The Justice Department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona for refusing to fully cooperate with the department's investigation of alleged national origin discrimination in the course of immigration enforcement.
DOJ has been looking into whether Arpaio is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act since March 2009. The controversial Arpaio passed a deadline last month to provide DOJ with the documents they requested, and his lawyer met with DOJ last week.
The Justice Department said at the time it was "hopeful" that Arpaio would cooperate following the meeting, but in a statement said on Thursday that it had "[exhausted] all cooperative measures" to gain access to the requested documents and facilities.
DOJ is unaware of any other police department of sheriff's office that has refused to cooperate with an investigation in the past 30 years, making Maricopa County "an extreme outlier," said the department.
From TPM, here's the PDF of the complaint against Sheriff Joe.
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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
