Trump’s Pardon of Joe Arpaio Is a Clear and Ugly Message to Hispanic Americans
On Friday night, minutes before Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, Donald Trump issued the first presidential pardon of his administration to Joe Arpaio, the longtime Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff whose record of proudly tough, sometimes brutal, and ultimately illegal policing of Latino immigrants made him among the nation’s most admired and reviled lawmen. In a tightly worded two-paragraph statement, Trump praised Arpaio’s “admirable service to our nation.” The statement doesn’t mention his conviction, or the various human rights scandals that plagued his 24-year tenure as the sheriff of Arizona’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix. He received a fair trial and a justifiable conviction, and there’s nothing the President can do to change that awful legacy and the stain he had left on our community.” Trump had hinted during a Tuesday rally in Phoenix that he might pardon “Sheriff Joe,” who was one of the earliest national figures to endorse his campaign. For Hispanic Americans, Arpaio’s conviction was a symbol that—despite all the abuse that might take place in county jails, all the humiliation of a father detained outside his child’s school, all the fear of going to a county court where immigration officers haunt the halls, and the shame of not going to church on Sunday for fear of being rounded up—the American system was ultimately a just one that would punish men for their crimes.
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