President Trump Should Be Impeached for Pardoning Joe Arpaio [View all]

[L. Coyote]

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https://www.thenation.com/article/president-trump-should-be-impeached-for-pardoning-joe-arpaio/
Trump has enabled a racist to trash the Constitution and flout the rule of law.
By Ian Haney López -- 2017.08.26 10:45 am

Like Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio made his name in politics through aggressive race-baiting, repeatedly winning election as the Sheriff of Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, on that basis. Arpaio’s political strategy involved systematically going after the city’s Latino residents, using Latino appearance as the predominant reason for stopping and detaining people until they could prove their right to be in the United States.

Arpaio claimed his goal was to enforce immigration laws. But the pervasive targeting of folks based on their “Mexican” appearance made it clear that his deeper goal was to publicly stigmatize Latinos, citizens or otherwise, as perpetual foreigners in Arizona. In effect, he used racial harassment to grandstand politically.

In 2011, a federal court issued a stinging rebuke of Arpaio, making clear that the Constitution prohibits going after Latinos based on a presumption that we are in the country illegally. This sort of racial profiling, the court warned, was unconstitutional and had to stop.

Arpaio refused, and indeed made a point of flaunting his disdain. He ordered his officers to continue detaining and harassing people principally on the basis of Latino appearance. .....

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