By Francisco Lara

If you’ve been following any of the local Arizona news lately, there’s been a name almost without fail in every front page: Joe Arpaio. Recently, thought, he hasn’t been making headlines about pink underwear or his crusade against undocumented immigrants. He’s making headlines about how wretchedly horrible he is at his job.

“Now wait a second, Francisco, didn’t you just write a piece on how people should focus on the issues instead of the man?  Aren’t you holding Sheriff Joe up to a higher standard than another purported screw-up – Eric Holder?” an attentive reader might ask.

It’s a fair point.  Maybe Joe Arpaio really is the victim of a protracted political witch hunt. Maybe, he just needs to tweak his job performance a little bit and he’ll be doing his job well, despite the detractors. He sure seems to think so. He’s blaming everyone from President Obama to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

So why is Arpaio making so many headlines as of late?

Recently he has found himself under fire due to accusations of rampant racial profiling and discrimination in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). Aside from the obvious moral reprobation the claims elicit, the accusations could have serious monetary implications for the county. According to the Maricopa Board of Supervisor’s attorney, if the federal government finds the county in violation of civil rights legislation, it stands to lose $113 million in federal funding.

The Department of Justice, who has actually not filed suit on racial discrimination just yet, is the one getting the most attention. They’re suing the MCSO for not allowing them access to all records and facilities in relation to a civil-rights investigation the Feds have been running since 2009. It’s pretty clear they are going to sue him eventually for civil-rights violations, especially after the stinging report the DoJ published documenting widespread abuses by the Sheriff’s Office, but for now they’ll settle for getting all the evidence. I should add that the report caused the Department of Homeland Security to strip Arpaio of his ability to enforce immigration law.

But wait, a minute that’s it? He’s getting all this bad press because he’s being accused of racial discrimination by the Department of Justice which Obama runs? If you’re not making enemies, then you’re not doing your job. Sheriff Joe must be doing a fine job then.

No, it doesn’t stop there. Another is a group of five Latino clients claiming they were subjected to illegal searches and seizures based on the color of their skin. This group was just awarded class-action status, allowing any person who believes they were detained or questioned for similar reasons by Arpaio’s deputies to join the suit.  

They’re probably just mad he caught them speeding.

Ok then, how about this? The MCSO is the target of a wrongful death suit in the case of man who died in a holding cell of a Phoenix jail. The man, Ernest Atencio , was found unresponsive in his cell after being brutally restrained and tazed by 6 or 7 deputies.  He was perfectly fine before they got to him; he died on December 21st when he was taken off life support. You can see the video right here.

What else you got?

In a story by AP, Sheriff Joe’s office is accused of failing to investigate over 400 sex crimes from 2005 to 2007. Read what an El Mirage detective had to say about the good Sheriff’s work in his town:  

“In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 — in which the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.” 

Long-time supporters of the Sheriff have started to keep their distance. Even, Senator John McCain has publicly expressed his indignation at the shoddy police work.

……………..

He used a tank to raid a one-man cockfighting operation for Steven Seagal’s show? They killed a puppy.

A TANK?!?!

Sheriff Joe isn’t making the news or being targeted for investigation because people disagree with him; He’s making the news because he’s really bad at his job, and we know for a fact that he’s the one screwing up. Watching someone fall from grace right before your eyes makes for a good story, or if he’s with Steven Seagal, good TV.

P.S – For the record, the man who screwed up Fast and Furious did get fired. Kenneth Melson is no longer head of the ATF.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Francisco Lara. They in no way represent the opinions of the Arizona Model United Nations.

This post reflects the author’s personal opinions, not the opinions of Arizona Model United Nations.

By: Francisco Lara

After news of ATF’s botched operation, code-named Fast and Furious became public knowledge I met every update with a tempered irritation, but also some optimism. I thought, “Finally, there’ll be some real talk about the problems with arms-trafficking into Mexico. It’s a bi-national problem affecting people on both sides of the border in need of a bilateral solution.” Nowadays, I exclusively feel irritation, if not outright anger.

