Donald Trump may pardon notorious sheriff found guilty in racial profiling case

Donald Trump has said he is “seriously considering” issuing a pardon for Joe Arpaio, the infamous former Arizona sheriff who ignored a court order banning him from detaining people he believed to be illegal immigrants.

The 85-year-old, self-styled as “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, was convicted last month of criminal contempt after ignoring a judge’s order to stop racial profiling.

“I might do it right away, maybe early this week. I am seriously thinking about it,” Trump told Fox News. He said Arpaio was a “great American patriot” who had “done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.”

“Is there anyone in local law enforcement who has done more to crack down on illegal immigration than Sheriff Joe?” Trump said.

“He has protected people from crimes and saved lives. He doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.”

Arpaio told Fox News he would accept the pardon “because I am 100 percent not guilty.”

Arpaio, who, like Trump, peddled conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, gained notoriety while elected sheriff of Maricopa County, between 1993 and 2016.

He faces six months in prison for defying a 2011 court order that required his officers to stop detaining people on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

Arpaio’s hardliner approach to immigration found him at war with the US Department of Justice, which concluded that he oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in US history.

The former sheriff, who spoke at a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Phoenix in 2016, became a household name after he set up a “Tent City” as an extension of the Maricopa County Jail.

In 1997, a report by Amnesty International found the structure fell short of being an “adequate or humane alternative to housing inmates in suitable jail facilities”, with temperatures inside rising to 63 °C.

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Over the weekend, likely during the events in Charlottesville, Trump told the news outlet that the pardon could come within in a matter of days.

Using patrols, Arpaio made hundreds of arrests of people who were suspected living in the country illegally — but not of state crimes.

Once detained, individuals would be turned over to the border control officials, who would initiate deportation proceedings.

Arpaio was repeatedly told to stop, given that the federal government, not the sheriff’s office, has exclusive power to enforce civil-immigration violations, but continued the practice.

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the pardon would amount to support for racism.

“President Trump would be literally pardoning Joe Arpaio’s flagrant violation of federal court orders that prohibited the illegal detention of Latinos.

“He would undo a conviction secured by his own career attorneys at the Justice Department. Make no mistake: this would be an official presidential endorsement of racism.”