Immigration rights groups in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday accused Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio of overstepping his bounds as a local official by using anti-identity theft laws to target undocumented immigrants in workplace raids.
Puente Arizona, an immigrant rights groups, filed the lawsuit in federal court, along with two women who were arrested by Arpaio’s deputies last year and a local minister who contends the sheriff is squandering his tax dollars by conducting the operations.
The lawsuit represents the latest challenge by advocates for immigrants against Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County who bills himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and has become a divisive figure in the national immigration debate.
Arpaio is the only local law enforcement official in Arizona enforcing state laws that make it illegal for a person to use information belonging to someone else, such as a Social Security number, to obtain employment, said Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is one of the groups representing the plaintiffs.
The illegal immigration “debate” has so many upside down components that it is almost a full time job cataloging them. The most glaring, however, are the push by eager-to-pander politicians on both sides of the aisle to remove the word “illegal” from all discussions and calm entertaining by so many of the idea that enforcing laws on the books is a bad thing.
Arpaio is eccentric and a little goofy at times but what he’s doing here is a little something called…his job.
If I stole somebody’s Social Security number and used it for any kind of gain these “rights” groups would be the first to scream for me to be arrested. Now they want people whose very presence here is illegal to be able to continue to break the law with impunity.
At least their disregard for the rule of law is consistent.
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