AZ Policy Wonk

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio received a high approval rating in the most recent Cronkite/Eight poll.

Sixty-one percent of Maricopa County voters said they approve or strongly approve of his job performance. Thirty-four percent disapprove or strongly disapprove.

It’s one of those love-him-or-hate-him kinds of things, as most voters logged in with a “strongly” response. Thirty-nine percent said they strongly approve of the job he’s doing, while 22 percent strongly disapproved. Four percent said they had no opinion.

The poll was conducted Oct. 22-25 by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and Eight/KAET.

Also, county voters disagreed overwhelmingly with the federal government’s decision to strip the sheriff’s department of a portion of its 287(g) agreement that allowed deputies to enforce U.S. immigration law during crime-suppression sweeps. Sixty percent disagreed with the decision, while 36 percent agreed. Again, four percent said they had no opinion.

An analysis that was released along with the poll results noted, however, that “Republicans, people with lower levels of formal education, and social conservatives were most supportive of the sheriff; Democrats, voters with higher levels of formal education, and social moderates were least supportive.”

The poll also gauged voters’ approval ratings for Treasurer Dean Martin, Secretary of State Ken Bennett, Attorney General Terry Goddard, Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Not only that, but respondents were asked about swine flu and national health care reform. Full results are below.

The statewide sample of 652 registered voters was 37 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat and 29 percent Independent. Fifty-nine percent of the interviews were conducted in Maricopa County, 17 percent in Pima County and 24 percent in Arizona’s other counties. Forty-nine percent of the voters interviewed were men and 51 percent are women. The sampling error for the statewide sample survey is plus or minus 3.8 percent. The sampling error for the Maricopa County sample, which included 389 registered voters, is plus or minus 5.0 percent.

Question wording:

First, please tell me if you approve or disapprove of the job the following Arizona state-level officials are doing. If you don’t feel you know enough about how they are doing to have an opinion, just tell me and I’ll go on to the next one. Let’s start with Governor Jan Brewer. Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job she is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    2%     2%
 approve   37%   48%
 disapprove   30%   39%
 strongly disapprove    9%   11%
 don’t know/no opinion 22%   

How about the job Terry Goddard is doing as attorney general?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  11%   15%
 approve   44%   61%
 disapprove   13%   18%
 strongly disapprove    4%     6%
 don’t know/no opinion 28%  

What about the job Ken Bennett is doing as secretary of state?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    1%     3%
 approve   19%   61%
 disapprove     9%   30%
 strongly disapprove    2%     6%
 don’t know/no opinion 69%  

How about the job Dean Martin is doing as state treasurer?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    7%   14%
 approve   25%   50%
 disapprove    15%   31%
 strongly disapprove    3%     5%
 don’t know/no opinion 50%   

How important do you think it is for Congress to vote this year on a bill to reform our health care system? Do you think it is very important, important, not very important, or not at all important?

 very important   48%
 important   19%
 not very important  11%
 not at all important  19%
 don’t know/no opinion   3%

Would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private insurance companies?

favor    44%
oppose    49%
don’t know/no opinion   7%

Now, turning to the swine flu, when a vaccination becomes readily available in Arizona, will you get a swine flu vaccination?

 yes    41%
 no    54%
 don’t know/no opinion   5%

Regardless of how you feel about getting a swine flu vaccination, have you had or will you have a regular flu shot this year?
yes    58%
no    41%
don’t know/no opinion   1%

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  Please tell me if you approve or disapprove of the job the following Maricopa County officials are doing. Again, if you don’t have enough information about how they are doing to rate them, just tell me and I’ll go to the next person. Let’s start with County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove (9%/14) of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  12%   17%
 approve   32%   47%
 disapprove   14%   22%
 strongly disapprove    9%   14%
 don’t know/no opinion 33%  

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  How about the job Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doing.  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  39%   41%
 approve   22%   23%
 disapprove   13%   14%
 strongly disapprove  22%   22%
 don’t know/no opinion   4%  

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  Under an agreement with the federal government, the Maricopa County sheriff’s department has had the authority to arrest illegal immigrants in the community and to screen the immigration status of people booked into the county jail. Recently, the federal government restricted Sheriff Arpaio to ONLY checking the immigration status of people when they are checked into jail. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to limit Arpaio’s immigration authority?

 agree    36% 
 disagree   60% 
 don’t know/no opinion   4%

It took about two weeks, but Sheriff Joe has figured out where he got the list of criteria to detain illegal immigrants.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office released a statement earlier this week that noted he will continue to use a set of indicators - including an inability to speak English, unusual appearance and the location where people are stopped - to detain people who might be illegal immigrants. The media release sent out on Oct. 21 stated that the source of those indicators was actually a training manual used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents - not federal law, as he had previously said.

The media release started out this way: “Several recent televised interviews of the sheriff have mischaracterized and confused the context of the explanation he has given of his
office’s practices and procedures. This should set the record straight.”

Arpaio noted that his office doesn’t target people of any specific nationality, and that his deputies don’t rely on any one indicator before detaining a suspected illegal immigrant. Rather, he stated that his office must have reasonable suspicion that a state law has been violated, which can lead to follow-up interrogation to develop additional indicators or facts to support detainment.

