By Paul Nachman
10/23/2009
Interviewed on Lou Dobbs’s radio show yesterday (October 22, 2009), Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix metro area) acknowledged that the approximately 100 of his deputies who've been able to make immigration-status arrests on the street and initiate deportations under their 287(g) authority with the Department of Homeland Security have lost that authority. However, the deputies will still be making such arrests and, for arrestees not being held on state charges, bestowing their harvests of illegal aliens on the local ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) office. "We'll see what happens," Arpaio told Dobbs.Arpaio isn’t intimidated by anybody, even throwing-their-weight-around feds, recognizing that his responsibility is to the citizens of his county, who've elected him repeatedly. (A recent press release from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office includes the bland remark that, at a press conference given by Arpaio contemporaneous with a weekend crime sweep he'd initiated, functionaries with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division "arrived unannounced and attempted to gain access into the news conference without being detected by Sheriff’s officials.")
Further, besides being no-nonsense, Arpaio has good reason for continuing to arrest illegal aliens for status, as related by San Diego talk-show host Roger Hedgecock:
[Arpaio’s] deputies arrest illegal immigrant law breakers because the illegals have become a local law enforcement nightmare. Over 33% of the inmates in the Maricopa County jail are illegal. More than 53% of violent crimes committed in Maricopa County are committed by illegals.Obviously, loss of his 287(g) authority is significant, but Kris Kobach (law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and, when a White House Fellow, counsel on immigration law to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft) makes it clear that local law enforcement has full, sovereign authority to make immigration-status arrests:
”Federal law does expressly authorize state and local police to make immigration arrests of previously deported felons who return to the United States and are in the country unlawfully,” Kobach said.Sheriff Joe, as he’s known, is obviously fighting for all of us who want our country to have a livable future. As suggested above, he’s also taking a lot of heat on behalf of us and that future. So we need to let him know he’s greatly appreciated!”That federal statute is found at 8 U.S.C. 1252c. In addition, as the U.S. Department of Justice officially recognized in 2002, state and local police possess the inherent authority to arrest illegal aliens and detain them briefly in order to transfer them to federal custody,” Kobach added.
”Those are two forms of arrest authority that Sheriff Arpaio possesses, apart from Section 287(g) authority,” Kobach said.
(Arizona Sheriff Vows to Enforce Immigration Law Whether “Feds’ Like It or Not, by Penny Starr, CNSNews.com, October 9, 2009)
A couple of months ago, I suggested that the way to communicate our appreciation is with a flurry of picture postcards to Sheriff Joe from all around the country, each bearing a brief "Attaboy!" note and the writer’s name and city, omitting the street address so it’s clear that no reply is expected. Unlike email messages, these are something tangible and distinctive that he can wave at the press and anyone else who harasses him.
A letter to VDARE from reader Erv Dusak endorsed my suggested postcard strategy — Dusak evidently sent Arpaio an "Attaboy!" letter that included Dusak’s return address, which netted a thank-you note back from the sheriff. Dusak concluded:
I should have heeded Nachman’s suggestion to send a post card so that Arpaio would not feel compelled to reply.I sent my postcard in August and heard from a few readers who also did so. I’m currently bereft of Montana scenic postcards, but I'll be sending Sheriff Arpaio a note today on a postcard (#134) you can see here.
So, readers, let’s create not just a flurry, this time, but a real blizzard of postcards (showing your local scenery) in support of Sheriff Joe! The address to use is:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio 100 West Washington Suite 1900 Phoenix, Arizona 85003Postcard postage these days is $0.28 for typical cards and $0.44 for "jumbos."
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