On Oct. 2, a U.S. district judge permanently blocked Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office from continuing with several practices related to its immigration enforcement and required radically improved record keeping.
Among the changes, the sheriff’s office is barred from taking several actions, including:
- Detaining Latino occupants of vehicles based only on a reasonable belief that they are in the country illegally.
- Using race/Latino ancestry in determining whether to stop a vehicle.
- Using race/Latino ancestry in determining whether a passenger is in the country illegally.
- Using a person’s accent, use of Spanish or appearance as a day laborer in determining whether a person is in the country illegally.
- Prohibit selective enforcement based on race/ethnicity and traffic stops to investigate legal status.
- Require deputies to tell a supervisor before detaining someone for an immigration-related crime or a passenger without an ID.
- Require that deputies can’t transport to immigration authorities someone suspected of being in the country illegally unless the person asks for a ride.
- For every immigration check, the officer must record the reason, time the supervisor approved the inquiry, when they contacted authorities, how long the response took and whether they transferred the person to federal custody.
- Require each stop to have a unique ID number to link citations, incident reports and tow forms.
Source: U.S. District Court opinion.
