Pardon of ‘Sheriff Joe’ sends message
Excusing ex-lawman for contempt means Trump expects the same from local police
Daniel Magos often thinks back to that morning in December of 2009 when a Maricopa County sheriff ’s deputy stopped him as he drove his rusted Ford pickup to a drywall restoration job near his Phoenix home.
“I’m just trying to earn a living and all of a sudden I’m being stopped — you know, for what?” said Magos, who was born in Mexico and became a U.S. citizen in 1963. “The deputy is just staring at me, very angry like I shouldn’t be here in this country trying to make a living.”
After a 10-minute interrogation, the deputy, who worked under then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, allowed him to leave.
“It was profiling, no doubt about it,” said 72year-old Magos. “To this day it’s stuck with me.”
President Donald Trump’s pardon of Arpaio — who was convicted of criminal contempt for flouting a court order to stop racial profiling in a search for people in the country illegally — is certain to stir a broad range of emotions over how the country should address illegal immigration.
To Trump and his supporters, Arpaio is a hero whose harsh methods and cooperation with federal immigration authorities should be a model for jurisdictions around the country.
But to civil rights advocates, the pardon is an endorsement of hateful and illegal tactics that only deepen racial tensions.
Arpaio has long been a divisive figure at the center of national debates over policing and illegal immigration.
During his more than two decades as sheriff, he ordered his officers to stop drivers simply on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally, sometimes leading to the detention of Latinos who were citizens or in the country legally.
In 2011, a federal judge ordered Arpaio and his deputies not to racially profile Latinos. A year later the Justice Department sued Arpaio, alleging a pattern of illegal discrimination against Latinos.
That only elevated his stature as an icon in the movement against illegal immigration.
Trump understood that as well as any politician and, early in his campaign for president, called Arpaio a friend and ally in combating illegal immigration.
Arpaio became one of the first major figures to endorse Trump, urging voters to back the businessman because of his hard-line immigration positions.
“Was Sheriff Joe convicted of doing his job?” Trump asked his supporters last week at a raucous rally in Phoenix. “I’ll make a prediction. I think he’s going to be just fine.”
The line drew applause and and came as a relief to 85-year-old Arpaio, who watched on television.
“I was doing my job and combating illegal immigration,” he said Saturday from his home in the Phoenix suburbs. “I didn’t ask for a pardon, but it is greatly appreciated.”
The Washington Post reported Saturday that, as early as spring, the president had asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions whether it would be possible for the government to drop the criminal case against Arpaio, but was advised that would be inappropriate.
Trump then decided to let the case go to trial, and if Arpaio was convicted, he could grant clemency, the newspaper said.
Trump supporters have had little else to cheer about when it comes to the president’s attempted crackdowns on illegal immigration.
In January, Trump called for the hiring of 5,000 more Border Patrol agents, increased deportations and funding for the immediate construction of a massive border wall.
But seven months later the number of new Border Patrol agents has not risen. Immigration officials are on pace to deport 10,000 fewer people this year than in President Barack Obama’s last year in office. And Congress has not made a border wall a priority, prompting Trump to threaten a government shutdown if funding is not authorized.
And the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities — municipal governments that refuse to cooperate fully with immigration agents — by withholding federal money has spurred little cooperation and several lawsuits.
Arpaio said he remains confident that Trump will eventually triumph over local authorities.
“What he’s doing will work … it really will help out a lot,” Arpaio said. “Are there sanctuary cities for bank robbers? No. There needs to be action taken against these mayors and police chiefs that are just allowing safe havens.”
To civil rights activists, Arpaio provided the worst kind of model for dealing with illegal immigration.
“Arpaio built his work on terror and fear,” said Alejendra Gomez, co-executive director of the Arizonabased LUCHA, an immigrant rights group. “Arpaio targeted the immigrant community, separating thousands of families. Arpaio built the foundation for Trump’s agenda. … Trump is focusing on policies that build on Arpaio’s targeting of immigrant communities.”
Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said Trump pardoned a man who personifies bigotry and intolerance.
“This pardon sends a dangerous message that a law enforcement officer who abused his position of power and defied a court order can simply be excused by a president who himself clearly does not respect the law,” Gupta said in a statement.
For Magos, who in 2012 was among a group of Latinos to file a civil lawsuit against Arpaio, seeing him convicted of criminal contempt last month felt like a victory.
“I thought, finally, justice has arrived,” Magos said Saturday.
But then, on Friday, as he prepared dinner at his Phoenix home, he quickly became deflated.
“I thought, why, how could this be,” he said. “But then I just thought how Trump and Arpaio are the same.”