PHOENIX A lawyer for an Arizona sheriff who has aggressively cracked down on illegal immigration has asked for a probe of federal officials who are investigating the sheriff's office for alleged discrimination and unconstitutional searches.
Robert Driscoll, a lawyer for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, said in a letter that Department of Justice investigators conducting the civil rights probe improperly shared documents with the Department of Homeland Security, which is auditing Arpaio's use of federal immigration powers.
"They are not playing fair," Arpaio said Tuesday. "There is a political motive behind all of this and ethical violations. Right now, I'm fighting back."
Arpaio said both examinations are focused on his immigration enforcement efforts, which include arresting more than 1,000 illegal immigrants under a state smuggling law and setting up a hot line to report immigration violations. Arpaio also has led crime and immigration sweeps in some heavily Latino areas in metropolitan Phoenix.
Critics say deputies racially profiled people during the immigration sweeps and that Arpaio abused the powers that the federal government gave dozens of his deputies to make immigration arrests. Arpaio said people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes.
Department of Justice spokesman Alejandro Miyar said the agency will review the letter but declined to comment on Arpaio's investigation request. "Career professionals in the civil rights division began looking into this last year, and the department made the decision to open this investigation in the same manner we make every such decision, based on the facts and the law," Miyar said.
Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler declined to comment on Arpaio's accusation that both agencies were improperly sharing documents.
Chandler said the Homeland Security's examination of Arpaio's immigration-power deal with the federal government is part of a larger review of the agency's immigration and border security policies. All such deals also are being reviewed, Chandler said.
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On the Net:
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office:http://www.mcso.org/
U.S. Department of Justice:http://www.usdoj.gov/
U.S. Department of Homeland Security:http://www.dhs.gov/