Good.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.
The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills
Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the federal government first asked for 15 months ago.
I can't believe the feds let him stall for 17 months. Arpaio has compiled a long record of notorious abuses, like this one:
During her second night behind bars, the bleeding started. On the morning of October 14, she felt contractions. Her hands and feet shackled, she was in labor and ushered into a paramedic's van by a detention officer who restrained her to the stretcher.
"That's not necessary," the paramedic told the officer.
"It's my job," the officer responded. The guard was a Latina.
She thought she would be released from the shackles once she arrived at the hospital, but she wasn't.
The officer chained her ankle to one leg of the hospital bed.
A nurse requested that she be freed to get a urine sample. But the officer suggested instead that her bed be dragged over to the bathroom.
Later she was changed from her jail uniform into a hospital gown.
"The officer chained me by the feet and the hands to the bed," she said. "And that's how my daughter was born."
Arpaio is slime. And while he remains obsessed with immigrants, his actual record is a disaster:
* Violent crime rates are up in Arpaio’s jurisdiction while they have fallen throughout the rest of Arizona.
* Arpaio has failed to serve over 40,000 felony warrants. Arpaio is suspected of misspending $50 million in taxpayer funds and has refused to turn over records for an investigation.
* Over 2,700 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio and he’s been investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor.
* Evidence exists that Arpaio forced an undocumented mother to give birth while handcuffed to a bed.
And all of this for what? For a jihad against immigrants that is based on lies and fear mongering? When the governor of Arizona claims there are beheadings in the Arizona desert despite all evidence to the contrary, when McCain claims his state is a lawless haven for villainy and scum, and when busboys, maids, and landscapers are blamed for drug-related violence on the borders, you know immigrant bashers have lost their minds.
But what about all those jobs those immigrants are stealing from good Americans? Turns out they aren't.
Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers [...]
Over the long run, a net inflow of immigrants equal to 1% of employment increases income per worker by 0.6% to 0.9%. This implies that total immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker. That equals an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars. Such a gain equals 20% to 25% of the total real increase in average yearly income per worker registered in the United States between 1990 and 2007.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is ugly, it's immoral, its un-American, and its economically counterproductive. And maybe it's truly time for Arpaio to face justice.