Feds' new tone puts Arpaio in hot seat
D.C. leaders now more likely to hear profiling complaints
Few are feeling the change that President Barack Obama has brought to Washington more acutely than Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Not yet two months into the Obama administration, the veteran Republican lawman finds himself under investigation by the Justice Department following complaints that his office employs unconstitutional practices in enforcing immigration laws. On Capitol Hill, a high-profile congressional committee is preparing to hold an investigative hearing into whether Arpaio's operation discriminates against Latinos. And, based at least partly on Arpaio's record, the Homeland Security Department is revising the rules of the federal program, known as 287(g), that gives federal immigration-enforcement authority to Arpaio and other local officials around the country.
The controversial and popular five-term sheriff chalks the probes up to politics. But others say a renewed focus on civil rights has prompted the scrutiny.
Attorney General Eric Holder made it clear in his Senate confirmation hearing that he intended to make safeguarding civil rights a priority again. Holder's previous tenure at the Justice Department, as a deputy attorney general during President Bill Clinton's administration, was marked by a keen attention to police racial-profiling complaints.
Racial-profiling complaints were virtually ignored during President George W. Bush's eight-year term. And the Justice Department's inspector general recently blistered the Civil Rights Division for the unlawful politicization of personnel actions during the Bush era. Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to characterize the Arpaio inquiry as the administration's first major probe, saying that would be "a bit subjective." She confirmed that the Civil Rights Division has opened other investigations since Holder took office.
"Both in tone and in content, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has changed dramatically," said Paul Charlton, who was U.S. attorney for Arizona from 2001 to 2006 and now represents Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley in a criminal case brought by Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Stapley maintains he is innocent of the charges, which relate to real-estate and business deals that prosecutors allege were not properly disclosed.
One outside expert doubted that Arpaio is the victim of political persecution by the Civil Rights Division, particularly in light of the report that exposed politics-related abuses in the Bush Justice Department. The findings, based on a joint investigation by the department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, were made public in January.
"There is an increased sensitivity to wanting to have a Civil Rights Division that is active but not politically influenced," said Rebecca Lonergan, a former assistant U.S. attorney and Justice Department insider who is now an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law. "I do not believe that they would be dumb enough to open this investigation as a political decision. It would be extremely bad timing."
A political target?
Critics of Arpaio and his illegal- immigration-related crime-suppression sweeps and workplace raids are cheering the shift in the political winds.
"Our sense is that finally - finally - there is reception in Washington," said Monica Sandschafer, state director of Arizona ACORN, a chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "Finally there is an administration that is interested in holding people accountable for the Constitution and the rule of law."
But Arpaio suggests he is a political target of Democrats, saying that by vilifying him as a racial profiler, they are trying to achieve a larger goal of scrapping or radically altering the 287(g) program. The program was created under Clinton but wasn't promoted until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, during the Bush administration.
The Democratic Obama administration, Arpaio said, gives new clout to the sheriff's political foes such as Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who nearly a year ago asked for a federal probe of the sheriff, and Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. Obama's Homeland Security secretary is Janet Napolitano, who, even if not directly involved, can provide the Justice Department with valuable institutional knowledge about Arpaio based on her experience working with him in Arizona in her previous roles as U.S. attorney, state attorney general and governor.
It's understandable that the Justice Department is feeling pressure from the various politicians clamoring for action, Arpaio said.
"Everyone who is making an issue is a Democrat," Arpaio said. "The big problem is the 287(g). I'm the most active (participant), the largest with 160 officers, and they're using me as a poster boy.
"They're using me as a catalyst to make an issue of this, hoping that they can get something on me and my deputies on racial profiling so they can say, 'See what happens under 287(g).' "
Arpaio also is drawing criticism from the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee, where partisanship often flares. But here, too, observers say Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the panel's chairman, is motivated by a long-term commitment to civil rights. Conyers, like Holder, is Black.
"I don't think you can discount the importance of race here. Conyers is an old civil-rights veteran," said Rodolfo Espino, an assistant political science professor at Arizona State University. "You have two African-Americans looking at this who are very cognizant of civil rights and what African-Americans went through."
Hearing in April
Sandschafer and Alicia Navejar, another Arizona ACORN leader and Arpaio critic, were in Washington on Wednesday as Conyers announced that he will hold a hearing on Arpaio in April. The development came the day after the Justice Department probe was revealed. Conyers previously had urged Holder and Napolitano to investigate Arpaio.
Navejar was energized after speaking at the Conyers news conference, saying she hopes Arpaio is "taken to justice."
"I was just so excited to be part of something that is going to make a difference to not only just one person or two people but to thousands of lives," said Navejar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Phoenix. "I can see what it has done (to Latino families)."
Yet Arpaio's immigration crackdowns are wildly popular, and he was re-elected in November by a wide margin.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a Judiciary Committee member, worries that hearings will exploit racial fears for partisan political gain.
"I think they would like to try to paint all Republicans as racist and motivated by things like racial profiling," Franks said. "I have not seen one iota of evidence that the sheriff has done anything but enforce the law on the basis that he is trying to protect the people within the county he serves."
Franks echoed Arpaio's suggestion that the 287(g) program is a target. "A big goal of the liberal Democrats in Congress is to try to do away with any effective cooperation to enforce federal immigration laws," he said.
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