If They Sought Arpaio's Support, How Can They be Our Amigos?

The U.S. Justice Department says Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio ran the nation's "most egregious system" of racial profiling, presided over a "chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations" and engaged in a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos.

Yet while all this was happening, even as Latinos cried out for justice, most of the GOP presidential candidates stood in line seeking Arpaio's endorsement. They wanted the support of America's self-proclaimed "toughest lawman" and the votes of the mean-spirited, immigrant-bashing Americans who consider Arpaio a hero.

In the beginning of the Republican primary season, when pandering to right-wing extremists became routine, they didn't seem to care about offending and alienating Latino voters.

Latinos argued that our civil rights were being violated. That with the pretext of going after undocumented immigrants, Arpaio's Maricopa County deputies were detaining, harassing and even jailing legal U.S. residents and citizens — just for looking Hispanic!

Nevertheless, Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Rick Perry were all reportedly seeking the support of a man they must have known was being investigated for numerous civil rights violations.

After all, Arpaio's deputies have been acting as if they were in the Wild West long before Arizona passed its infamous SB 1070 immigrant-bashing law. With its racial profiling clauses, SB 1070 is now headed for the Supreme Court. Although some of those measures have been stopped from taking effect by the lower courts in Maricopa County, there was a "culture of bias" and systematic disregard for the Constitution before and after the law was passed in 2010.

Amazingly, even after the Justice Department issued a scathing report on Arpaio's "discriminatory policing" last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who had received Arpaio's endorsement two weeks earlier — tried to defend the embattled sheriff.

Even though a federal prosecutor explained last week that Arpaio runs a law enforcement agency with "a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," Perry ludicrously suggested that instead of the villain, Arpaio is the victim of a "politically motivated" scheme by the Obama administration.

"I would suggest to you that these people are out after Sheriff Joe," Perry told reporters. "He is tough. And again, when I'm the president of the United States, you're not going to see me going after states like Arizona or Alabama, suing sovereign states for making decisions."

While acknowledging that he didn't even know the details or the serious implications of the Justice Department charges — or how they affect at least 40 million Latinos who are in the country legally — Perry sought only to pander to Arpaio fans.

With a straight face, they constantly tell us that their problem is only with undocumented immigrants, and that they value and welcome legal immigrants. And yet, they constantly demonstrate their support for policies that discriminate against all Latinos — legal and illegal.

The long overdue Justice Department's report charged that Arpaio's office committed a variety of civil rights violations against American Latinos and his officers treated Latinos as if they were all undocumented immigrants. It also noted that Latino drivers — legal residents and citizens — are 4 to 9 times more likely to be pulled over at traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that some Latinos are arrested without cause.

The three-year investigation found that Arpaio's immigration "sweeps" were often based merely on complaints and unverified tips that Latinos were gathering somewhere but without any sign that they were undocumented immigrants or committing crimes. It also found that Arpaio's jails deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights; inmates with limited command of English are routinely punished for failing to understand instructions; and jail officers use racial slurs to describe and address Latinos. It noted that in its obsession to prosecute immigrants, the Maricopa sheriff's office failed to properly investigate more than 400 cases of sexual assault and molestation involving immigrants.

Based on the findings of the Justice Department investigation, the Department of Homeland Security immediately severed its ties with the Maricopa sheriff's office, restricting its use of a federal fingerprint program to identify undocumented immigrants and stripping Arpaio's prison officers of their authority to determine whether inmates in county jails are in the country illegally.

Federal prosecutors gave Arpaio until Jan. 4 to agree to staffing and policy changes or face a lawsuit seeking court sanctions against Maricopa County.

But this should not come as a surprise to the presidential candidates. When some of them sought Arpaio's endorsement, even before the Justice Department's report was released Thursday, they already knew Arpaio was under investigation for racial profiling and civil rights violations against Latinos. They knew that many legal residents and citizens felt threatened by Arpaio's racial profiling tactics.

Yet they demonstrated tremendous insensitivity toward Latinos. Once again showing that during the Republican primaries, pandering to xenophobes and conservative extremists is their only priority. And once again, they demonstrated that under the pretext of going after undocumented immigrants, they are willing to support cops and policies that abuse and discriminate against all Latinos.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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