County OKs $1M for illegal-immigrant sweeps

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to give the sheriff’s office nearly $1 million to capture illegal immigrants, despite strong objections from small-business owners.

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Members of the Arizona Small Business Association asked the board to hold onto the money until it was sure Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s saturation patrols were not using racial profiling.

“Kill the money until you know what’s going on,” said Annie Loyd, a small-business owner and an independent congressional candidate for Arizona’s District 1. “All we want is to know what’s going on.”

She said she wants the sheriff to hand over all the data relating to his crackdown to make sure his deputies are not unfairly targeting Hispanics.

Members of the business group, which represents about 2,300 companies in the county, also said the sheriff’s immigration raids are eroding the state’s reputation and could keep businesses from moving to Arizona.

Joan Koerber-Walker, chief executive of the business group, added that the sheriff’s actions have the potential to spark violent clashes between those who support illegal immigrants and those who want them out of the country.

Protests from the business community are significant because Arpaio has repeatedly used it as a pretext for launching his immigration sweeps. In the past he has said that small businesses were complaining about illegal immigrants and lack of enforcement by local police departments.

Despite those concerns, the board voted 3-1 to approve the $999,989, which comes from the state Department of Public Safety to the county.

The cash is earmarked for the sheriff’s office to aid in catching suspected illegal immigrants.

The only no vote belonged to Mary Rose Wilcox, D-District 5, who said Tuesday that the sheriff’s immigration sweeps were terrorizing the community.

Those operations, in which deputies stop drivers for minor traffic violations and then check their immigration status, have focused on primarily Hispanic neighborhoods and have drawn widespread accusations of civil rights abuses.

Besides Wilcox, other high-profile leaders have criticized the operations, including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who has called the raids “made-for-TV stunts.” Others, including East Valley lawmakers, have praised Arpaio’s sweeps.

After the supervisors’ meeting, Arpaio held a 20-minute impromptu news conference in which he disputed the allegations by Gordon and others that his deputies were concentrating on Hispanic neighborhoods.

Arpaio said his latest crime suppression efforts in affluent Fountain Hills, which kicked off Tuesday, show that he’s not just targeting Hispanic communities.

“I didn’t go there because (Gordon) said so,” Arpaio said.

The sheriff said that he should be commended for enforcing the law, and that law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.

“The only people who fear us are those who have violated the law,” he said.