Thom Hartmann: And greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American Way. Thom Hartmann here with you.

They are converging on Phoenix, right now. The AFL-CIO and other groups are busing people into Phoenix, a lot of Phoenix residents are going to be showing up, they are going to be confronting, well we’re not sure exactly who. Certainly Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among others. And saying, no we’re not going to show our papers.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is with us. He is the sheriff of the most populous county in the state of Arizona, Maricopa county. The epicenter of the nation’s, what do you call it, debate over illegal immigration. Sheriff Arpaio, welcome back to our program.

Joe Arpaio: Thank you.

Thom Hartmann: And your website, by the way, I should mention. MCSO, as in Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, I’m assuming, .org? Yeah, in fact I’m looking at it right now. In fact people can follow you on Twitter, I’m impressed.

Joe Arpaio: RealSherriffJoe.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, there you go, Sheriff Joe. People are coming to town and they’re going to say to you no, I’m not going to show you my papers. What are you going to do?

Joe Arpaio: Well, why should we ask them for their papers unless they’re committing some type of other crime? So if they try to do that, you know, there’s three things they can, if they don’t do it they can be arrested if they’re in here illegally, they have no documentation and have not registered with the federal government. If they make some false statements regarding those questions they can be arrested for false reporting.

Thom Hartmann: So you started your answer by saying, you know, what should we do if they’re not doing anything illegally. Is it your opinion that if somebody is in this country illegally and they’re not conducting any kind of illegal activity, including working, which is the illegal activity that I’m most concerned about, I think that this is diluting our workforce and driving down labor prices, but that’s a whole ‘nother, maybe it’s a whole ‘nother thing, maybe it’s the core of it, that you don’t have a problem with them?

Joe Arpaio: No. We went into a workplace yesterday, raided another one, that’s 37. And while in there we did an investigation, they were having phony identification. So we arrested them on phony identification, they also happen to be here illegally. One of them we didn’t have a state charge so we called ICE, and turned the person over to ICE.

Now with this new law, if it goes into effect, that person I told you, now we have a state law that is a misdemeanor so I can book him into our jails instead of turning them over to ICE. But the majority of people we come across are on traffic violations or other laws and then we kick in the illegal immigration after that.

Thom Hartmann: Right. How many CEOs have you put in jail?

Joe Arpaio: How many what?

Thom Hartmann: CEOs, presidents of companies. The people who are hiring people, who are drawing them to this country.

Joe Arpaio: Yeah. Well we have too as a civil offense, a very weak law, but we keep looking at hooking them too, see if they knowingly and hire these people. But I like to say we’re doing our part. We arrested over 500 and we made vacancies for US citizens. Somebody should say thank you, sheriff, you grabbed all these guys who were working illegally and now people that are unemployed trying to put food on their table for their families, because we have 10% unemployment, now you see high school kids and a little change in people working in the fast food restaurants and other places.

Thom Hartmann: But, and kudos to you for doing that. But there is this, in the United States we’re seeing, first of all we’re seeing demagogues and racists grabbing onto this thing and saying oh my god, the brown people are coming. We’re seeing a ground swell across the country of people who realize that the American dream is slipping away. Average working American people, in large part, not in large part, I’d say in large part probably because of outsourcing, but perhaps in secondary part because there are people who are coming into this country illegally and are taking jobs and driving down the cost of labor. The labor pool expands, the cost of labor drops. And it seems to me that we don’t have an illegal immigration problem in this country, we have an illegal employer problem in this country.

Until the mid ‘80s when Reagan had his giant amnesty program and basically stopped enforcing all the rules against employers, we had, you know, people come, they would come north during picking season, principally into California and then they’d go south. For 100 years we had an open border and we didn’t’ have an immigration problem. It’s only when the federal government stopped prosecuting employers and states stopped prosecuting employers.

How do we get people to, particularly people like yourself in law enforcement, to start focusing on the real criminals, the people who are hiring people. The giant magnet that is drawing all these little tiny filings across the border, that is the people?

