Sheriff Arpaio has recently launched an investigation into whether Barack Obama's place on the 2008 Arizona Presidential Election Ballot was legal.
Feds Go After Arpaio For Civil Rights Violations
Thursday, 15 Dec 2011 12:06 PM
PHOENIX — The Department of Homeland Security is cutting ties with Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff accused of a wide range of civil right violations, effectively stripping him of the ability to enforce immigration laws.
Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday the department is ending an agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that allowed trained deputies to enforce immigration laws.
It's also restricting the office's use of the Secure Communities program, which uses fingerprints collected in local jails to identify illegal immigrants.
Napolitano's announcement came shortly after the U.S. Justice Department released a scathing report accusing Arpaio and his office of committing a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos. Justice Department investigators said the abuses included a pattern of racial profiling.
The Justice Department also accused Arpaio's office of a pattern of discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.
The report is a result of the department's three-year investigation of Arpaio's office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency's top level.
The Justice Department's conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government's harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became a coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field.
Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public-corruption squad.
The civil rights report said federal authorities will continue to investigate complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos, whether the sheriff's immigration efforts damage trust with the Hispanic community, and a large number of sex-crimes cases that were assigned to the agency but weren't followed up on or investigated at all.
The report took the Sheriff's Office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes. Federal authorities single out Arpaio specifically and said his office, known as MCSO, has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some top aides earlier this year.
"Arpaio's own actions have helped nurture MCSO's culture of bias," wrote Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, adding that the sheriff frequently gave racially charged letters to some of his top aides and saved them in his own files.
The report will require Arpaio to set up effective policies against discrimination, improve training and make other changes that would be monitored for compliance by a judge. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement. If not, the federal government will sue him.
Arpaio has long denied the racial profiling allegation, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants.
Arpaio has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, endearing himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.
The report also said Arpaio and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the Sheriff's Office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.
One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.
The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized as trumped up by politicians at odds with the sheriff. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.
The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.
A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops — almost all involving Latino drivers — that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.
Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the United States legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.
During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.
Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff's posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."
The report said that the Sheriff's Office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 about a person's dismay over employees of a McDonald's in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn't speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer "for the info," said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of "for our operation."
Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.
Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day, and prisoners were kept locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area.
The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.
Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish, and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that curb their legal rights, without language assistance.
The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.
The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the Sheriff's Office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.
Federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the Sheriff's Office has limited the willingness of witnesses and victims to report crimes or talk to Arpaio's office.
"MCSO has done almost nothing to build such a relationship with Mariciopa County's Latino residents," Perez wrote.
Showing posts with label napolitano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label napolitano. Show all posts
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
Department of Homeland Security Hires Islamist
DHS swears in an Islamist
Elections have consequences
On the weekend before the crucial mid-term elections, we bring you the juxtaposition of two recent events.
First, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in three new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council—one of whom, Mohamed Elibiary, was a speaker at a 2004 event honoring the Ayatollah Khomeini!
When a Dallas Morning News reporter exposed Elibiary, Elibiary threatened him. Incredibly, Elibiary is someone Napolitano believes should now be on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Second, two weeks ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an obvious reference to the tidal wave of Muslim immigrants to Germany, made the stunning statement that multiculturalism in Germany has “totally failed.”
This is emblematic of the broader pushback against the rising threat of radical Islam that is occurring throughout Europe—except, as celebrated author Melanie Phillips points out, in Great Britain (see story below).
Europe is beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. More and more of the American people are beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. Unfortunately, it is clear that much of the Obama administration, as illustrated by Napolitano’s latest blunder, does not.
Elections have consequences. Please remember this when you vote.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7684/pub_detail.asp
October 19, 2010
Britain: Groveling Alone
Melanie Phillips
Angela Merkel has got the point. Multiculturalism has failed, she states flatly, as she surveys western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it is being swallowed whole by the giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages, in the spirit of tolerance, to open ever wider in the unshakeable belief of western liberals that the jaws about to snap shut around their necks are actually stretched wide in a smile.
