End the Sweeps: An Open Letter to Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Dear Sheriff Joe Arpaio,


I am writing this letter to you as a concerned voter and taxpayer asking you to end your broad based immigration sweeps across Maricopa County and the greater Phoenix area. In today’s troubled times these sweeps are an unneeded economic burden on our already troubled state government. The state budget deficit, currently at $1.2 billion, could rise by as much as $4.3 billion over the next fiscal year. Facing this extreme budget shortfall, all Arizonans need to do everything they can to help shrink this deficit, especially state funded agencies.

Enforcing these laws is the job of Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE), not the local sheriff’s office. ICE was created with federal funds for federal officers to enforce these laws. By volunteering our sheriffs rather than having the Department of Justice agents pay for and enforce these laws you are creating an unnecessary burden on our already overcrowded jails and putting the cost of detaining these immigrants squarely on the backs of Maricopa County taxpayers. In other parts of the country these raids are conducted and paid for by federal agents. Why should we as taxpayers shoulder these costs when our state is being faced with severe budget cuts to necessary services? Why not share the burden as a county through the federal funding? Why use our scarce state tax money when we are already using our federal tax dollars at the risk of state budget cuts?

The purpose of ICE, in their own words, is to address “serious crime…committed by removable aliens.” It is not meant to arrest illegal immigrants for minor traffic offenses, open alcohol containers or simply their residing in our country illegally. In ICE’s own word’s this is “contrary to the objectives of the program.” Basically you have your ICE deputized Sheriff’s office employees conducting immigration sweeps contrary to ICE’s stated objectives. If you are going to enforce these laws, shouldn't they be enforced the way ICE wants them to be? The Sheriffs Office interpreting ICE directives as they choose should not waste our state taxpayer dollars.

According to an investigative report by the East Valley Tribune, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office has created a deficit of $1.3 million in the first three months of enforcing immigration laws on overtime spending alone. Emergency response times for the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, already above national police averages of 5 minutes have skyrocketed as well. Many areas in the valley now have average response times of 12 minutes or more, more than twice as long as the national average. As crime is growing and our budgets are shrinking, our response times for emergencies are shooting through the roof. In this dire economic climate we are severely cutting spending and under funding our schools and Child Protective Services while the Sheriff’s Office is over budget. If we are going to invest that money in crime prevention and patrols shouldn’t the people of Maricopa County receive better services than some of the slowest emergency response times in the nation? You are enforcing these immigration laws at the expense of the safety of your constituents and we deserve better than that.

Additionally, the way this program is being enforced is leading us down a slippery slope. We cannot have hard working legal citizens of Hispanic descent afraid to live their lives for fear of racial profiling. It is not acceptable to pull a anyone over and temporarily detain them to check the legality of their citizenship. This is racial profiling and has no place in a free democratic society. There are many hard working, tax-paying Hispanics who deserve to be treated the same as everyone else regardless of their skin color. Our state has worked hard to shed the racist label brought upon us by the Martin Luther King Jr. Day fiasco led by former Govenor Evan Meachem. We do not need more national attention focused on our wonderful state for the racial profiling practices currently employed by the Sheriff’s Office. It took Arizona a long time to recover from all of the bad publicity associated with the MLK Jr. fiasco, we do not need to add another incident to cloud the view of this great state.

Now I do not want you to get the opinion I am like all of the other anti-Sheriff Joe Arpaio people here in the valley, quite to the contrary. The first election I ever voted in my life was in 1993 when I turned 18. I researched all of the Propositions and the candidates with great fervor and one of the first decisions I came to was to vote for you. I looked at your law enforcement experience, your many years overseas working for the DEA, and thought this is the guy I want catching criminals in Maricopa County. I loved that you were so tough on crime and vigilant in your enforcement of the law. However, I really think you are missing the boat with these immigration sweeps. I think rather than target businesses and other venues you should be going after violent offenders, drug smugglers and other illegal immigrants who have made this the kidnapping capitol of the nation. Better yet, let ICE conduct these raids at the federal governments expense.


Respectfully Yours,

Kyle W. Nelson


Works Cited

Aizenman, N.C. “Report Cites Problem in ICE Training Program.” The Washington Post. 4 Mar. 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/03/AR2009030304231.html?sub=new

Fausset, Richard. “More Than 300 Arrested in Immigration Sweep.” Los Angeles Times. 8 Oct. 2008 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/08/nation/na-raid8

Gabrielson, Ryan. “Reasonable Doubt Part I.” East Valley Tribune. 10 July 2008. 13 March 2009. Path: Part I; Multimedia; Emergency Response Times Interactive Map. http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/page/reasonable_doubt

Gabrielson, Ryan. “Reasonable Doubt Part II: Overtime Led to MCSO Budget Crisis.” East Valley Tribune. 10 July 2008. 13 March 2009. http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/120468

Sunnucks, Mike. “State Budget Deficit Approaches $4.5 Billion.” Phoenix Business Journal. 8 Jan. 2009 http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/01/05/daily56.html