This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Arizona Luminaria. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.
Reporting Highlights
- Early Adopter: The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was among the first agencies to participate in ICE’s 287(g) program, which deputizes local officers to do immigration enforcement.
- Legal Troubles: The office’s immigration raids and traffic stops under then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio led to racial profiling and the violation of Latinos’ constitutional rights.
- Parallels Today: As the Trump administration urges police departments to again join the ICE program, some Arizonans expect participating communities will face similar troubles.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Manuel Nieto Jr. and his sister had just pulled into a gas station to buy cigarettes and Gatorade when he noticed a sheriff’s deputy standing over two Latino men on the ground.
Their north Phoenix neighborhood was on alert. Sheriff’s deputies had been targeting day-labor centers in the area and making traffic stops — arresting people who couldn’t prove their immigration status. They had one thing in common: They looked Latino.
“No diga nada. Pídale un abogado,” Nieto’s sister, Velia Meraz, yelled to the detained men, according to court testimony. (“Don’t say anything. Ask for an attorney.”)
The deputy warned Nieto and Meraz: “You need to get out of here, now.”
Nieto drove around the corner to his dad’s auto repair shop as another deputy on a motorcycle followed him, siren and lights on, and patrol vehicles swarmed. Deputies approached — guns drawn.
Nieto dialed 911 for help: Officers were harassing him, he would later testify in court. One pulled Nieto from his vehicle. Others pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him.
Nieto’s father came running from his shop.
“Let my children go,” Manuel Nieto Sr. said. “They’re U.S. citizens. What did they do wrong?”
The raid that ensnared Nieto Jr. and Meraz 17 years ago was carried out under a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that grants local police powers to check immigration status during traffic stops and other routine encounters. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, under then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, was among the first in the nation to test out ICE’s 287(g) task force program.
Since President Donald Trump retook office in January, similar scenes of local officers joining in aggressive immigration arrests have multiplied as ICE has rapidly expanded the 287(g) task force program to deputize local police officers as de facto deportation agents.
Moments after Manuel Nieto Sr. stormed out of his north Phoenix auto shop, the deputies left without arresting or citing his children. But Nieto Jr. and Meraz didn’t move on. They joined three other county residents in suing the sheriff’s office, accusing deputies of targeting them solely because they were Latino.
A federal judge agreed that the task force’s traffic stops and raids on Hispanic neighborhoods,