Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio promised on Tuesday to challenge a federal judge's ruling that found his office to engage in racial profiling against Latinos, KPHO-TV reported.
"One hundred of my deputies were authorized and trained by the federal government, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], to enforce federal immigration law," Arpaio said in a video statement released on Tuesday. "Now, a federal court has ruled that federal training was unconstitutional, and it led to racial profiling. We will appeal this ruling."
Arpaio also promised to abide by U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow's 142-page ruling, which barred Maricopa County Sheriff's Office personnel from pulling Latinos over using "race or Latino ancestry" as a determining factor, as well as arresting Latinos without proof that they were undocumented immigrants. A local immigration attorney, Ray Ibarra, told the station that Snow's decision put Arpaio in his place.
The ruling, Ibarra said to KPHO, "says, 'You can't use the employer sanction law. You can't use the human smuggling law. You can't use what we now call SB 1070.' He plain and simple says, 'Get out of the immigration business.' I hope Sheriff Arpaio listened to that."
Ibarra also said he would seize on the ruling in future cases involving Latino defendants detained during "crime suppression sweeps" conducted by Arpaio's department.
"I can tell the judge, 'Judge, his initial stop was against the Constitution,'" Ibarra told the station. "'As Judge Snow said, his immigration case should be thrown out. He should be allowed to stay in the country.'"
According to Voxxi, the ruling also lent new life to ongoing efforts to recall Arpaio. One group, Respect Arizona, set up a camp near the offices of the county board of supervisors to gather signatures for a petition seeking his firing.
Watch KPHO's report on Arpaio's statement, aired Tuesday, below.
[h/t The Huffington Post]
