Moreno's Mexican Grill Target of Joe Arpaio's Latest Employer Sanctions Raid Which Targeted Employees

Maricopa County is now safe from six illegal immigrants who were allegedly using stolen identities to work at a Mexican restaurant in Chandler.

That's right, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office conducted its latest illegal immigrant roundup at Moreno's Mexican grill in Chandler this morning. It netted a total of six arrests.

The MCSO says it received information that 14 illegal immigrants were using fake IDs in order to work at the restaurant. Only six were arrested today -- which is a vast improvement from the last time the sheriff went gangbusters on a Valley business in search of illegal immigrants.

Last week, Arpaio's boys in beige raided a Days Inn hotel in downtown Phoenix. The result: one arrest.

Per usual, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is trying to church-up the immigrant roundup, calling the raid an "employer sanctions operation." Also per usual, no employers were arrested -- just employees.

When asked if any employers were arrested, MCSO Officer Chris Hegstrom tells New Times "at this time, I can tell you we arrested six employees for using false identification."

Again, precisely zero employers were arrested during the sheriff's "employer sanctions operation" this morning -- but that's because the raid had nothing to do with sanctions for people who hire illegal immigrants; it was just your run-of-the-mill MCSO immigrant roundup under the guise of an "employer sanctions operation."

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/09/morenos_mexican_grill_target_o.php

Maricopa County Sheriff deputies faulted in ID-theft case

Maricopa County sheriff's deputies violated the constitutional rights of two Hispanic men when they stopped and detained the men as part of a 2009 identity-theft investigation at a landscaping company, according to a federal judge's ruling Monday.

U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell ruled that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies had no reason to stop Julian and Julio Mora before dawn on Feb. 11, 2009, nor any reason to make a warrantless arrest when deputies detained the Moras for nearly three hours.

The only reason the arresting deputies had to detain the men, according to Campbell's ruling, was because Julian Mora told deputies that he worked at Handyman Maintenance Inc., where sheriff's deputies were searching for suspected identity thieves.

Sheriff's deputies arrested 60 employees during the raid on the business, out of 109 employees at the site, on suspicion of a variety of crimes, ranging from fraud and identity theft to immigration violations.

Julian Mora's admission that he worked someplace where deputies suspected wrongdoing was not enough for the deputies to believe Julian Mora committed a crime, Campbell wrote.

"Any mistakes on the part of the John Doe deputies, even if made in good faith, were not 'those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability,' " Campbell wrote.

Tim Casey, an attorney representing the Sheriffs Office, said the sheriff's defense was hampered because sheriff's officials were never able to identify the deputies who stopped the Moras.

More than 100 deputies were on scene that day, but without those who stopped the Moras, the judge was left to rule on the Moras version of events, Casey said.

"Without that, there was no testimony on why they were stopped," Casey said. "It was lack of evidence. They won because there's no evidence on that."

As important as Campbell's ruling is to the Moras, it bears more significance for the future of Arpaio's work-site enforcement operations, said Dan Pochoda, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, which represented the Moras.

Campbell also ruled that the arrests were the result of Arpaio's enforcement policies and that Maricopa County is liable for how those policies are enforced.

"It's the first test of their workplace raid policy, a plan they repeated many times," said Pochoda, who added that the ruling could serve as a deterrent. "It's a very important win."

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/04/25/20110425arpaio-deputies-ruling-id-theft.html

15 arrested during raid of Phoenix meat-packing business

Fifteen people were arrested after Maricopa County sheriff's deputies served a search warrant at a Phoenix meat-packing business with employees suspected of using stolen identities on Tuesday.

Between 30 and 40 employees at Prime Cut Meat & Seafood Company were detained by the deputies as the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office looked for 15 to 20 people suspected of identity theft. The Sheriff's Office had been investigating the case for several months, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

"We're going to continue business raids because you have to understand we have an unemployment problem," Arpaio said. "We took off 15 people with felonies off the street."

At least five of the people arrested had fake dates of birth and Social Security numbers. One of those arrested, a woman, was using the identification of a 90-year-old woman, Arpaio said.

"This is a serious problem, and I'm the bad guy," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "People forget (the people we arrested) have false identification, and that's a serious problem."

As the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office drove away from the business, the co-workers of the arrested people waved, cried and one of them shouted in Spanish, "This is an injustice!"

"They destroy families, separate them," said Erasto Martinez, 47, an employee.

Chad Poppen, the owner of Prime Cut Meat & Seafood Company said he was upset at how the system worked.

"I lost one-third of my working staff," said Poppen, who said he runs his employees' information through E-Verify. The system is "forcing you to hire based on the color of their skin."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/10/12/20101012phoenix-sheriff-immigration-raid-abrk.html