Arpaio Sets Stage For Violent Confrontation With Illegals

Setting the stage for a violent confrontation as early as tomorrow's Cinco de Mayo's celebration of Mexican independence, controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix says his volunteer "posse" will fan out over the weekend and start arresting illegal immigrants.

Arpaio has made a national figure of himself by handing out pink underwear to county prisoners and forcing them to spend their jail time in outdoors tents in 110-degree heat.

The plan follows vast demonstrations by more than 3 million immmigrants and their supporters over the past month and stepped-up rhetoric and vigilante action against what many Arizonans consider an "invasion" of the United States.

If violence breaks out at the Cinco de Mayo celebration, which typically involves heavy drinking, efforts by organizations like the Minutemen and individuals like CNN's Lou Dobbs to call attention to America's undocumented population will have borne bitter fruit.

The ostensible reason for the war against illegal aliens is national security following the Al Qaeda strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. But none of the hijackers came over the Mexican border; all entered the country with legal documents, arriving by air from Europe and the Middle East.

The porosity of the Mexican-American border, however, lent itself to the calls for action against illegal immigration that had been slowly gathering momentum for years. When that movement connected with the national security issue generated by 9/11, the combined concerns got national attention.

Dobbs, a former financial reporter for CNN, made "broken borders" a key theme of his one-hour 6 p.m. news-talk show on CNN, and for several years has railed nightly against the nation's estimated 12 to 20 million undocumented immigrants while saying he is supportive of legal immigration. Recently, in reporting reminiscent of Hitler's pogrom against the Jews, he focused on "diseases" brought into the United States by undocumented immigrants.

Urban violence on a huge scale is the unwritten premise of the vast demonstraions that have come to Phoenix and other cities in the past month, but authorities until now have been careful not to provoke confrontations.

Arpaio is choosing to break with that stance and deliberately inflame the 300,000-plus Latino community in Phoenix by permitting volunteers to conduct arrests of illegals, a task which until now has been reserved to the Border Patrol and Federal immigration authorities acting under color of Federal law.

Here is the latest on the shriff's plans:

Ariz. Deputies to Seek Illegal Immigrants

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 4, 2006
Filed at 1:17 p.m. ET

PHOENIX (AP) -- A posse of 100 volunteers and sheriff's deputies will patrol the Phoenix area and arrest any illegal immigrants, the county sheriff said.

The group likely will be deployed across parts of Maricopa County by the weekend, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday.

Volunteers will be drawn from the department's 3,000-member posse, whose members are trained and are often former deputies.

''It's important to send the message out to stay in Mexico and don't come roaming around here hoping you're going to get amnesty,'' said Arpaio, who in years past gained notoriety for putting inmates on chain gangs and issuing them striped uniforms and pink underwear.

Arpaio's deputies have already arrested about 120 illegal immigrants using a new state smuggling law.

''We're going to arrest any illegal who violates this new law,'' he said. ''I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride into the county jail.''

Under the law -- as interpreted by the Maricopa County attorney -- illegal immigrants can be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to smuggle themselves into the country. The law's authors have said they intended it to be used to prosecute smugglers, not the immigrants being smuggled.

Lawyers for nearly 50 undocumented immigrants charged with conspiracy to commit human smuggling have filed motions to have the charges dismissed.

A Los Angeles attorney brought into the case last week by the Mexican Consul General's Office in Phoenix plans to file another motion claiming Maricopa County Attorney officials are violating state and federal law because it's the federal government's job to control illegal immigration.

Both motions are to be argued in county court on May 23.

+ Stella Obasanjo +