This isn’t the time to celebrate
Hold the cheers. Hold the celebration over the judge’s ruling that made former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio a convicted criminal. This isn’t over. Not for Arizona, which will watch Arpaio’s appeal. Not for America, which continues to see immigration used as a political tool, instead of being treated as a human problem of epic proportions.
Arpaio has gone from being the scourge of Latino neighborhoods to a has-been, but his methods and attitudes toward immigration enforcement have not faded.
Instead, his attrition-through-enforcement zeal has been elevated to the national level.
It’s one reason for a sense of sadness as we mark the day justice (sort of) caught up with Sheriff Joe.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that Arpaio is guilty of criminal contempt for failing to follow court orders to stop “crime suppression sweeps” that racially profiled Latinos in the name of immigration enforcement.
The ruling is unsurprising. Arpaio admitted to civil contempt. His defense against the criminal charges was that the violations were unintentional.
Those who listened to Arpaio’s rhetoric over the years find that hard to accept — as did the judge.
Equally unsurprising is Arpaio’s decision to appeal the ruling and demand a jury trial.
Arpaio is at his best in front of a crowd. He’s a persuasive and entertaining fellow.
His chances are exponentially better before a jury. It may be that this swan song was unnecessarily prolonged by not giving him a jury trial in the first place.
Nevertheless, this is a momentous day for those whose lives were negatively impacted because of Arpaio’s personal mission to go after undocumented immigrants.
And don’t forget, not all who were hurt were undocumented.
Legal residents and citizens were affected.
All of Arizona was sullied by the racial profiling that went on when Arpaio was sheriff.
Arpaio used his public relations skills to encourage the xenophobic sentiments that were bubbling up in Arizona decades ago.
But it didn’t have to be that way. He picked this path and earned this result.
In 2005, when a vigilante held migrants at gunpoint at a rest stop, Arpaio condemned the actions. His voice might have been persuasive in preventing Arizona from galloping off the anti-immigrant cliff with Senate Bill 1070 in 2010.
Arpaio chose a different path. He reversed course and joined with then-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas — later disbarred — in feeding the frenzy of hatred aimed at undocumented immigrants.
Arpaio fights on and his supporters are using this trial to raise money. No surprise here, either.
The 85-year-old ex-lawman lost his bid for re-election in November. His career is over.
His “toughest sheriff in America” appeal had faded as the people of Maricopa County saw other law-enforcement duties sublimated to his showboat efforts to go after undocumented immigrants.
His tenure was costly in terms of judgments and lawsuits against the county, as well as in human costs that can never be measured.
There is some satisfaction over a criminal contempt finding against Arpaio.
But his tenure and his impact on Arizona brings far more sadness than this minor victory can negate.