Cities, counties and states that haven’t been very kind to illegal immigrants over the years are suddenly dusting off their welcome mats. With the 2010 census about to get under way, those undocumented residents will be worth a lot of money for the next few weeks.
Jurisdictions across the country are reaching out to illegal immigrant communities, some of which are reluctant to participate, in an effort to convince them that filling out the census form is safe and that the information they provide won’t be used against them. Counting every last resident is vital for these districts, because the census numbers will be used to determine funding as well as legislative districts. The more people an area has, the more money it is eligible for, and the more representation it can get in Congress — which usually means even more money.
“It helps us build our hospitals, schools, parks, libraries,” said Michael Nowakowski, vice mayor of the city of Phoenix and the point person for the census on the City Council.
But cities like Phoenix have a major trust gap to close. Phoenix is in the heart of Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio is known nationwide for cracking down on illegal immigrants.
Pima County Superior Court Judge John Leonardo, who was appointed to hear the case, said Thomas faced a conflict of interest in prosecuting Mary Rose Wilcox and ruled that the conflict violated Wilcox’s rights when Thomas’ office presented allegations against her to a grand jury in January.
“Because the defendant has no representative to watch out for his or her interests before the grand jury, the prosecutor has a duty (to) not take advantage of this role to unfairly influence the grand jury,” Leonardo wrote.
Wilcox, 60, was accused of voting on contracts involving a Hispanic advocacy group that had given her loans and never filing conflict-of-interest statements. She had pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conflict of interest, perjury, forgery and false swearing.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ pursuit of a spate of lawsuits and indictments against county leaders and judges won’t rob any other criminal defendants of their right to a fair trial, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Wallace Hoggatt of Cochise County Superior Court ruled against more than 40 criminal defendants who sought to disqualify the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office from their cases on claims the office had a conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety in representing the state.
Thomas also got indictments against Stapley and County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, and he filed a criminal complaint against Judge Gary Donahoe.
Read the rest here | here
Sheriff Joe Arpaio held a press conference Monday afternoon to announce some big changes in the way he enforces immigration laws.
The sheriff is under investigation by the Justice Department for racial profiling, and has taken heat for his crime suppression sweeps. But he still says he won’t back down.
Arpaio says that every MCSO deputy will receive training to find and detain illegal immigrants, and be taught to avoid racial profiling.
MCSO has hired a professor of immigration law, Kris Kobach, to lead the training. He says that deputies have the inherent authority to detain suspected illegal immigrants.
The Arizona Republic has printed a barrage of articles, editorials, and guest op-eds by attorneys lately highly critical of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County
Attorney Andrew Thomas. When attorneys like Dennis Riccio, below, try to submit an article with a positive viewpoint of Arpaio and Thomas, the Republic can’t turn their bias aside enough to print even one positive article.
My Turn: Enough of Prejudging Thomas and Arpaio
It is disturbing reading many of the editorials and op-eds in this this newspaper about Sheriff Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas’s attempts to prosecute Supervisors Stapley and Wilcox and investigate the Court Tower. The writers rush to judgment accusing Arpaio and Thomas of unethical behavior, without knowing the full facts. Only Arpaio and Thomas have seen the results of the investigations, search warrants and subpoenas. Most of this information is still privileged until the prosecution is over, and some of it – the Grand Jury information – will never be publicly releasable. The newspaper editorial board and criminal defense attorneys are acting as judge and jury prematurely deciding cases in public they know very little about.
The public has a right to be skeptical of a $341 million state of the art, luxury Court Tower being built during a recession, while county agencies, including law enforcement, are forced to cut 15% of their budgets by laying off employees. With the exception of columnist Laurie Roberts, this newspaper has failed to ask the hard questions, and even her questions have gone unanswered. Why is this luxury tower being built even though the county cannot afford it? People deserve to know answers.
Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker will announce his run for Congress Saturday with support from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Parker had been running for governor but opted to switch to a U.S. House bid after Congressman John Shadegg said he would not seek another term.
Sheriff Richard Mack
By now we have all heard the cliches and seen the posters from the “Tea Parties” espousing freedom, less government, and perhaps most of all, how the federal government had better back off trying to shove their national healthcare down our otherwise healthy throats. The truth of the matter is all the slogans of “Don’t Tread On Me” or “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” or “We’re Mad As Hell And We’re Not Taking It Anymore,” don’t mean a thing when compared to reality; the real and actual answer to all the protests, marches, and outrage. The answer is in our own backyards! The States can stop every bit of it! That’s right, the individual States can stop “Obamacare” and all other forms of out-of-control federal government mandates and “big brother” tactics. If Arizona, Hawaii, New Hamshire, Texas, etc. want nothing to do with National Healthcare as proposed by Barack Obama or Congress, then all they have to do is say “No!”
For you skeptics who think the States could no more do this than fly to the moon, let’s look at the law. First, the U.S. Constitution is the ultimate and supreme law of the land. More specifically, the Bill of Rights was established, because some of our Founding Fathers, feared that the Constitution did not go far enough in restricting or limiting the central government. Hamilton was one of a select few who wanted a bigger and powerful federal government. However, several key states and powerful delegates such as Patrick Henry, said they would not support the formation of a new government if the Constitution did not contain a Bill of Rights, a supreme law to establish basic and fundamental human rights that could never, for all future American generations, be violated, altered or encroached upon by government. So the Framers of our Constitution came up with ten; ten God-given freedoms that would forever be held inviolable by our own governments. Read the rest.
by Jeff Matthews
After reading my first article on State Sovereignty by Sheriff Mack, letting it sink in slowly, and then, listening to his most recent podcast on TAC, I thought it time to speak up on the importance of the county sheriff from a concerned citizen’s point of view, as well as a strategic point of view.
There is no doubt this nation is at a “cross roads.” There is no doubt the states’ legislatures are speaking up against the federal government. There is no doubt the citizens are demanding the federal government’s respect of its Constitutional limitation on powers. So, what does the county sheriff have to do with any of this?
We, the people of our various states, have elected our sheriffs to preserve and protect our Constitutional rights. Classically, we see this role as being executing by protecting us from thieves and robbers and by exercising appropriate restraint to insure they do not violate our rights by conducting improper searches and seizures against us. A good sheriff does both of the above.
A great sheriff, however, goes beyond the two aforementioned roles. A great sheriff will stand on the side of the people who elect him or her, and do that which is necessary to preserve their rights.
Now, let me explain the reason for the catchy title of this brief article. If (or when) the people have a face-off with the federal government, and many ordinary citizens gather to demand their rights, what happens when words do not matter? On which side of the line would you want your sheriff standing? With the people, or against the people? I think we can all agree we want the sheriffs’ guns pointed away from us and not at us.
Clearly, the sheriff has an important decision to make when such events occur. One of the unfortunate things that has occurred over the decades is that the federal government has, in so many cases, been viewed, and accepted, as always on the right side. In so many cases, when federal law enforcement officials enter into matters of local jurisdiction, if our local officials are not “rubber-stamping” their actions, that is because they are busy rolling out the red carpets.
Sheriff Mack appears to be making a valiant effort to correct this misguided reception of federal influence. We, the people, elect our sheriffs. We do not elect federal law enforcement officials. We provide substantial tax dollars to our sheriffs, for the hiring of deputies and for properly equipping them to deal with out-of-control situations where ordinary citizens cannot.
Our sheriffs have quite an infrastructure in place. They are not our state representatives. They are the “guns” behind our state representatives. It is good to support action through our legislatures, and by all means, this should continue. But think about how important it is to have law enforcement, with its infrastructure in place, on our side. When words stop mattering, we just might find our sheriffs to be invaluable.
