Saturday, May 31, 2008

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Steps into New Mexico Politics

Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Maricopa County Arizona has decided to step into the New Mexico political scene. An article from Gwyneth Doland in the New Mexican Independent News website describes how the Sheriff who is both hated and revered across this country decided to endorse Aubrey Dunn in his 2cd Congressional District primary race against Ed Tinsley.

I have described in some past blog posts some of Sheriff Arpaio's tactics regarding his tent city jails and lately he has taken to rounding up illegal immigrants in his county. He has begun using deputies to round up immigrants and even started a hot line where citizens can call in information on smugglers and individual immigrants. Using laws designed to arrest smugglers of immigrants he is arresting the immigrants who are smuggled as co-conspirators. He is one of the first and may be the only sheriff in the country who is doing this. Because of Sheriff Arpaio's hard stance on illegal immigration he is supporting Aubrey Dunn who is also taking a hard line on illegal immigrants. Aubrey Dunn has also attracted the support of the Minute Man Civil Defense Corps. The Minute Men are a group of volunteers who's mission it is to patrol the border and catch immigrants crossing over illegally.

Both Sheriff Arpaio and The Minute Men cite Aubrey Dunn's promise to fight any type of amnesty program as the reason they are supporting him. In this blog post I discussed whether Sheriff Arpaio would last a day in Santa Fe. Here are some other posts where I discussed Sheriff Arpaio.

New Mexico is a diverse state, City's like Santa Fe and Albuquerque have proclaimed themselves immigrant friendly, while cities and counties which are along the Mexico, New Mexico border take a hard line with immigration. Problems from illegal immigration are much more pronounced in the cities and counties along the New Mexico border and as such the citizens who live in the area want relief. Some candidates from these areas are positioning themselves to attract the voters who are fed up with the immigration problems in the U.S.. I do feel that immigration reform is needed and while we should strengthen our borders we must make a workable solution available for those who want to come and work here to do so in a legal way. I have often felt that Sheriff Arpaio has a tendency to tip toe if not step on civil rights and often chooses the extreme solution to a problem. This does provide media coverage and can rally the troops which, when you look at his re-election numbers seems to work well in his county. It's not my style and Sheriff Arpaio and myself are on completely opposite sides of the political spectrum.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

The US needs more County Sheriffs like Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Anonymous said...

I just read the paper today (6/12/2008). I am very disappointed that your department does not contact ICE for DWI checkpoints. I voted for you twice because I thought you believed in enforcing ALL laws, not just the politically correct ones.

Greg Solano said...

In reference to contacting ICE at DWI Checkpoints. New Mexico law is very specific in that if you are running a checkpoint for DWI you cannot check for other things such as having drug dogs to check for drugs or ICE officials on hand to check for immigration status. If you do lawyers can use this to have all the DWI arrests thrown out on that basis alone. Therefor our hands are tied. If we find say a pickup loaded with 16 illegal immigrants we will call ICE and report and turn over the individuals. The paper really did not clarify that. We just cannot have ICE participating in the checkpoint and rather we must call them in seperatly should a violation be found.

Anonymous said...

the us needs more sheriffs like joe arpio?????? hell no he's just a racist jerk that wants people who come here to do no harm and just come here to work, to live in poverty and to have a crappy life he can't stand the fact that they come here fore a better life.... He's greedy and selfish and racist

Anonymous said...

The US doesn't need Joe Arpaio. As an Maricopa County resident in AZ. I am embarressed. His voters slam anyone who disagrees with him, telling us to go back to the East Coast where we came from. Funny that thier beloved Arpiehole is from Massachusetts(the East Coast) and Dan Saban a real lawman is a native of Arizona and knows what real law is all about.

Unknown said...

Real LAW MEN enforce the law; All the laws. Frankly, under the circumstances with the lawlessness in the south west, I think Sheriff Joe needs to tighten things up about 10 - 20%. He should hire more deputies and put bounties in Illegal’s.

Anonymous is like everybody else in the shadows that throw rocks but have NO workable solutions to dealing with the Illegal’s except develop a new give away program that tax payers are forced to pay; Same OLD Liberal Bull S**t.