All over mainland Europe, a few shoes are belatedly – maybe too late -- starting to drop.
France and Belgium have banned the burqa and other countries are debating doing the same.
Switzerland has banned minarets.
Denmark has imposed ferocious limits on immigration.
In the Netherlands the prosecution in the case against the Dutch politician Geert Wilders for allegedly inciting religious hatred -- through his criticism of Islamic hatred -- has thrown in the towel and asked the judges to acquit him of all charges. See here for an authoritative analysis of the significance of this.
And so what of dear old Blighty, the country which in 1940 stood alone against the threat to democratic life and liberty and the values of western liberalism? Is the shoe of reality starting to drop in the UK too?
A report by Quilliam about City University, central London, states that a hard-line Islamist ideology is being promoted through the leadership of the university’s student Islamic Society, leading to increased religious tensions on campus and to the intimidation and harassment of staff, students and members of minority groups by extremists and increasing the risks of students turning to terrorism.
Ahmadi Muslims in south London have been targeted by Islamists in a hate campaign, and a Muslim woman in Bradford has died after being set on fire (via JihadWatch), underlining the fact that Muslims are themselves front-line victims of Islamic jihadis and sharia law.
And in the Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan continues to chronicle the remorseless takeover of an entire London borough, Tower Hamlets, by the radicals of the Islamic Forum of Europe using intimidation, infiltration and corruption:
According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE – based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets – wants to change the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.’ The group is accused by one of the area’s Labour MPs, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating and ‘corrupting’ his party in a way similar to the Militant Tendency in the 1980s.
The response of other newspapers to what’s going on in Tower Hamlets? As far as I can make out, deafening silence. And what is the response of the rest of the British thinking classes to this and countless other signs of increasing Islamisation and Islamic radicalisation in Britain?
The hitherto resolutely counter-counter-cultural think-tank Civitas, which in the past has produced some outstanding social and cultural analysis, has just published a set of essays on Women, Islam and Western Liberalism in which one author, Alveena Malik, states that the full-face Islamic veil, or niqab, should be regarded
‘...as part of a modern British way of life.’
She continued: ‘The wearing of religious symbols, including the full veil, should be a fundamental human right of an individual in both the public and private sphere. The real test for religious symbols in the public sphere should always be: “Does the wearing of a symbol (such as the kirpan, turban, yarmulke, crucifix and the veil) hinder a citizen’s ability to perform their public civic duties?”’ Britain is in a ‘unique’ position to embrace such a public display of faith because of the role the church plays in the affairs of the state and its ‘multicultural diversity’.
To be fair, the Civitas pamphlet contains other views which profoundly disagree with this. Even so, the idea that advocating as ‘part of the British way of life’ the niqab, which presents such an obvious danger to security as well as intimidating non-radical Muslim women, inciting religious subversion by serving as a symbolic call to arms against western values and destroying the equality inherent in human interaction by virtue of the simple act that we can all see each other’s faces – the idea that this is, as Civitas appears to suggest, a contribution towards liberal diversity, is simply grotesque.
And here’s the thing: the Telegraph also tells us:
Mrs Malik was appointed by last government to a panel of faith advisers for the Department for Communities. She has overseen British Council guidance on ‘intercultural dialogue’.
It looks horribly like, seventy years on, Britain is now once again alone -- this time, though, not standing but grovelling on its knees before those bent upon the extinction of freedom.
Elections have consequences
On the weekend before the crucial mid-term elections, we bring you the juxtaposition of two recent events.
First, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in three new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council—one of whom, Mohamed Elibiary, was a speaker at a 2004 event honoring the Ayatollah Khomeini!
When a Dallas Morning News reporter exposed Elibiary, Elibiary threatened him. Incredibly, Elibiary is someone Napolitano believes should now be on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Second, two weeks ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an obvious reference to the tidal wave of Muslim immigrants to Germany, made the stunning statement that multiculturalism in Germany has “totally failed.”
This is emblematic of the broader pushback against the rising threat of radical Islam that is occurring throughout Europe—except, as celebrated author Melanie Phillips points out, in Great Britain (see story below).
Europe is beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. More and more of the American people are beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. Unfortunately, it is clear that much of the Obama administration, as illustrated by Napolitano’s latest blunder, does not.
Elections have consequences. Please remember this when you vote.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7684/pub_detail.asp
October 19, 2010
Britain: Groveling Alone
Melanie Phillips
Angela Merkel has got the point. Multiculturalism has failed, she states flatly, as she surveys western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it is being swallowed whole by the giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages, in the spirit of tolerance, to open ever wider in the unshakeable belief of western liberals that the jaws about to snap shut around their necks are actually stretched wide in a smile.
All over mainland Europe, a few shoes are belatedly – maybe too late -- starting to drop.
France and Belgium have banned the burqa and other countries are debating doing the same.
Switzerland has banned minarets.
Denmark has imposed ferocious limits on immigration.
In the Netherlands the prosecution in the case against the Dutch politician Geert Wilders for allegedly inciting religious hatred -- through his criticism of Islamic hatred -- has thrown in the towel and asked the judges to acquit him of all charges. See here for an authoritative analysis of the significance of this.
And so what of dear old Blighty, the country which in 1940 stood alone against the threat to democratic life and liberty and the values of western liberalism? Is the shoe of reality starting to drop in the UK too?
A report by Quilliam about City University, central London, states that a hard-line Islamist ideology is being promoted through the leadership of the university’s student Islamic Society, leading to increased religious tensions on campus and to the intimidation and harassment of staff, students and members of minority groups by extremists and increasing the risks of students turning to terrorism.
Ahmadi Muslims in south London have been targeted by Islamists in a hate campaign, and a Muslim woman in Bradford has died after being set on fire (via JihadWatch), underlining the fact that Muslims are themselves front-line victims of Islamic jihadis and sharia law.
And in the Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan continues to chronicle the remorseless takeover of an entire London borough, Tower Hamlets, by the radicals of the Islamic Forum of Europe using intimidation, infiltration and corruption:
According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE – based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets – wants to change the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.’ The group is accused by one of the area’s Labour MPs, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating and ‘corrupting’ his party in a way similar to the Militant Tendency in the 1980s.
The response of other newspapers to what’s going on in Tower Hamlets? As far as I can make out, deafening silence. And what is the response of the rest of the British thinking classes to this and countless other signs of increasing Islamisation and Islamic radicalisation in Britain?
The hitherto resolutely counter-counter-cultural think-tank Civitas, which in the past has produced some outstanding social and cultural analysis, has just published a set of essays on Women, Islam and Western Liberalism in which one author, Alveena Malik, states that the full-face Islamic veil, or niqab, should be regarded
‘...as part of a modern British way of life.’
She continued: ‘The wearing of religious symbols, including the full veil, should be a fundamental human right of an individual in both the public and private sphere. The real test for religious symbols in the public sphere should always be: “Does the wearing of a symbol (such as the kirpan, turban, yarmulke, crucifix and the veil) hinder a citizen’s ability to perform their public civic duties?”’ Britain is in a ‘unique’ position to embrace such a public display of faith because of the role the church plays in the affairs of the state and its ‘multicultural diversity’.
To be fair, the Civitas pamphlet contains other views which profoundly disagree with this. Even so, the idea that advocating as ‘part of the British way of life’ the niqab, which presents such an obvious danger to security as well as intimidating non-radical Muslim women, inciting religious subversion by serving as a symbolic call to arms against western values and destroying the equality inherent in human interaction by virtue of the simple act that we can all see each other’s faces – the idea that this is, as Civitas appears to suggest, a contribution towards liberal diversity, is simply grotesque.
And here’s the thing: the Telegraph also tells us:
Mrs Malik was appointed by last government to a panel of faith advisers for the Department for Communities. She has overseen British Council guidance on ‘intercultural dialogue’.
It looks horribly like, seventy years on, Britain is now once again alone -- this time, though, not standing but grovelling on its knees before those bent upon the extinction of freedom.
