Since the early 1990s, the sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ has been on a crusade against illegal immigrants.  Sheriff Joe Arpaio has apparently neglected other law enforcement duties to follow this mission.  His controvertial policies include sweeping up Mexican-american citizens along with undocumented aliens, and holding them in tent cities behind barbed wire in the Arizona heat, feeding them rotten food, and denying medical and mental health care.  People have died there.

The guilty and the innocent have been made to sport pink underwear, and work on chain gangs.  Inmates have been hog-tied, pepper-sprayed and beaten by guards; those who "assault" guards are put on bread and water rations.

Our current head of Homeland Security has had a long relationship with Arpaio, and was in a position many times as a U.S. Attorney, then as governor, to shut down Arpaio's show.  She did not.  Some write it off as good politics on her part; Arpaio's tactics seem wildly popular in the area.  Arpaio claims he may soon get a network teevee reality show (Fox?).  When ordered to investigate his abuses in 1995, most claim Napolitano did so reluctantly, and not much came of it.  She claimed, "We run a strict but safe jail, and I haven't heard from anyone who thinks this is a bad thing." (Not true, and not funny.)

The final report was mainly a whitewash, only demanded Arpaio clean up a few things, and his tactics were essentially given a blessing. He claimed total vindication. In fact, Arpaio stood with Napolitano when she announced her 2002 bid for governor, and his support probably helped her win the 12,000 vote margin by which she won.  As governor, she seemed deaf to complaints about Arpaio's policies, much to the chagrin of the mayor of Phoenix, who also complained that resources were being used for border patrol that were needed in other law enforcement areas, you know, like robbery, murder, etc.

Complaints have been made that Arpaio is cozy with neo-nazis in the area, and the mayor of Phoenix has charged that Arpaio 'directing law enforcement at the request of white supremacists."  Online videos of him schmoozing with them at the roadblock checkpoints are available, and in May he announced the formation of a "posse" by which he could deputize all the thugs he might want.

Protest marches have attempted to shine a light on the disgusting practices, and various civil liberties groups have tried to help, apparently with little effect to date.

Napolitano, to my mind, was a rotten choice for head of Homeland Security.  When her name surfaced as a possible Obama pick for SCOTUS, my hair caught on fire.

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