White House strips immigration policing powers from Arizona sheriff

Yareni De Anda
10/09/09
1:57pm

The article is about the harsh sheriff of Arizona and his anti-immigrants actions towards undocumented immigrants. Sheriff and lawmen Arpaio is well known for his “aggressive tactics” such as jailing of immigrants in horrible conditions such as leaving them out in the heat of Arizona in the middle of the summer, as well as discriminatory treatment such as “the use of pink jail clothing for men and chain gangs from women inmates”. The article mentions that compared to other agencies with the same authority to arrest undocumented immigrants, he has arrested more immigrants since 2007 (33,000). According to this article the number of complaints and investigations from the justice department contributed to the removal of his federal authority to arrest anymore undocumented immigrants, although his sentiments and goals towards immigrants remain hostile and he does not plan on stopping. The article says that the federal government does not know how to deal with all the anti-immigrant sentiments of conservative people. There is some proposals to fix this problem, “Democrats and some Republicans call for a system that will allow most to gain legal status after paying a fine and learning English” but the efforts of those in favor of the reform have not been sufficient yet. A lot of law enforcement agencies are in favor of giving local officers the authority to enforce immigration law but opponents argue that it is a waste of money that should be put into something else, “promotes racial profiling of Hispanics, targets peaceful workers, breaks up families and breeds distrust of police among immigrants, who become afraid to report crime for fear they will be asked for immigration papers.”

I personally think that the idea that giving local police the authority to question, arrest and even deport immigrants that appear to be undocumented will create fear and chaos. I believe it is important to stop for a moment and think of the things that can go wrong with this administration of power. For instance the potential abuse of this power by local authorities could in turn indirectly affect an innocent person which is what has happened with the 287g law and sheriff Arpaio. I do agree with most of the opposing opinions mention at the end of the article since it is clear that by giving the wrong people the authority to enforce these laws there are more people involved such as the kids of the migrants who are being deported and separated from their families.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/09/obama-immigration-arpaio-arizona-sheriff