politics | Soooo WHEN exactly is the Justice Dept going to take down Arpaio? WTF does he have to DO????? (Reply)

Are Your Papers in Order?

Tracked for nearly a mile by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies last May, when the Dodge still ran, Elaine [Sanchez] became alarmed, and then terrified, as the lawmen followed closely without ever turning on their lights. Her anxiety surpassed anything associated with an ordinary ticket; her family had already exchanged tales about this sort of enforcement.

For more Joe Arpaio's abuses of power, see our special report section. Elaine drove the van into her backyard. After banging on the back door and screaming for her own mother, she was wrestled to the ground by the sheriff's men. Sanchez's boys emerged from their home to find their mother flat in the dirt with a deputy's knee in her back as she was roughly handcuffed.The light over her license plate was out.
This is not an unknown crime in Elaine's neighborhood.

Indeed, Elaine Sanchez was no stranger to the sheriff's deputies who'd wrangled with her on the ground; one of them later volunteered that he recognized her from an earlier visit.
Sanchez and her family believe they have been targeted by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's men as part of the fallout from the lawman's infamous anti-immigrant sweep in Guadalupe.

And here's the rub: In spite of their last name, none of the Sanchezes is Mexican. None of them is in the United States illegally. All members of the Sanchez family are Yaqui Indians. They are all American citizens. They are as legal as the sheriff's family. They are, however, brown.

On March 4, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Mississippi) worried aloud that the 287(g) program — the enabling act that turns cops into immigration officers — was "using minor traffic violations instead of major crimes" to harass Hispanics.
Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has no idea. The genteel concerns of an uninformed Mississippi legislator are so beside the point as to be quaint.

Motorists in Maricopa County are confronted today by deputies in ski masks, guns drawn.
Ski masks.
The slightest pretext elicits the question: Are your papers in order?

With this article, we begin an occasional series to introduce the people swept up in this madness. The individuals you will meet in this installment are all Americans. But eventually, you will also shake hands with illegal aliens. Neighbors, one and all.And the WTFs keep coming

Hell why isn't this a national scandal, seeing as we are so post racial and all? These people are leaving in a motherfucking POLICE STATE. Are we going to wait until it takes over the WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY and is affecting us persoanlly to take fucking action??? HOW THE HELL IS HE NOT IN FUCKING JAIL AND HIS ENTIRE DEPT. DISMANTLED????