Federal Prosecutor Drops Criminal Charge Against Portland Day Labor Leader, Attention Turns to ICE as Coalition Pledges to Stop His Deportation and Prevent Criminalization of other Migrants

For Immediate Release
 // June 17, 2016Contact: Armando Carmona, armando@ndlon.org, (323) 250-3018Romeo Sosa, VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project, romeo@portlandvoz.org Federal Prosecutor Drops Criminal Charge Against Portland Day Labor Leader, Attention Turns to ICE as Coalition Pledges to Stop His Deportation and Prevent Criminalization of other Migrants *** Portland Community Leaders to host Father’s Day Press…

DOJ Reports Expose Discriminatory Policing, Flawed Logic of Immigration Enforcement Strategy

 

In response to the Department of Justice filing another report of discriminatory policing in East Haven, CT against Latinos in addition to the Maricopa County report last week, Pablo Alvarado, Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network issued the following statement.

 


“The damning report filed in Maricopa County last week had been called for and expected for years. But what the Department of Justice report in East Haven exposes is a national epidemic of civil rights violations that must call into question the federal immigration programs that rely on local police whose enforcement practices are increasingly discriminatory. What else will it take to rethink the strategy of enlisting police as force multipliers in immigration. The recent Department of Justice actions are a warning sign to reverse course on immigration and end programs like Se Communities immediately.”

 

Congressman Grijalva Joins AZ and National Leaders to Commend DOJ Investigation on Arpaio

Link to recording of today’s call:  http://ndlon.org/docs/2011arpaio.mp3

Phoenix, AZ- Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice released a scathing report, confirming the “discriminatory policing practices” that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has used to terrorize the Latino community of Maricopa County for years and prompting the Department of Homeland Security to terminate the Sheriff’s 287(g) agreement and restrict his access to the controversial S-Comm program, 

 

On a press call today, national and local leaders reacted to the reports findings, commending the investigation as a step towards serving the Latino community with the justice they so long deserve.

 

According to U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), “Sheriff Arpaio believes physical appearance is probable cause to stop and question individuals about their immigration status. Even after a Department of Justice investigation has told him otherwise, he continues to believe there’s no issue here. There’s nothing fair, equal or constitutional about racial profiling. His obsessive, politically motivated assault on Hispanics has destroyed public trust in his office and put innocent lives in danger. Federal law enforcement officials are right to name his failed tenure for what it is, and I hope he takes the honorable route by resigning immediately.”

DOJ’s announcement is no surprise to the Latino community.  Arpaio has a long history of extreme enforcement tactics and discriminatory behavior.  Mary Rose Wilcox, Maricopa County Supervisor, saw firsthand the type of suffering in the Latino community inflicted by Arpaio’s abusive practices. “A line in the report that stands out above others is that for the past four years, the Sheriff’s department has treated all Latinos as if they were undocumented. It is a sobering statement that shows how the Sheriff used anti-immigrant sentiment as a pretext to violate the civil rights of our County’s residents. For three years our community has pounded the doors of elected officials to let them know this must stop. My dream is for Sheriff Arpaio to resign or be kicked out of office and for his office to be taken into receivership. Still, we feel relief today because the truth has been told about this Sheriff in a manner that cannot be denied.”

 

 

Speakers also lifted up Arpaio’s case as an example of the disastrous consequences of DHS policies that trample on the rights of entire communities.

Salvador Reza, Phoenix Civil Rights Leader whose wrongful arrest was cited in the DOJ report, explained, “We are happy to see Janet Napolitano’s actions yesterday but I’d like to caution that it’s not over. The longer Arpaio is not under receivership or indicted, the longer this will continue as a political football locally and nationally. This should be a wakeup call to DHS and for Sheriffs across the country who are using federal immigration programs to emulate Arpaio.”

 

Randy Parraz, Co-Founder, President of Citizens for a Better Arizona, added, “Yesterday’s report by the DOJ validates many of the abusive practices and policies that we have been experiencing as Latinos and critics of Sheriff Arpaio.   We, Citizens for a Better Arizona, will continue to organize across the county to create the pressure needed to force Sheriff Arpaio to resign.”

According to Arturo Venegas, Director of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, “Every day that Arpaio focused on terrorizing immigrant and Latino communities while serious criminals roamed the streets of Maricopa County made other law enforcement officials’ jobs harder across the nation. The Department of Homeland Security should be commended for limiting its cooperation with Arpaio, but until the racial profiling and aggressive tactics he championed are no longer encouraged by state laws like Alabama’s or tacitly condoned by federal programs like Se Communities, we have not yet eradicated his legacy of fear. Unfortunately, Arpaio has flaunted his unconstitutional tactics with such vigor that, nothing short of a federal consent decree will get him to comply DOJ requests and change his behavior.”
According to Sarahi Uribe, National Campaign Coordinator, National Day Laborer’s Organizing Network, “The DOJ report is what compelled the Department of Homeland Security to do what it should have done on former Arizona Governor Napolitano’s first day on the job as head of DHS. It stripped him of his badge when it comes to immigration enforcement. Now we should learn the lessons from Arizona and deal not just with this Sheriff but with the implications of this report on a national level.”