Basically, the idea is that he is going to continue using the indicators below as a tool to detain suspects:

-Does the detainee have a thick accent or not comprehend English

-Whether the individual had identification

-Is the location of the stop a known illegal alien locale

-Is the detainee’s appearance unusual or out of place in the specific locale

-Does the detainee appear to be in transit or recently traveling

-Did the detainee’s demeanor change (i.e. “freeze or take flight”) when first spotted by the officer

-Did the vehicle seem overcrowded or ride heavily

-Did the passengers in the vehicle slouch down, slump or attempt to avoid being detected in the vehicle

The handbook was used when local law enforcement officers were trained by ICE to be de-facto immigration agents. But the press release also mentioned (in the last paragraph) that the 100 MCSO deputies trained to take part in the program will have to turn over their ICE credentials soon.

MCSO apparently used these criteria during the crime-suppression sweep in Phoenix on Oct. 16-17. Sixty-six people were arrested during the sweep, including 30 illegal immigrants. Of those, 19 were turned over to ICE.

The only difference between that sweep and those that had taken place previously is that MCSO had to call ICE to come and arrest the illegal immigrants who had committed no state crimes - the sheriff’s deputies had lost the authority to do so when the Department of Homeland Security revoked part of Arpaio’s 287(g) agreement earlier this month.

If ICE continues to be on-call, then not much will change in terms of Arpaio’s ability to enforce immigration laws. But in a previous sweep, ICE had not responded when MCSO called for assistance, and now ICE says it will do so as time and resources allow. Priorities also will dictate their response; if they’re busy arresting violent criminals, they might not be available to assist Arpaio when his deputies detain people who’s only crime was being in the country without permission.

Also during the most recent crime sweep, federal investigators were present to see just how the state laws were being enforced and whether Sheriff Joe was condoning the use of racial profiling to stop people and interrogate them. The investigators were posing as journalists, which means they likely were carrying notepads, using recorders and cameras, and probably, based on my experience in newsrooms, dressed shabily.

Although the criteria for detaining people on the streets, as outlined in the ICE handbook that MCSO cited, are similar in some ways to the non-existent federal law to which Arpaio had mistakenly referred, it’s not nearly as blunt in approach. (See previous blog post http://azcapitoltimes.com/azpolicywonk/2009/10/14/sheriff-joe-a-non-existent-us-law-and-the-next-crime-sweep/)

Rather than cite the clothing people are wearing as a reason for detainment, the handbook explains that people can be stopped if they appear to be out of place. Instead of citing speech patterns that indicate foreign citizenship, the handbook explains that non-comprehension of English is sufficient.

Clearly, there is a slight but important difference between the two sets of criteria.

And there is disparity, if only in form and not substance, between citing something as U.S. law and citing something that’s in a training manual. Sheriff Joe should have known what the source was before going on TV and referring to a federal law that doesn’t exist.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office just released the following statement. Rather than bloviate, I just pasted it below. But I will say it’s one of the first times I’ve seen his office admit a mistake.

Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 4:27 PM
Subject: News Conference Update

Last week during a news conference discussing the Sheriff’s agreement with ICE and the 287g agreement, Sheriff Arpaio made reference to and distributed a document that is an interpretation of Title 8 of the U.S. Code regarding federal immigration laws and the authority to enforce those laws.

Over recent weeks, Sheriff’s Office staff has been conducting research on the issue of federal immigration laws and how the Sheriff’s Office will be affected by the loss of the law enforcement portion of the 287g program.

During that research, the Sheriff’s Office has referred to title 8 of the U.S. code as well as a multitude of interpretations of federal law. This form containing an interpretation was inadvertently given to the Sheriff with an incorrect citation of a certain section of federal law as an example of how to pursue the federal law.

Although the citation and language does not appear in the U.S. code, title 8 does exist and the Sheriff’s Office believes that it still has the authority under federal law to detain illegal aliens during the course of their duties.

That section of title 8 the Sheriff’s Office intended to reference is attached to this e-mail.  

Here’s the link: http://azcapitoltimes.com/wp-files/pdfs/title-8.pdf

“You said some nasty things about me. I take it that way.”

 

That’s how my conversation with Sheriff Joe started on Oct. 14. He was offended that I had said on television that he was trying to use a non-existent federal law to justify the continuation of his crime-suppression sweeps.

 

After watching Arpaio on the Glenn Beck Show and CNN with Rick Sanchez last week, I was somewhat puzzled that he was upset with me particularly. Seems like those two national personalities beat him up quite a bit more than I did. And I was only on a local program, the Horizon Journalists Roundtable.

 

Indeed, I had called him out for citing a law that seems to exist only in the minds of anti-illegal immigration groups. In fact, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, the document he has been citing during press conferences and national TV spots has no place in federal code. In other words, it doesn’t exist.

 

It all started a week ago when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reconstructed an agreement with local law enforcement that essentially stripped the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office of its power to enforce illegal immigration violations under the 287(g) program. While the new agreement allows Arpaio and other sheriffs to check the immigration status of those who are arrested for other crimes, it was intended to stop him from detaining people on the street to check whether they are in the country illegally.

