21st Century Bull Connor Closer to Feeling Fire Hose Turned on Him

Just over a week ago, I told you about the latest affront to human dignity carried out by the 21st century's answer to Bull Connor. At the beginning of February, a month in which we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio decided to bring back a staple of the Jim Crow South - the chain gang - to the Southwestern desert. He marched 200 undocumented prisoners from the County Jail to a tent city a couple of miles away. He put them in chains and paraded them through the city streets of Phoenix to the open air jail, surrounded by an electric fence.

Well, that little stunt earned him, besides the full-throated outrage of human rights activists, immigrant rights groups, and organizations that care about the rights of communities of color, working families, and effective policing, the scrutiny of powerful members of the United States Congress. And we want you to help add your voice to this scrutiny.

As a result of street actions by Arizona ACORN members and other pro-New American organizations, the voices that many of you raised through petition efforts like the one ACORN launched on February 5th, and meetings between ACORN leaders in DC for our annual Legislative and Political Conference and the staff of House Judiciary Chair John Conyers, Chairman Conyers issued a request today that puts Arpaio's actions squarely in the cross-hairs.

Joining Chairman Conyers, a lion of America's Civil Rights Movement, were Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who all called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate Arapio's long-running reign of terror and error.

The Congressional leaders are also asking for an investigation of the agreements between Maricopa County and the United States Government under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. I am asking you to join with us and add your voice to those calling for an investigation of actions such as these:

• A taste of the Jim Crow South in the heart of Phoenix.

• Arresting activists at public hearings for applauding calls for investigations into his actions.

• Forcibly separating parents from citizen children as the result of his police-state approach to America's immigration challenge.

Frankly, it is about time. The people of Maricopa County deserve better, New American communities and communities of color deserve better, and all Americans deserve a better model for the challenges of immigration facing this country. The Arpaio spectacle shows that a police-state solution does not work.

With your help, Attorney General Holder and Secretary Napolitano will listen to the request from Conyers and his subcommittee Chairs and take a second step towards bringing real justice back to Maricopa County and ensuring that law enforcement isn't simply about "just us".

Stand with us in helping make that happen.

Comments

[Manny Otiko]

Arpaio is violating the law with his raids that target anyone who looks Hispanic. It's racial profiling and violation of the constitution.

Go the Phoenix New Times Web site and read about all the inmates, many on minor non traffic offenses, who have died in custody. You can also read about all the money the County has paid in civil judgments.

Arpaio is making the local lawyers rich! This guy is indefensible.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-10-18/news/breathtaking-abuse-of-the-constitution/1

[MajorKong]

"Mistrust those in which the urge to punish is strong" - Nietzsche

[larry278]

Maricapo Co, Az has dry spells; that's saved Sherriff Joe from being doused a few times. Let's see what happens when Phoenix, Az has a gully washer.

[bayside]

What goes around always comes back around..

[randyjet]

If you look at the video, you will see that the woman was stopped for not having her headlights on at night, NOT for being Hispanic. Then they ran her name on the computer and found she had arrest warrants for her previous violations. So they arrested her, as will happen to ALL of us in similar circumstances. I guess that the writer of this does not think that arrest warrants or criminals should be arrested if they have kids. Then it turns out she was here illegally, and they tell her she will be turned over to ICE. Big Deal! Should they simply turn a blind eye to that along with her warrants? My question is, How many crimes do illegals get to commit before they may be arrested and deported? From what I can see from this writer and her ilk, the answer is as many as they wish, since it would seperate families. iNcredible!

[MARTYB]

He is the only one even attempting to get a handle on this "invasion" but the sheriff is being villified
by pro-illegal alien groups. "New Americans" indeed, what a load.

[MajorKong]

Seems to me that Sheriff Joe is all about Sheriff Joe.

[randyjet]

That is quite true. He is mostly for publicity. Some of what he does is good.

[Darthwave]

It's about time that Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets to eat some crow.

[randyjet]

I am not a big fan of Sheriff Joe, and I was outraged when I heard about his chain gang program because I thought it was applied to all inmates. Then I went to his web site and found out that only CONVICTED prisoners are put into that program, thus the reason for the UNCOVICTED label;on the prisoners garb. The fact is that as far as I can see, he has done nothing wrong.

As one who personally knows not only concentration camp survivors who are relatives, and a good friend was a GI who liberated Dachau, I am OUTRAGED at your assertion that the camps are akin to what they went through. It is an outright LIE to assert that, and it trivializes what they endured. ALL of those prisoners are there because they violated US law or are charged with that. If you think the law is wrong, and that we have NO right to say who may enter, then STATE that. ALL countries have the right to say who may enter and who they may exclude and thus to imprison those who spit on such laws.

[randyjet]

As one who was in the civil rights movement, I cannot join in this since what he did was perfectly legal and proper. There is NO right to air conditioning, and nice accomodations like a motel for criminals. The founders of AZ got along for centuries without it. Mexico does not have simlar arrangements in THEIR prisons, so I fail to see the problem. Most of those held are FELONS awaiting deportation. They are not eligible to be here under any circumstances. As for chain gangs, the reason that they were bad in the old South was that MOST of those prisoners were framed and unjustly imprisoned in the first place. The county usually farmed them out as slave labor too. That is NOT the case here. They are without question guitly of breaking and entering the US, and are not citizens. They are also not being used as slave labor for private interests.

[SpaghettyIrish]

Slave labor is always wrong, even if it's for the government.

[SecretSquirrel666]

It's not slave labor, they actual volunteer to be on the chain gangs because Joe has made jail a boring unpleasant place to be. He actually had to institute female chaingangs because he had volunteers for it. Jail should not be a pleasant place to be. He took away their porn and tv and caffeine. He get's elected regularly but a vocal minority is always more worried about the rights of criminals as opposed to the rights of the law abiding citizens and try to make him out to be an ogre.

[SpaghettyIrish]

May Arpaio get a taste of his own medicine.