Operation Fast and Furious was an operation running out of the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed weapons to be smuggled, or “walked” into Mexico with the intention of then tracing them to the higher ranks of Mexico’s drug cartels. Like I said, the operation was botched. The ATF knowingly let roughly 2,000 guns cross into Mexico, but lost track of many of them when they crossed the border. Only 600 have been recovered. To make things worse the ATF never notified anyone in the Mexican government. So imagine everyone’s surprise, when it was revealed that two of these weapons had been implicated in the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent near Nogales and ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí.  Another gun of that same batch was used to murder and torture the brother of a prominent Mexican prosecutor of Chihuahua. By the ATF’s own count, 179 of their guns have been found at crime scenes. An unconfirmed number cited by the LA Times puts the number of people killed or injured by Fast and Furious weapons at 150.

It goes without saying that Mexico has already found itself the victim of the USA’s lax gun laws. In a country where over 40,000 people have died in protracted drug war, the deliberate smuggling of hundreds of weapons into Mexico is even more reprehensible. The people responsible for organizing such a misguided action should be held accountable. Indeed, they already have. Officers in the local Phoenix division of the ATF and the US attorney general assigned to Arizona have left their posts, and in the ensuing fallout ATF’s interim director was forced to resign. Now is the time for a policy discussion of how to stem the flow of weapons into Mexico. Instead, the US house of Representatives has seen it fit to turn the scandal into a witch hunt aimed at discrediting U.S Attorney-General Eric Holder and embarrassing the Obama administration.

The hearings called by Representative Issa have had almost no testimony about the substantive issue of arms smuggling. All of their energy has been spent trying to crucify Holder. Holder himself has already admitted that the operation was deeply flawed, and instructed the Inspector-General to conduct an internal investigation, but Republicans are out for blood. At the most recent hearing, Representative Ted Poe of Texas wildly suggested that officials in the Justice Department should be prosecuted for manslaughter because of their negligence. Democrats aren’t much better about shamelessly plugging themselves, but at least they’re trying to talk policy. Mike Quingley, Democrat of Illinois, probably characterizes the hearings best. “For those of you keeping score at home, one side is using this horrible screw-up to justify a policy, The other side is using this horrible screw-up to justify keeping A.T.F. weak and “extraordinarily lax” gun-control laws.

So far no documents have been able to prove that Holder knew what was going on in Phoenix, and even if he had known about the operation, his knowledge was cursory at best.  But the hearings continue almost six months after the fact. The House of Representatives should stop wasting its time scoring political points off the deaths of US agents and Mexican nationals and get back to their real job: legislating. Every second they waste is another gun smuggled into Mexico, another crime committed, another preventable death. Let’s talk about how real and serious the issue of arms smuggling actually is:

• According to the Mexico Institute, a program of the Woodrow Wilson Center of International Scholars, over 85,000 firearms and 5 million rounds of ammunition were seized in Mexico from December 2006 to August 2010. In 2009, the Mexican government confiscated 32,332 firearms, an increase of more than 22,770 firearms over 2007 seizures.
• Sources differ on how many of these firearms and munitions found in Mexico come from the United States. A report published in 2009 by the General Accounting Office put the quantity at 87%. Most recently the report by Senator Feinstein, notes that in 2009 and 2010, 29,284 firearms recovered in Mexico were traced by the ATF. Of those 20,504 (70%) were determined to have originated from the U.S.
• Of the 20,451 guns recovered in 2009 44% were rifles, followed by pistols with 32%. Most recently, the report submitted by Senators Feinstein, Schumer and Whitehouse, have noted that 70% of those guns trafficked are coming from the border states of Texas (39%), California (20%) and Arizona (10%).  The rifle number is particularly alarming because until recently multiple purchases of semi-automatic rifles were exempted from the federal reporting requirement even if they had been purchased in a period of 5 days.
• 99 of the guns recovered and traced by the ATF in 2009 were implicated in homicides. Another 82 were used in kidnappings and 311 more were related to dangerous drugs.

