reform advocacy groups, such as Americas Voice, whose executive director Frank Sharry described sheriff Arpaio as someone who is going to go down in history as a man who terrorized the Latino community for the sake of his own visibility and political popularity. Last week sheriff Arpaio held a news conference where, supported by the county attorney Andrew Thomas, he declared that he would continue his work using state laws and that he would personally drive those caught on the streets to the border if federal officers refused to take arrested illegal immigrants into custody. Thomas condemned the decision of the ICE, by calling it a setback in the fight against illegal immigration, announcing that their fight goes on. Mr. Arpaios office, as well as 65 other agencies nation-wide, has an agreement with the Homeland Security and operates under the 287(g) program, which allows local and state officers to make immigration arrests. The Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, run by Mr. Arpaio, is the largest in the program with some 160 trained deputies and 33, 000 arrests over the past two years. I think the bad guys apparently are leaving because they know they are here illegally. This is a crime deterrent program, too, stated sheriff Arpaio, countering the critics of the program who say that it promotes racial profiling of Hispanics and causes immigrants to

distrust the police, making them too afraid to come forth and report a crime, for fear of being asked for their immigration papers. The statistics show that an increasing number of immigrants, feeling compelled by the harsh stand of the Arizona officials, are deciding to relocate to Texas, where the authorities are a bit more lenient on this matter. The current estimates show that there are around 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. The Obama administration is trying to fulfill one of its campaign promises and resolve the issue of the illegal immigrants by creating a platform of laws that will allow most to gain legal status after paying a fine and learning English. But conservatives that were favored under the Bush administration, such as Arpaio, are calling for the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants and tighter border control. The American public will just have to wait and see who will have the final say in this matter.