Amidst Calls for Arpaio’s Resignation, NDLON Calls on White House to Take Action

As the call for Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona to resign grows, Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network issued the following statement:
 
“We are pleased attention has properly returned to Sheriff Arpaio and we agree he should resign. However, the White House role in Maricopa’s crisis deserves greater scrutiny and requires immediate action. Sheriff Arpaio’s mishandling of crime cases is the direct result his out-of-control and discriminatory focus on immigration; focus he’s able to implement through federal contracts
President Obama’s contracts granting immigration authority to the Sheriff fueled his conversion into a Frankenstein and the President’s refusal to pull the plug continues to enable Maricopa’s monstrosity. 
The process to bring Arpaio to justice should be swift. The President and Secretary Napolitano have a moral obligation to ensure it begins with cutting the Sheriff off from federal immigration enforcement contracts and concluding the delayed Department of Justice investigation.”

Background

Dept of Justice Sues Alabama, Needs to do so in every state

BIRMINGHAM, AL – The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today filed a federal challenge to Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law. Modeled on Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 but taking it to even greater extremes, the Alabama law is considered the most pernicious anti-immigrant state law to date.
The DOJ lawsuit follows on the heels of HICA v. Bentley, a class-action challenge asserting that the law is unconstitutional on multiple grounds, filed on July 8 by the National Immigration Law Center and a coalition of civil rights organizations. On July 21, the coalition filed a request that the court block the law from taking effect, pending a final ruling on the law’s constitutionality. The hearing to determine whether the court should enjoin the law has been set for August 24, 2011 in the civil rights coalition case.
The following statements can be attributed to various members of the coalition:
Pablo Alvarado, director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network:
“The suit filed by the DOJ is an acknowledgement of the civil rights crisis caused by the Arizonification of our country and deepened in states like Alabama and Georgia where they have built upon Arizona’s laws. We welcome the administration’s action but see it as treating the symptom rather than the . More easily than court proceedings, President Obama could bring relief to our communities with the stroke of a pen.”
Linton Joaquin, general counsel, National Immigration Law Center:

“Today, the federal government rightly asserted that states cannot lawfully ignore the U.S. Constitution and enact their own sweeping immigration laws. Alabama’s law – like its ideological predecessors in Arizona, Utah, Indiana, and Georgia – is an affront to our American and constitutional values. We welcome the federal government’s challenge, and we look forward to continuing our own legal battle to permanently remove this law from Alabama’s lawbooks.”
Sam Brooke, attorney, Southern Poverty Law Center:
“It has been clear from the start that this law is blatantly overreaching and seriously flawed. We welcome the federal government’s involvement in preventing this dangerous and costly law from going into effect.”
Cecilia Wang, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project:
“We applaud the government for taking action to stop Alabama’s anti-immigrant law. Today’s lawsuit will help protect the civil rights of Alabamians against legislation that mandates unlawful police searches and seizures in the name of immigration enforcement.”
Olivia Turner, executive director, ACLU of Alabama:
“We welcome the federal government’s effort to block Alabama’s unconstitutional HB 56. We hope this law will be enjoined, just like the law in Arizona that inspired it.”
Erin Oshiro, senior staff attorney, Asian American Justice Center, a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice:
“It is encouraging that the Department of Justice decided to challenge Alabama’s anti-immigrant bill. This move sends a strong signal to Alabama and other states that the federal government takes its immigration authority seriously and serves as a warning to states considering these types of unconstitutional laws.”
Victor Viramontes, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund National Senior Counsel
“It is appropriate that the Department of Justice has sued to block Alabama’s illegal and discriminatory law that unfairly targets Latinos.”
Attorneys on the case include Brooke , Mary Bauer , Andrew Turner, Michelle Lapointe, Dan Werner, and Naomi Tsu of the Southern Poverty Law Center; Cecillia D. Wang, Katherine Desormeau, Kenneth J. Sugarman, Andre Segura, Elora Mukherjee, Omar C. Jadwat, Lee Gelernt, Michael K. T. Tan of the American Civil Liberties Union and Freddy Rubio of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama; Joaquin, Karen C. Tumlin, Tanya Broder, Shiu-Ming Cheer, Melissa S. Keaney, and Vivek Mittal of the National Immigration Law Center; Sin Yen Ling of the Asian Law Caucus; Oshiro of the Asian American Justice Center; Foster Maer, Ghita Schwarz and Diana Sen of Latino Justice; Thomas Saenz, Nina Perales, Viramontes, Amy Pederson, and Martha Gomez of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Jessica Karp of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network; G. Brian Spears, Ben Bruner, Herman Watson, Jr., Eric J. Artrip and Rebekah Keith McKinney. …

Department of Justice Should Intervene in not just Investigate Maricopa County

Salvador Reza of the Puente Movement responded to today’s Department of Justice settlement for access to records in Sheriff Arpaio’s office with the following statement.
“Nearly three years after the beginning of their investigation, the Department of Justice should be intervening in Maricopa county not just investigating. The people of Maricopa have been living with a likely criminal at the head of our law enforcement for years and it’s time for relief. The County Sheriff’s Office should be placed under receivership without delay. Anything less than immediate intervention in our human rights crisis makes President Obama and former Governor Napolitano accomplices in the reign of terror- and likely criminal behavior- of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.”

The Department of Homeland Security which empowers Sheriff Arpaio through its ICE Access programs has recently come under fire for the expansion of Arpaio-style policies throughout the country through the “Se Communities” program. The agency has been accused of emulating the lack of transparency and discriminatory practices under investigation in the office of Sheriff Arpaio. As a result, the DHS’ spread of Arpaio-style policies is also coming under investigation by the OIG and is facing a growing call for an end to ICE Access programs that entangle local police in immigration laws.