Anonymous, your lucky you got Sheriff Joe and not me and my deputies. I would tighten you up.

Stay on it Sheriff, we need more leaders like you!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I cannot listen to another person describe the illegal immigrants as " poor people just here to work to send money home to their family." I moved to peoria in 2004 and found I couldn't even shop at the stores near my home because of alleged day " workers " surrounding my car, shouting sexual vulgarities at me in spanish, to then follow me to where I tried to park before I left the area completely in fear of being assaulted. Thie wasn't just one occasion or even one area of day laborers. I had to then drive miles away to be able to shop where they weren't allowed to sit all day to wait for females alone to threaten. I was 40 years old and bought a handgun for the first time in my life. Every time I drove into an area whee they were being dropped off at the end of the day I saw them go directly to the liquor store and come out with their brown bags because this is what they worked for and these are the only kind of illegal immigrant I have seen. When I see so many sympathetic people standing up to defend their rights, I feel deeply betrayed in feeling my safety means nothing to you and you are more willing to accept not only myself, but, your own daughters, sisters, and mothers being victims in order to fight for their rights. Sheriff Arpaio's ICE project is the only thing that has made me safe. I sincerely hope your daughter's never become a victim of these " poor, innocent immigrants ", but, you do not see the reality of the crime statistics of rape, molestations, and murders by the people you are enabling and defending. And while there may be hard workers out there on a minimal scale, I refuse to accept the risks while weeding out the good from the bad. Please defend someone like me once in awhile. It appears Joe Arpaio is the only one who has.

TommyO said...

Sheriff Solano, we tax payers in Maricopa County are being robbed of services by our sheriff. He insists on using MCSO equipment and personnel to do his silly sweeps while he ignores the rest of the COUNTY, which is the PRIMARY responsibility of the sheriff. While he is busy doing these silly sweeps and catching less than 50 undocumented workers in the cities of Phoenix and Mesa, both of which have their own police departments, unincorporated areas of Maricopa County are being ignored. From your perspective as a truly professional sheriff, please help us get the word out that Dan Saban is the officer needed to replace Arpaio in November. Please take some time to study Dan Saban and then provide an endorsement for Dan Saban.

alex,oyk said...

Carla up there is just plain RACIST how is that any diffrent walking passed a crew of white construction workers. That being said Arpio isnt actually making a diffrence in the imagration situation or in the overall crime rate in Maricopa county. What Arpio dose best is whip up media frenzies in attempt to get the most ai rtime on public TV as possable. I'm also astonished how people who know very little about the county's criminal justice system think they can have an opinion on the subject. First of all Maricopa county inmates are by a large detainees not to be confused with a prisoner. Detainess are awaiting court proceedings and are techniclly not guilty yet or are awaiting yet to be determined punishment. Once sentenced the inmates will be sent to prison under A.D.C. (Arizona Department of Corrections) where the living standards are uncomparably better. Also another percentage of sentanced inmates who are convicted of crimes deserving lesser than one year will be housed in Tent City. I've also seen it time and time again Where your average blue collar citizen saying "Good give those punks what they deserve" get locked in with the "punks" and relize the inmates are just like you and me, the same blue collar citizens are the ones who complain to a greater degree and leave jail singing a driffrent tune. But still its funny that People are charmed by Arpio's OBVIOUS propaganda and dont once step back and look at the results or if its all huff and puff. Just remember county jail is not the same as prison most sitting in jail are UN-SENTENCED INMATES while actual SENTENCED INMATES in A.D.C live much better and are treated with more respect by the C.O.s (Corrections Officer) than the treatment recived by county inmates from the D.O.s (Detention Officer). And oh Carla you do realize that most rapists and child molesters are by a large middle class white males age 35 to 40 so you need to keep your ignorant and obviously racist mouth shut, also living in peoria you should also know its a hotbed for meth amphetamines with is mostly produced by white bikers and is a large contributor to the increasing crime rate while your worried about hard working people who just want a cold beer after a long work day.