Say it ain't so, Joe

Yesterday I wrote that Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the 'poster boy' for efforts to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement take away some of the authority it has given to local law enforcement.

Evidently, America's toughest sheriff agreed on a local radio show (Feathered Bastard), where he was criticizing a new agreement that only allows his deputies to screen people who are already in jail on other charges. (I've got to find a new cliche'.)

I started down this path because, like other national immigration issues, the so-called 287(g) agreements are likely to become CNMI news Nov. 28, if not sooner.

The sentence this is taken from could use another rewrite, but evidently the previous agreements allowed "federally trained and supervised state and local law enforcement officials to investigate, apprehend, transport, and detain people who are living and working in the country without authorization." (Huffington Post.

According to the Arizona Republic, "The jail-screening effort helped officials catch nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants since the program began in February 2007, but it was the street-level enforcement that caused the most controversy and produced less substantial results, capturing about 264 illegal-immigration suspects."

Unrepentant, as you can see from the links, Arpaio leaked news of the new agreement in violation of its terms.

Closer to home

Congressman Gregorio C. Sablan says that the Department of Homeland Security is circulating a proposal to require "one additional form" under the coming Guam/CNMI visa waiver program for tourists.

That's a positive, but we're very much the tail of the dog on this one. "Guam" is the operative word here with the Department of Defense asked for comment while it's moving more Marines in.

"Sablan could not say whether DHS intends to apply the same policy for Russian and Chinese tourists visiting Guam," according to the Saipan Tribune.

This *should* have been posted a day ago, but I had an unfortunate encounter with party food and spent the day sitting elsewhere

Profiles in outrage

The Southwest Border Task Force wants to cut back on local enforcement of federal immigration laws, according to Themonitor.com in McAllen, Texas.

"Our goal is to get all of the Southwest border on the same playing field and draw out the realities on the border versus the rhetoric," said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, the task force’s vice chairman.

Civil rights and Hispanic groups have urged President Barack Obama’s administration in recent months to end the 287(g) program amid mounting evidence that some participating police departments have used the newly granted authority to justify racial profiling. (That's probably true, but the reporter is making an unsupported argument by using the word 'evidence'. Tch.)

As you'd expect, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the bootcamp jail guy, is the poster boy for the alleged abuses.

There are 18 other recommendations, but I haven't seen the report posted on the DHS website yet. The article summarizes several others.

I've tried to follow what 'the authorities' are doing with racial profiling. We all do something like that naturally, even if it's unconsciously; I think it's genetic. It can be useful *sometimes* but profiling is very, very dangerous to our civil liberties.

Travel travails

There's an interesting blog in the online New York Times suggesting that airport security may have been a factor in the Olympics going to Rio de Janeiro instead of Chicago.

Entering the United States can be "a rather harrowing experience," I.O.C. member from Pakistan Syed Shaid Ali is quoted as saying.

If you've been following U.S. travel numbers, they've been steadily declining since 911. One of the reasons the Marianas Visitors Authority dreads Nov. 28.

Temporary tattoo

Totally unrelated from a local paper: sounds like this purse-snatcher should just cut his hair. "The suspect was described as local male, in his late 30’s, about 5’4” tall, 140-150 pounds, wearing a gray sleeveless shirt, dark shorts, and short dark hair, covered with tattoos."