This is a real problem. Not Eric Holder’s knowledge or lack of knowledge. It’s time to start talking about bringing back the assault weapon ban, deepening gun regulations on gun owners and sellers, and even about expanding the ATF’s budget to bolster its enforcement efforts, so they don’t have to resort to desperate programs like these.  Heck, I would settle for Republicans bringing the Second Amendment out of their back-pocket if it would mean talking about guns, instead of the butter greasing the gears of their self-indulgent political conflict. But don’t hold your breath for a change in the conversation anytime soon. My guess is the witch hunt will proceed, and the end is nowhere in sight.  

Thanks to Andrea Lara for her advice and help in the drafting of this article.

This post reflects the author’s personal opinions, not the opinions of Arizona Model United Nations.

By Francisco Lara

The stunning recall of Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce on Wednesday was a positive development in local politics, but it is unclear what effects his ouster will have on bilateral relations on the border.

Pearce, the bombastic Arizona politician, gained national attention and international notoriety after spearheading efforts to pass Senate Bill 1070, which would have granted Arizona law enforcement unprecedented discretion to question and detain anyone they suspected of being an undocumented immigrant. The measure, which ultimately did pass in April of 2010, drew an impassioned response from the Mexican government, going as far as to issue a travel warning to Mexicans like myself, who live or are traveling in Arizona.  At present, the most contentious sections of the bill are blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pending a possible appeal to the Supreme Court. Before being recalled, Pearce had vowed to keep on fighting the injunction.

Pearce’s magnum opus was not intended to be SB1070. Earlier this year he introduced a set of cruel immigration laws that would have made 1070 seem meek in comparison. These proposals, among them some that would have denied state birth certificates to the children of migrants and forced schools to report undocumented migrants in their classrooms, were overwhelmingly rebuffed by the Arizona legislature after business leaders had expressed concern over the additional commercial repercussions an approval could cause. The Center for American Progress has released a report that boycotts as a result of SB1070 have already cost the state $140 million in spending. 

News of Pearce’s recall was received with elation. Columnist Ruben Navarrete Jr. joyously wrote: “Evil has left the building.” When asked about the recall election result, Congressman Raúl Grijalva said that Pearce’s loss “is a game changer for Arizona and a game changer for politicians who have used the immigration issue to divide people.”  Even a staunch republican ally of Pearce’s, John Kavanagh, seemed to concede that his recall would slow things down on immigration.

But none of us should be getting ahead of ourselves. Pearce’s recall, although a victory for a more common sense immigration policy, could have had as much to do with Pearce’s unsavory character as his politics. Pearce has seen himself implicated in a slew of corruption allegations as of late, including revelations that he illegally accepted thousands of dollars’ worth of Fiesta Bowl tickets, penned a McCarthyesque blacklist banning people from the legislature and created a sham candidate to siphon off votes from his opponent Jerry Lewis.  As a politician with a huge Mormon base, questions to his character irreparably damaged his chances to fend off his challenger.  Both Ben Smith of Politico and the Arizona Republic seem to agree.

There are still plenty of politicians in Arizona that have the will and resources to continue Pearce’s hateful crusade against civil liberties, immigrants and Mexicans. Remember that individuals like Jan Brewer, Tom Horne and Joe Arpaio still have vibrant political careers and SB1070 still stands a chance on appeal to the Supreme Court. The lack of news coverage of the Pearce recall by Mexican media outlets may be symptomatic of the actual prospect for change in Arizona politics.

The battle may have been won, but the war is far from over. Before Arizonans start declaring xenophobia and racism a thing of the past, more work needs to be done. In a sense, Navarrete is right, evil has left the building; But it’s still in our cities and around our homes. It’ll be water under the bridge once our guests, invited or not, can walk around without feeling threatened by its presence. 

This post reflects the author’s personal opinions, not the opinions of Arizona Model United Nations.