A federal judge ruled that Joe Arpaio was violating the constitutional rights of Latino drivers by targeting them and using their ethnicity to influence legal decisions in his attempts to crack down on illegal immigration.
In a groundbreaking case, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s policies on illegal immigration were ruled to be unconstitutional because they violated the rights of Latino drivers who are American citizens or legal residents, who would be stopped more often than other races and were targeted for investigation by the county. The ruling came only days after the U.S. Senate approved a piece of immigration legislation that will put illegal residents on a 13-year path to legal citizenship while strengthening security along the U.S.’s southwest border with Mexico.
A class-action lawsuit was brought against Arpaio by all of the Latino drivers he had stopped since 2007 when it was determined that his policies were racially profiling drivers. U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow agreed that his policies were discriminatory, though Arpaio denied the charges and said that he was against racial profiling. He made no comment after the ruling.
“The great weight of the evidence is that all types of saturation patrols at issue in this case incorporated race as a consideration into their operations,” Snow wrote in his ruling.
Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and plaintiffs’ counsel, called the judge’s ruling “an important victory that will resound far beyond Maricopa County.”
“Singling people out for traffic stops and detentions simply because they’re Latino is illegal and just plain un-American,” Wang said. “Let this be a warning to anyone who hides behind a badge to wage their own private campaign against Latinos or immigrants that there is no exception in the Constitution for violating people’s rights in immigration enforcement.”
This is not Arpaio’s first lawsuit, who had been the subject of a criminal investigation into accusations of financial misconduct, though charges were never filed. A U.S. Justice Department investigation and lawsuit relating to accusations of civil rights abuses by Arpaio’s office is, however, ongoing.
In 2010, Republican Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer signed a crackdown on illegal immigration. Although the federal government challenged the policy in court, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the part permitting police to question people they stop about their immigration status. It does not allow for racial profiling of drivers, though, which Arpaio was found guilty of.
Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP