Being illegal, Latino, and a victim

From a newspaper report. Versions of this report ran in many papers, from the Arizona Republic through the Washington Post, etc.:

EL MIRAGE, Ariz. — The 13-year-old girl opened the door of her home in this small city on the edge of Phoenix to encounter a man who said that his car had broken down and he needed to use the phone. Once inside, the man pummeled the teen from behind, knocking her unconscious and sexually assaulting her.

Seven months before, in an apartment two miles away, another 13-year-old girl was fondled in the middle of the night by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. She woke up in her room at least twice a week to find him standing over her, claiming to be looking for her mother’s cell phone.

Both cases were among more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 – including dozens of alleged child molestations – that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.

In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations – with victims as young as 2 years old – where the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.

Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants. …

Since this report has come out, Sheriff Arpaio has apologized and said that the investigations have been reopened and various arrests have been made. Nevertheless, since this report came out during this past week, the calls have been growing for his resignation. You may remember Sheriff Arpaio. He has been cited by many extreme conservatives as the very image of what a sheriff should be and how criminals ought to be treated. He is the sheriff who took pride in the “tough” conditions in his jails and in his always being on the edge of mistreatment charges. He is also the sheriff who has been one of the strongest supporters of Arizona’s anti-immigrant laws and one of the strongest proponents for stop for the right of the police to stop any person whom they deem a “probable” illegal and demanding papers.

Nevertheless, this points out the ugly side of the type of laws that have been passed by both Arizona and Alabama. Many who have opposed these type of laws, including many in law enforcement, have pointed out that turning police into immigration agents would have the likely side-effect of lessening the number of crimes reported by the undocumented community and increasing the number of victims of unreported crimes. However, this report also points out the other, and even uglier side, of these laws. When you write laws that invalidate any contract with an undocumented alien (such as Alabama has) and when you turn police officials into putative immigration agents, you also allow for the attitude to grow that anything that happens to an undocumented alien is their fault, it is simply the result of their crime.

Anytime that a community is allowed to think that a human being is not deserving of being treated with dignity, the inevitable result is mistreatment. Whether in one of Sheriff Arpaio’s jails, from where mistreatment of convicted citizens had been reported more than once, or whether it is the willful failure to follow up on crimes on those who are here illegally, even if they are small children, the end result is nightmarish. We have seen this time and again in history. Sheriff Arpaio’s department is just another historical example of what happens when people are considered to be second-class or worse. This is the world into which this country is slipping ill-considered anti-illegal law by ill-considered anti-illegal law. This is but one example of why the federal government is so fiercely opposing the passing of state and local immigration law.