Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona will soon face criminal charges from federal prosecutors over his immigration patrols — just a month shy of an Election Day in which he’s angling for re-election.
Federal prosecutors say they will charge him with contempt-of-court after he allegedly failed to obey a judge’s order to halt controversial immigration policies that some say include racial profiling. In May, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow found Arpaio in contempt of civil court, but now he will face the possibility of outright punishment stemming from impending criminal charges.
The man known as “the toughest sheriff in America” has been at the forefront of the immigration debate throughout the election cycle, as he often speaks at campaign events for Donald Trump and approves of the GOP nominee’s immigration and border security proposals.
The timing of the charges against Arpaio seem to be convenient for his political opponents, who have loudly opposed his controversial border patrol policies. He is up for re-election as Maricopa County sheriff for the seventh time in November.
On Sunday, Trump’s comment that if he were elected, Hilary Clinton would be jailed for illegally using a private email server to disseminate classified information during her tenure as secretary of State, sent the media into hysterics. Many insisted that Trump’s comment was dictator-like, forgetting that Democrats try to prosecute and imprison political opponents like Arpaio on the regular.
