Aug 25, 2017
Joe Arpaio's most controversial moments
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
President Trump pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio tonight, after telling Fox News last Sunday that he was "seriously considering" it. Arpaio endorsed Trump in 2016.
A round-up of the most controversial moments from Arpaio, who held several press conferences claiming Barack Obama's birth certificate was fake:
- He received a court order in 2011 stopping him from detaining people based on suspicions they were undocumented immigrants. The Justice Department accused him of "unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest and retaliating against those who complain," per the NYT. He kept inmates in an extension of the Maricopa County jail known as "Tent City," where prisoners were forced to wear pink underwear. He once called it a "concentration camp."
- He was accused of failing to fully investigate "more than 400 sex-crimes" that mostly involved children and were filed by illegal immigrants, the NYT reported.
- In 2015, the Guardian reported that officials settled a lawsuit accusing Arpaio of botching the investigation into a rape of a 13-year-old girl.
Go deeper: The Phoenix New Times has listed several more Arpaio controversies.
