A Federal judge ruled that "America's Toughest Sheriff" Joe Arpaio was violating the Constitutional rights of Latinos with his department's policies during their crackdown on illegal immigration. Arpaio and his office were ordered to stop making law enforcement policies based off of racially profiling, according to Reuters.
Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., had the suit brought against him by a group of Latino drivers who alleged that deputies chose who to pull over based on race. Officials from Maricopa County testified that deputies would make stops at areas where day laborers congregated to find work and would only check the immigration status of the Latino workers while ignoring the workers of other races, the BBC reports.
During the case Arpaio testified that there was no reason for the deputies to check the immigration status of white people since it is assumed they are citizens, according to the BBC.
U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow ruled that the sheriff's office was using race as a reason to stop drivers, particularly in a practice known as "saturation stops."
"The great weight of the evidence is that all saturation patrols at issue in this case incorporated race as a consideration into their operations," Snow's ruling said.
"In an immigration enforcement context," Snow's ruling continued. "The sheriff's office did not believe that it constituted racial profiling to consider race as one factor among others in making law enforcement decisions."
Tim Casey, a lawyer for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, told The New York Times that they plan on appealing the ruling but will comply with it for the time being. Casey denied that any wrongdoing took place.
"The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has always held the position that they never have used race and they never will use race in making a law enforcement decision," Casey told Reuters.
The Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project, Cecilia Wang, was pleased by the victory in court and felt that the ramifications of the decision would be significant.
"Singling people out for traffic stops and detentions simply because they're Latino is illegal and just plain un-American," Wang told Reuters. "Let this be a warning to anyone who hides behind a badge to wage their own private campaign against Latinos or immigrants that there is no exception in the Constitution for violating people's rights in immigration enforcement."
