Maricopa County To Pay Millions To Prevent Sheriff's Office From Racial And Ethnic Profiling Of Illegals

Joe Arpaio

Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio's racial and ethnic profiling policy that was used as a basis to enforce immigration laws will now cost the county millions to halt its discrimination practice. 

By H. Nelson Goodson

January 4, 2014

Phoenix, Arizona - In 2014, Maricopa County is expected to pay more than $21M to initiate a federal court order to pay for a monitor to oversee the Sheriff's Department operations and create a community advisory board. It will also cost the county an additional $10M for each additional year to maintain the monitor and board. Maricopa County operates on a $2.2B budget, according to Cari Gerchick, the Maricopa spokesperson, CNN reported.

Both the monitor and the board will make sure that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his staff will stop practicing racial and ethnic profiling while enforcing county and state laws.

In May, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ruled that Sheriff Arpaio must stop targeting undocumented immigrants by racial and ethnic profiling in his practice to enforce federal and state immigration laws. Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies engaged in a pattern of specifically targeting and stopping vehicles with dark skin passengers and detaining them longer than other groups, Judge Snow found. Many of the victims had their constitutional rights violated for merely having a darker skin tone, a language accent and for being Hispanic. 

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office operated with the assumption that Hispanics traveling through the county or living in the area were most likely to be undocumented, according to victims residing in Maricopa County.

Sheriff Arpaio is expected to appeal Judge Snow's decision.