Joe Arpaio: Well it’s true, you’re right. We’re not federal immigration, but we’ve been enforcing a new state law, we’re the only ones doing it, the employers sanction, you have to follow the law. But I tell you one thing, we’re doing, as I mentioned, we’re going into the workplaces and we’re still locking up the workers because they have committed felonies by stealing your identification. So that alone I think is a pretty good success story. But nobody wants to talk about it. Because they’re illegal, I’m the bad guy because I took them out of the workplace, they were just here to work, I separated from their families. And I’m the bad guy. Nobody talks about they had phony identification on them. So we’ve got to change the atmosphere around here, as far as the enforcement of illegal immigration.

Thom Hartmann: But again, we’re talking with Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Phoenix area, the guy who’s been the point man for much of this. Again, I think the criticism that you’re getting, and what the AFL-CIO, you know, as I said, they’re busing people in. I can’t speak for them, although I am a member of an AFL-CIO union, AFTRA, but I can’t speak for them.

But I think that the criticism is, and I’m sure you’ve heard it, that by and large, the people who are the most energetic, the most outspoken, and the most active, like you are, and this isn’t specifically about you. But just generally speaking, the people who are holding you up as an icon, are gung ho to go after poor brown people. But when it comes to talking about, or laying their hands on rich white guys, the guys who own the companies, the guys who own the companies that own the companies, the guys who are creating the demand, there’s, you know, I’m not hearing your governor out there yelling and screaming about that, I’m not hearing you talking much about that. I’m not hearing pretty much anybody talking about that. And that causes people to say, oh yeah, okay, well this is just all about race. Which I think stupids down the whole discussion.

Joe Arpaio: Well, wait a minute. I have to have the law. I don’t have a strong law on the employers. We have a civil for a, a very weak civil law. But I’m still disrupting the business owners by going in there, taking away their employees…

Thom Hartmann: Well they’ll replace them a week later, won’t they?

Joe Arpaio: What?

Thom Hartmann: They’ll replace them a week later. If you don’t put, if there’s no penalty to them, other than the fact that they lost some guys, actually that gives them more leverage, because the next group of illegals that they hire they’ll say ‘hey you know what, if you guys don’t do exactly what I say and only work for 20 cents an hour, I’ll call sheriff Joe and he’ll kick your ass.’

Joe Arpaio: Well I don’t think…

Thom Hartmann: And you’re becoming the enforcer for the exploiters.

Joe Arpaio: No, I don’t think they like it when I have all the television, when I raid their places, and their business is on TV all over the place.

Thom Hartmann: But why aren’t you and Jan Brewer advocates for laws against the rich white guys who are making all this happen?

Joe Arpaio: Well you know what, I’m the guy that enforces the law. We’ve been pretty good with ….

Thom Hartmann: But you’re pretty outspoken about the political, about the politics of this.

Joe Arpaio: Well, that’s why I go in and grab, I’m the only one grabbing the people and raiding these businesses.

Thom Hartmann: I know, but my point is you’re doing a lot of media, you’re out there and you could be a voice for, 'hey, let’s go after the rich white guys'. Are you willing to go on record right now as saying the rich white guys should be in jail?

Joe Arpaio: Well, I say that. Of course, I’ll go after anybody. Give me the evidence and I’ll be glad to lock them up.

Thom Hartmann: But you need the law.

Joe Arpaio: I need the law. Let’s make a tough law.

Thom Hartmann: How about lobbying for the law.

Joe Arpaio: Not a Mickey Mouse weak law.

Thom Hartmann: Don’t you think that if we threw 40 or 50 high profile CEOs in prison that a whole bunch of illegals would just stop coming?

Joe Arpaio: Well why don’t you ask the Obama administration, they have the federal immigration, they have all the resources. Let them lock them up.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Well. Yeah.

Joe Arpaio: Stupid question.

Thom Hartmann: It is. Well actually it’s not. It is THE question. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, you can see his website at MCSO.org. Sheriff Joe, thanks for dropping by.

Joe Arpaio: Okay, thank you sir. Bye.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Good talking with you.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.