Trump says he may pardon racist former sheriff

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is thinking of pardoning Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff found guilty in a major racial profiling case.

“I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio,” Trump said on Sunday at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged Trump not to pardon Arpaio due to his treatment of Latinos in Arizona. “This would be an official presidential endorsement of racism,” said Cecillia Wang, an ACLU deputy legal director.

Arpaio had styled himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” for his harsh anti-immigrant stance. Opponents accused him of grandstanding and a disregard for human rights.

Some of his tactics included requiring male inmates to wear pink underwear and the use of an outdoor jail known as “Tent City”, an open air prison in the hot desert described as an inhumane death trap.

Critics say Arpaio relished the novel forms of abuse and indignity meted out to prisoners, who were paraded in black-and-white stripes while being fed rotten food, such as green sausage, twice a day.

Arpaio was also known for using the Maricopa County Sheriff ’s Department to supplement federal immigration enforcement efforts, earning him the adoration of white supremacists and anti-immigrant groups across the US.

Trump frequently praised Arpaio during his election campaign.

Arpaio was convicted on July 31 of misdemeanour contempt by a US district judge in Phoenix for wilfully disregarding a court order that barred his officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists solely on the suspicion that they were in the country without authorisation.

Federal prosecutors said the racial profiling of Latino drivers continued for about 18 months after the injunction was issued, with 170 or more people wrongfully detained.

During an investigation by the Department of Justice, Arpaio was found to have created “a general culture of bias” in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The 85-year-old failed to win re-election as sheriff last year. – teleSUR