 

After the new 287(g) agreement was struck, Arpaio called a press conference to blast the feds and to say that he would continuing business as usual. In fact, he said he was planning to do another sweep in two weeks. Now, he says he’s going to do the sweep on Friday.

 

But during the press conference on Oct. 6 reporters asked Arpaio what authority he would use to continue rounding up illegal immigrants on the streets. He said there are a couple of state laws that permit it and other federal statutes that provide that type of authority. He then passed out a document that he said was a federal law that allows his agency to “detain an individual for a brief warrantless interrogation where circumstances create a reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the U.S.”

 

The document Arpaio personally passed out at a press conference and said was federal statute can be found here: http://azcapitoltimes.com/wp-files/pdfs/section8.pdf

 

The document, at first glance, appeared to be taken from a section of U.S. Code. At the top of the page, it listed a title and chapter numbers, as well as references to subsections.

 

But about midway through the text, it outlined a set of circumstances that justify such “brief warrantless interrogations,” and that’s where things started to get odd. Here’s an excerpt: “Specific facts constituting a reasonable suspicion include evasive, nervous, or erratic behavior; dress or speech indicating foreign citizenship; and presence in an area known to contain a concentration of illegal aliens.”

 

Reporter Jeremy Duda brought the document to my attention, and both of us were a skeptical that the federal government would essentially grant authority to interrogate people on the basis of what they were wearing, or their speech patterns. One friend of mine jokingly asked whether a mariachi suit would justify questioning. And what about the reference to an area known to contain a concentration of illegal aliens? Could that be taken to mean Arizona in general?

 

So Jeremy dug a little deeper. He read through the section of code that Arpaio’s document referenced (Section 8, USC 1324). He couldn’t find any citation of that text. He continued searching records, and later asked ICE officials, immigration attorneys and the Department of Justice to clarify whether that was, as Arpaio had said, included in federal law. Everyone said it wasn’t.

 

Another editor and I read through actual U.S. code and also couldn’t find any reference to the text of the document Arpaio had handed out. We were perplexed.

 

Jeremy followed up with a story on Oct. 7 that outlined these developments, which can be found here: http://azcapitoltimes.com/blog/2009/10/06/arpaio-blasts-feds-vows-to-continue-immigration-enforcement/

 

Then, after our story was published (there was also an item in that afternoon’s Yellow Sheet Report) and a subsequent commentary was written in the East Valley Tribune, Arpaio cited the document as law on both CNN and FOX. Rick Sanchez was incredulous. Perhaps surprisingly, so was Glenn Beck.

 

Beck asked Arpaio to point to the specific law. Arpaio replied: “If local law enforcement comes across some people who have an erratic or scared or whatever … they’re worried, and if they have their speech, what they look like - if they look like they just came from another country, we can take care of that situation.”

 

Beck asked if that was profiling, and noted that the federal government doesn’t allow profiling.

 

Arpaio’s again pointed to the non-existent federal law, saying “It’s in there. It’s in there.”

 

On CNN, Arpaio told Sanchez that the revocation of the 287(g) agreement really doesn’t mean anything. He said it was just a contract, but “it’s OK, I’m still going to enforce the human smuggling.”

 

Sanchez asked how the sheriff and his deputies know if someone they stop on the street is in the country illegally.

 

“It has to do with their conduct, what type of clothes they’re wearing, their speech … a lot of variables involved,” Arpaio said. Questioned further about how clothing can determine a person’s status, Arpaio said, “You look at the federal law. The federal law specifies, the speech the clothes the environment the erratic behavior, it’s right in the law.”

 

An online search for the text Arpaio was citing revealed that the document existed - but not in federal code. It was plastered all over the websites of anti-illegal immigration groups.

 

One of the groups that had published the text, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, noted that it was only an analysis of federal law and offered a disclaimer that it was not to be used as a substitute for actual legal advice.

 

The website showing the overview published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform can be found here: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersbcdd

 

So, this morning when I had a chance to interview Arpaio about all that had occurred, he insisted at first that the document was taken directly from U.S. Code. He said ICE had confirmed that the document was valid.

 

But after further discussion about our findings, Arpaio took a step back. He acknowledged that the document might not be part of federal law. He said, “I thought it was a law. I don’t know what you call it.”

 

He went on to say that it really doesn’t matter if it’s law or if it’s just an analysis, and said he has plenty of authority to continue the crime-suppression sweeps.

 

“I still think there’s a federal law out there that gives me the authority to do this,” he said. “I might not have the right one, but there is one out there.”

 

It’s still not clear what will happen when Arpaio attempts to conduct another sweep because ICE officials have been quiet about how they’ll react and Arpaio says he’ll take the illegal immigrants to Border Patrol if he has to.

 

“When they (ICE) won’t take them, I’ll take them to Border Patrol,” he said. “So let’s see what happens now. How can you tell Border Patrol that you can’t take them? If mine are illegal and they don’t take them, are they going to take the other ones that they find?”

 

We might not have to wait long for the answer; the next sweep is scheduled to happen in two days.