Arpaio still planning illegal immigration sweep July 29
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he is still planning a sweep July 29 despite Judge Susan Bolton’s decision to halt the most significant parts of S1070.
Arpaio said he’s still going to enforce Arizona’s human smuggling laws and employer sanctions laws as he’s done the last three years. The only difference is how suspected illegal immigrants who haven’t broken a state law will be treated.
Had the key portions of S1070 stood, those people would have been booked into jail, Arpaio said. Now, they will be turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Arpaio said his deputies have always done.
“This is not going to interfere with how we operate,” Arpaio said.
Arpaio said he wasn’t disappointed with Bolton’s decision because it will be appealed. He thinks the appeal will be successful.
“I don’t think the activists should be celebrating in the streets yet,” Arpaio said.
Sen. Russell Pearce, the bill’s sponsor, held an impromptu press conference in the hallway of the Senate building after refusing to take questions about S1070 during an event to call attention to a new state law that will allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
Pearce said the immigration law still allows police to ask about residency status, but instead of charging under the state law, police will have to turn suspects over to ICE.
Pearce said it was encouraging that Bolton left in the provision that prohibits local governments from limiting or restricting the enforcement of federal immigration laws. He accused Mesa, Chandler and Phoenix of being among cities in Arizona with sanctuary policies.
“We will sue them,” he said.
Pearce also believes the state will win the legal battle if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We wrote this for this battle,” Pearce said.
The tax payers of AZ will pay the burden of the legal battles - while Pearce is even threating to sue the cites he was hired to represent….we need new blood in state government.
I feel sad for Arpio and his people. They have to be very unhappy living beings (humanism has a different approach) to dedicate their lives to look for illegal immigrants. Only unhappiness and anger can really bring out the worst in a living being. What they are really doing is venting their anger at themselves towards others as they are usually to afraid to acknowledge and deal with their own problems and anger so therefor tend to view the world and people (immigrants)in a negative light.
You go Joe. Keep it up even it that ill informed judge made the wrong choice.
Yes, keep in up, Joe. That way, you’ll end in up in a federal prison!!!
Hurray for Joe! Bolton is a Bill Clinton appointee, not an Arizona voters choice.
Miriam, your attempt to portray the Arizona police as an extremist group is a tired tactic. The point you should be making and which Arizona is making is that the high migration rate is unnatural and as a result of a festering problem in Mexico which is where the focus of the criticism should be. The Mexican government should improve human rights and services at home instead of exporting the fall out for America to deal with. How does continually absorbing refugees of a system promote change? America got to be great by enforcing their own very just laws not by dropping them to allow human rights abusers to flourish.