Alma Chacon, an undocumented immigrant and mother of five children born in the United States, gave birth to her fifth child inside Estrella Jail, in Maricopa County, Ariz. Chacon says her hands and feet were bound in handcuffs while giving birth.
According to Marianne Gonko, Chacon’s current attorney, Alma filed a complaint against the sheriff’s office, but no direct litigation emerged as a result. So she decided to hire a lawyer.
“Alma went to at least one attorney, who declined to accept the case,” said Gonko. “Taking on the sheriff’s department here in Phoenix may be a daunting task.”
Her case is scheduled to be heard next year in court.
Other immigration lawyers, such as Carmen Alvarica, have had clients who were prisoners of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). None have filed official complaints to the lawyer, “but we know they were mistreated,” said Alvarica.
Both lawyers and clients may have chosen to remain silent because the “sheriff’s office was acting under the 287G program,” said Gonko.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sees it as an institutional issue. “The problems are deeply rooted in MCSO’s culture, and are compounded by MCSO’s penchant for retaliation against individuals who speak out,” stated Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, in a Dec. 15 statement.
The statement was part of an announcement by the Justice Department on its findings from an investigation of Maricopa County. The DOJ said it “found reasonable cause to believe that MCSO engages in a pattern or practice of violating the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Consequently, chief law enforcement officer for MCSO, Joe Arpaio, dubbed “America’s toughest sheriff,” had his department’s authority to act as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents revoked.
The Department of Homeland Security, led by former Arizona governor and current Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, has barred the MCSO from checking the immigration status of detainees, while truncating the MCSO’s 287G program that trains and authorizes officers to enforce immigration duties.
The DOJ initially filed a lawsuit against MCSO in 2010, when the sheriff’s department was accused of cooperating poorly in handing over documents and allowing interviews.
Critics say Arpaio has violated human rights with his unlawful tactics and treatments of prisoners, while supporters argue it is merely a political game. Arpaio, himself, calls it a “political witch hunt.”
“Unconstitutional Practices”
Sheriff Arpaio is alleged by the DOJ of having engaged in discriminatory actions, such as racial profiling of Latinos, along with “punishing and denying critical services” for inmates with limited English skills.
According to the DOJ investigation, over 400 interviews were conducted with supervisors, deputies, inmates, and Arpaio. The Justice Department accuses the MCSO of “inadequate training, supervision, use of excessive force, and allowing specialized units to engage in unconstitutional practices.”
Yet “no formal findings of pattern or practice violations have been made in connection with these issues, the investigation remains ongoing,” the DOJ states.
For now, claims against Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office appear to be merely allegations of impropriety, rather than actionable offenses.
“It is not clear if he did or didn’t,” said Ira Mehlman, media director of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “The allegations from the Department of Justice have not been proven in court.”
Police officers are trained to look for certain types of vehicles and smuggling routes. This may be mistaken for racial profiling when the people pulled over “just happen to be [the] same ethnic group,” said Mehlman.
The MCSO has been responsible for finding a fourth of the nation’s “illegal alien criminal offenders” through the 287G, according to Arpaio.
According to Mehlman, the DOJ has served as a “watch dog, suing just about every state that tries to create immigration laws ... tying them in knots with unnecessary paperwork.”
Such assertions are rooted in the polarizing political climate surrounding the illegal immigration problem. The Obama administration and Justice Department are suing Arizona over the state’s controversial new immigration law. The suit will be heard in the Supreme Court in 2012—an important election year for both Democratic and Republican parties.
“Not a single lawsuit has been filed [against MCSO] by aliens, for mistreatment. You think they would have complained to their lawyers if they did ... wouldn’t they?” said Mehlman.
