Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn’t welcome at this Latina conference.
The Hispanic Women’s Corporation rejected the Maricopa County sheriff from putting up a recruitment booth at its annual conference at the Phoenix Convention Center, citing a court ruling against his office for racially profiling Latinos.
"The conference is about leading and inspiring Latina professionals," said Leticia de la Vara, a spokeswoman for the HWC, according to the Associated Press. "Arpaio does not fit that mold, so it was a pretty easy decision on why we would go forward with that."
Arpaio lashed out at the Hispanic group in a press release for denying his office’s request to put up the booth, calling the decision “politically motivated” and citing HWC president Linda Mazon Gutierrez past work with the National Council of La Raza as evidence. NCLR is one of the most prominent Hispanic political advocacy organizations in the country.
In the press release issued Friday, Arpaio says that the decision to reject his office from the conference resulted in “Latina voices being silenced.”
“The shame is that we could have interacted with future employees of the Sheriff’s Office,” Arpaio said, according to the statement. “At a time when jobs are scarce, that’s not something to play politics with.”
A federal court ruled in May that Sheriff Arpaio’s office had systematically targeted Latinos in its efforts to enforce federal immigration law, even after his office lost that authority in 2009.
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