Activist in DC To Talk About Arpaio, ICE

A Valley immigrants rights activist headed to Washington, D.C., today to meet with the Hispanic Caucus and talk about the relationship between Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

``We hope that this will start what ends up in actually an overview of the operations between Sheriff Arpaio and ICE," said Salvador Reza, who runs a north Phoenix day labor center.

``Up until today, Sheriff arpaio has been arresting day laborers, journalists, a lot of vendors, but he has over 70,000 warrants that he has not taken care of," Reza said. He said some of those warrants date back at least two years.

Reza said Arpaio is not going after criminals.

``He's going after vendors and he's going after even the newspaper people, but he's not really going after the criminals because there's over 70,000 warrants outstanding and, instead of going down, they're going higher," Reza said.

And, he said the sheriff is doing a lot of damage.

``He's creating a fear in the community that we will not stand for."

Reza hopes federal officials will check into Arpaio's relationship with ICE and take an oversight role.