Monday, June 07, 2010
US To Assist Saudi-Yemeni Border Security
No surprise here given that DHS is currently operating under the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Janet Napolitano offers to help put stop to illegal border crossings - in Saudi Arabia
ABU DHABI - The United States government, which has difficulty controlling its own borders, has agreed to help Saudi Arabia secure its dangerous border areas near Yemen.
"It is a very rough border, very difficult to protect from illegal crossings," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.
In late May, Ms. Napolitano met Saudi leaders to discuss a range of security programs, including training, joint exercises, intelligence and arms sales. Officials said both the Americans and Saudis agreed that the Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgency from Yemen was the leading threat to Riyad.
Officials said Riyad and Washington were expanding cooperation in protecting the kingdom's borders from insurgents and smugglers. They said the biggest threat was the Shi'ite insurgency in neighboring Yemen, which shares a 1,600-kilometer border with Saudi Arabia.
Officials acknowledged that thousands of Yemenis were infiltrating Saudi Arabia despite recent border security measures. They said many of the Yemeni infiltrators were smugglers.
"So many of our discussions were about how to protect a very tough, geological, topographical border from illegal crossings," Ms. Napolitano said during a visit to the Saudi kingdom on May 31.
Officials said Saudi Arabia and the United States were also expanding their intelligence exchange. They said the expansion began during the Yemeni Shi'ite war in southern Saudi Arabia in November 2009, which included the capture of two Saudi towns.
"We all share a concern about terrorist activity emanating from Yemen," Ms. Napolitano said. "Actions of the U.S. in Yemen are with the consent, cooperation of the government of Yemen."
Officials said the U.S. military was modernizing the Saudi Arabian National Guard as well as Interior Ministry security forces. They said Riyad has ordered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of air- and ground-based reconnaissance equipment to monitor the desert border with Yemen.
Another area of consultation has been the Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Officials said most of the AQAP leadership was comprised of Saudi nationals.
"The security coordination is very strong with Saudi Arabia," Ms. Napolitano said.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/me_gulf0487_06_03.asp
Janet Napolitano offers to help put stop to illegal border crossings - in Saudi Arabia
ABU DHABI - The United States government, which has difficulty controlling its own borders, has agreed to help Saudi Arabia secure its dangerous border areas near Yemen.
"It is a very rough border, very difficult to protect from illegal crossings," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.
In late May, Ms. Napolitano met Saudi leaders to discuss a range of security programs, including training, joint exercises, intelligence and arms sales. Officials said both the Americans and Saudis agreed that the Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgency from Yemen was the leading threat to Riyad.
Officials said Riyad and Washington were expanding cooperation in protecting the kingdom's borders from insurgents and smugglers. They said the biggest threat was the Shi'ite insurgency in neighboring Yemen, which shares a 1,600-kilometer border with Saudi Arabia.
Officials acknowledged that thousands of Yemenis were infiltrating Saudi Arabia despite recent border security measures. They said many of the Yemeni infiltrators were smugglers.
"So many of our discussions were about how to protect a very tough, geological, topographical border from illegal crossings," Ms. Napolitano said during a visit to the Saudi kingdom on May 31.
Officials said Saudi Arabia and the United States were also expanding their intelligence exchange. They said the expansion began during the Yemeni Shi'ite war in southern Saudi Arabia in November 2009, which included the capture of two Saudi towns.
"We all share a concern about terrorist activity emanating from Yemen," Ms. Napolitano said. "Actions of the U.S. in Yemen are with the consent, cooperation of the government of Yemen."
Officials said the U.S. military was modernizing the Saudi Arabian National Guard as well as Interior Ministry security forces. They said Riyad has ordered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of air- and ground-based reconnaissance equipment to monitor the desert border with Yemen.
Another area of consultation has been the Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Officials said most of the AQAP leadership was comprised of Saudi nationals.
"The security coordination is very strong with Saudi Arabia," Ms. Napolitano said.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/me_gulf0487_06_03.asp
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