EthnicMajority

(Truth Out) Latino workers in the Phoenix area are fighting back against the bullying sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio. They’ve registered over 34,000 new voters for the November election.

The “Adiós Arpaio” campaign is part of a strategy by the hotel union UNITE HERE to turn around Arizona’s anti-worker policies, in a right-to-work state where Latino workers have only recently begun to flex their political muscles. Maricopa County contains 60 percent of Arizona’s population

Organizers say they feel a seismic shift in the political landscape. “I’ve never been part of something historic before,” said Lucia Vergara Aguirre, president of UNITE HERE Local 631. The union has been growing, representing workers at the Phoenix airport complex and at several downtown hotels, and has other organizing drives underway.

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(Business Insider) Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, best known for his fights with undocumented immigrants, received quite a blow Tuesday from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The federal appeals court ruled Arpaio can't detain suspects based only on his belief they are here illegally, Courthouse News Service reported Wednesday.

Arpaio has garnered his fair share of headlines in the past for his harsh stance on fighting illegal immigration.

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(The Guardian) For someone who holds the relatively modest position of county sheriff, Joe Arpaio has received an astonishing amount of attention from this year's Republican presidential candidates.

He has been wooed by Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum, who all made pilgrimages to Arizona to see him in person, Santorum as recently as last week. Rick Perry invited him to tour Texas with him and Mitt Romney, for whom he acted as Arizona campaign chair in 2008, has also been in contact.

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(UPI) Hispanic leaders in Phoenix say Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio should resign following a court ruling that his officers engage in racial profiling.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow also said in his decision Friday that being in the United States illegally is not grounds for arrest.

Antonio Bustamente of Los Abogados, the Arizona Hispanic Bar Association, called Snow's ruling "monumentally important," The Arizona Republic reported. Bustamente appeared with other leaders at a news conference Monday at the El Portal restaurant in Phoenix.

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(Fox Phoenix) Controversy always follows Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration raids, and now one of them is proving costly.

Maricopa County has agreed to pay out $200,000 dollars to two men who were caught up in one raid.

They were detained along with others who were in the country illegally — the only problem is — they weren't illegal immigrants.

This stems back to an incident that took place two years ago, on Feb. 11, 2009. Julian Mora and his son Julio claim their civil rights were violated when they were stopped and detained during that illegal immigration raid.

A federal court judge ruled that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office violated the 4th Amendment in stopping and arresting the Moras, and Thursday, the two received compensation.

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