Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a birther conspiracy theorist from Maricopa County, Arizona, will be a speaker at the Choose Liberty event organized by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity. Choose Liberty will take place in Orlando on Nov. 12 as part of a series of events organized by conservatives to “start our march towards November 2012 and taking our country back from the hands of the progressives,” as their slogan puts it. Joe Arpaio has stated that he has asked his deputies to train with the federal government so they may help in the fight against illegal immigration, boasting of having the largest contingency of cross certified law enforcement men and women (160 of them) who are out patrolling in an intensified effort to bring illegal immigrants to justice. He intends to bridge the gap between the arrest for crimes illegal immigrants committed in the streets and the federal crimes they committed for entering the country illegally. “My detention officers take things a step further. They are now trained to follow up with each of those arrested, and if the arrestee is found to be in the country illegally, my officers charge him/her with that crime as well.”
A 2009 Time magazine article points out that Mr. Arpaio-who this week called on President Obama to release his birth certificate microfiche-“has faced numerous complaints from Amnesty International, the ACLU and other rights groups. His office is being investigated by the Justice Department for alleged discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.” Clearly, Mr. Arpaio is way ahead of himself, pretending to be a hero when in reality he is breaking the law by impersonating and acting as a federal immigration officer and this behavior is reprehensible. At the event in Orlando, it should be brought to his attention just how out of touch with reality this man is.
