Arizona

A four-day sweep conducted last November in Arizona by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents looking for immigrant fugitives and criminals resulted primarily in the arrests of immigrants who were neither criminals nor fugitives, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has found.
The operation was supposed to be part of an ICE program to deport dangerous [...]

On Tuesday I reported that an Arizona judge had ordered Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop pre-charging female prisoners for the transportation and security costs associated with their obtaining abortion services at a medical clinic. The American Civil Liberties Union had won its argument that the charges — which ranged from $300 to $900 [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union just won a court order against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who was illegally pre-charging female prisoners hundreds of dollars for the costs of being securely transported to medical clinics to obtain abortions.

Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, not content with arresting illegal immigrants despite having lost his federal authority to do so, is now resisting a federal court order to allow women in his prisons to obtain abortions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing him over this in Arizona.

Looks like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., has lost some of his authority to arrest people he suspects are illegal immigrants. Under the controversial 287(g) program of the immigration law, Arpaio was one of many local sheriffs who were empowered to enforce federal immigration laws. Comments he’s made to the Arizona Republic, however, [...]

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) accidentally walked into the world of “birther” conspiracy theories last month, when a local newspaper seemed to report that Franks was considering a lawsuit against the president. Franks cleared the matter up immediately: He had merely considered suing for proof of the president’s citizenship before and after the 2008 election, but [...]

At a press conference on Rep. Jack Kingston’s (R-Ga.) anti-”czar” legislation, Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) held up a chart of 34 “czars” in the administration.
“I don’t think you know who these people are,” said Shadegg, ribbing the media for not holding them “accountable.”
But several of the people in Shadegg’s chart were actually confirmed by the [...]

Chris Simcox, the co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, is in D.C. this week — he marched in the “taxpayer march” on 9/12, and he was working radio row at the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” lobbying event. And Simcox, who’s running in the 2010 Arizona Republican primary [...]

After a week of unwanted attention that seemed to end with him signing on to Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-Fla.) bill to demand birth certificates from future presidential candidates, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) has released the audio and transcript from the town hall where, according to the Mohave Daily News, he had talked about suing for [...]

Bethany Haley, a spokeswoman for the Republican congressman from Arizona, expands on the comments Franks made about President Obama’s citizenship at a town hall meeting this weekend. Franks was misquoted, says Haley, and only said that “he had, at one time, considered the possibility of filing a lawsuit back when the issue was first brought [...]