TIES THAT BIND
looking for Recently,Newana fourth-grader.elementaryagent York, showedanin immigrationQueens, schoolup ¶ In at Ohio, — four including Americana 3-year-oldcitizen children who suffers from epilepsy — are facing the prospect of life without their mother after she was deported to Mexico. ¶ And in Mississippi, an undocumented student who has lived in the United States since age 7 was locked up after speaking at a press conference about the urgent need for immigration reform. ¶ These stories and countless others have sparked fear and outrage in communities across the country. They represent the growing human toll reaped by President Donald Trump’s cruel immigration policies. ¶ Yet as Arizonans, these incidents should strike us as not just unjust and inhumane, but also frighteningly familiar. That’s because under President Trump’s leadership we are witnessing nothing less than the nationalization of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s extreme approach to immigration enforcement.
Arpaio, Maricopa County’s top lawman for more than two decades, is now facing the very real prospect of a jail sentence. He stands accused of contempt of court for violating a judge’s order compelling his department to cease its unconstitutional sweeps through Latino neighborhoods.
However, despite the loss of his office and the erosion of his reputation, Arpaio’s tactics have been embraced by the most profoundly anti-immigrant administration in modern American history.
During Arpaio’s tenure, Latinos in Maricopa County were up to nine times more likely to be pulled over than nonLatinos. He operated a senseless dragnet that swept up far more parents and breadwinners than dangerous criminals.
Arpaio’s deputies terrorized the very communities they were sworn to protect. Tragically, this same indiscretion and indifference to due process are