Anti-Mexican Sheriff Pardoned by Donald Trump Administration

Ricardo Lezama --- Joe Arpaio, avowed racist and former Sheriff of Maricopa County, was sentenced to a single year of prison for contempt of federal court in July. Arpaio was effectively violating the constitution while overseeing primarily Mexican communities. When the issue was raised in federal court, Arpaio ignored the judge's specific request to stop detaining people for lacking documentation that would indicate formal citizenship. The Arpaio case in the media was reduced to 'racial profiling', however, Arpaio's policing tactics included a gamut of techniques that would be more openly rejected were it occuring anywhere but the colonial southwest: unlawful detention, arrest and harrasment of mostly Mexican men, and housing inmates under cruel conditions.

Many other sectors of US society are identifying the implications of pardoning Arpaio's open defiance of a federal court order. The issue is not only the direct targeting of the Mexican community's civil and property rights in the colonized southwest, but an outright sacrificing of non-Mexican rigths (e.g. the Constitutional liberities) for nefarious ends. Due to Arpaio's campaign support for Trump, his pardon is a textbook example of a quid pro quo action from the Trump administration to his radical right-wing base in a time of heightened racial tension due to Nazi/KKK parades and rallies.

As he defied a court order, Arpaio simultaneously neglected to oversee actual crimes. Arpaio was not engaged in overzealous policing, like the term 'controversial' seems to imply and which is sometimes used to describe Arpaio by certain news outlets. Arpaio was actually executing a racist vendetta against Mexicans while neglecting to catch dangerous criminals. His efforts were so obvious and egregious that his jail sentence was in and of itself already exceptionally lenient, but surprising nonetheless in a country that does not usually convict law enforcers for criminal acts.

*** This story is developing. ***