Rights Group Texts Police Sweep Warnings

(AP)  An advocate for immigrant and civil rights has started using text messages to warn residents about crime sweeps by a high-profile Arizona sheriff.

Lydia Guzman, director of the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group Respect/Respeto, is the trunk of a sophisticated texting tree designed to alert thousands of people within minutes to the details of the sweeps, which critics contend are an excuse to round up illegal immigrants.

Guzman said the messages are part of an effort to protect Latinos and others from becoming victims of racial profiling by sheriff's deputies. Deputies have been accused of stopping Hispanics, including citizens and legal immigrants, for minor traffic violations to check their immigration status.

"Everyone is responsible for sending it out to their own networks, and that is how it spreads like wildfire," Guzman said of the text messages.

Related: GPS Phones Lead Border-Crossers to Water

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has repeatedly said his deputies do not engage in racial profiling, and he publicizes the details of his crime sweeps ahead of time. He said he suspects the real goal of the text messages is to help illegal immigrants avoid arrest.

"This little group of people is (in favor of) open borders, and they don't like what I am doing. That is the bottom line," Arpaio said. "But it isn't interfering with our operations because every time we do it, we still arrest a good number of people, including illegal aliens."

Arpaio has conducted 13 sweeps since March 2008, and deputies have arrested 669 people, about half of whom were held on immigration violations.

The sheriff said his opponents are walking a line between exercising free speech and breaking the law by helping immigration violators avoid detection. He said the texts are possibly even tipping off human-smuggling organizations.

Guzman said she sends the messages to a wide range of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, Copwatch and various immigrant-rights groups such as Somos America and Puente. She concedes that some who receive the text messages likely will use the information to avoid being caught and deported.

Andy Hessick, a constitutional law professor at Arizona State University, said sending warnings to people who might be subject to racial profiling would likely be considered free speech. But sending messages with the specific intent of warning illegal immigrants to help them avoid arrest could be akin to being an accomplice after a crime.

David Hudson Jr., a First Amendment scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, said the messages are protected free speech because they are merely letting people know what Arpaio is doing, similar to publicizing DUI checkpoints and speed traps or flashing your headlights when police are nearby.

"That is not unlawful," he said. "It's the conveyance of truthful information."

[JamesB621]

I agree with the majority, good work sheriff Joe.

[louiville35]

Should be easy to round up these law breakers who are:

"AIDING AND ABETTING (AGENCY) - The guilt of a person in a criminal case may be proved without evidence that he personally did every act involved in the commission of the crime charged. The law recognizes that, ordinarily, anything a person can do for himself may also be accomplished through direction of another person as an agent, or by acting together with, or under the direction of, another person or persons in a joint effort.

So, if the acts or conduct of an agent, employee or other associate of the person are willfully directed or authorized by the person, or if the person aids and abets another person by willfully joining together with that person in the commission of a crime, then the law holds the person responsible for the conduct of that other person just as though the person had engaged in such conduct himself.x Notice, however, that before any person can be held criminally responsible for the conduct of others it is necessary that the person willfully associate himself in some way with the crime, and willfully participate in it. Mere presence at the scene of a crime and even knowledge that a crime is being committed are not sufficient to establish that a person either directed or aided and abetted the crime."

For being human/drug/terrorist traffickers.

[excop1949]

"critics contend are an excuse to round up illegal immigrants. "

SINCE WHEN DO YOU NEED AN EXCUSE TO ROUND UP ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?

[swm1972nj-2009]

If you are here ILLEGALLY you are breaking the law. The only thing you are "entitled" too is a friendly escort out of the country, w/o getting shot. You come back, it should be bang!

[sunday42]

Interfearing in police business? Living in the Phoenix area we hear all of the leftist arguments against Sheriff Joe daily in our totally biased local pseudo-news paper. The man is doing his job and has been re-elected by a wide margin yet the socialist left is constantly on him for seeking out these law breaking illegal Mexicans. Go Joe !

[jennifer-marie]

I don't understand the mentality of those who believe Illegal Aliens have a right to be in the United States, with the same benefits as American Citizens. These people snuck into the United States and are breaking the law by living here and working here. If I broke into my neighbor's home and squatted there, I would be arrested -- and that's what these people have done: broken into our country and squatted here.

[Calendular]

Since when should private individuals be called "rights activists" because they take it upon themselves to arbitrarily act as judge and jury in deciding that an official law enforcement action is illegal? Since we live in a free nation where our immigration and emigration laws are on the books and were passed by an elected Congress representing the will of citizens, these laws deserve respect from all of us until such time as others MAY be passed.

[rockcutr]

One of the prime reasons for the need for health care reform is the multi million Mexican Illegals. Zip up the boarders, take away their birthdays. Stop sending them back. Put them in work farms to serve the people. Make the men wear pink. That outta chew on the machesmo. After 7 years of hard labor drop them off (in winter) just north of Canada. Just ask anyone in California how those quazi open boarders have treated their economy. Cannot blame it all to the illegal selling of mortgage paper. Head em up,,,round em up....move them out....make sure there is a little Rawhide...so they don't even wanna come back illegally.
Free Speach only works if you are a citizen, legally. Then it is a fine line dividing a doo gooder and the Mexican underground railroad.

[jd2408]

Good for this Sheriff. I wish we had many more just like him. Someone who cares about American citizens and protecting our country. Good for him.

[stillunbanable]

Actually, just the opposite is true. He is destroying all of our rights with the illegal car searches. I am very much against illegal immigrants , but I am not willing to sacrifice my rights to accomplish this task. What the sheriff needs to do is stop being so lazy and accomplish some REAL police work. Track down where these people live and work and raid those places instead of taking away the rights of real american citizens. The only excuse for this is bad, lazy police work. Wake up america!

[DawnBroderick40]

What part of "ILLEGAL" isn't clear and defined for you? Illegal means many things and these raids should happen and happen (more) often. These people need to be rounded up, sent back and that's the end of it. Whether or not it is legal, lawful or otherwise protected speech doesn't make the people sending the text messages any less ANTI-AMERICAN than they are. If these people want to come here, let them do it the way it should be done. Otherwise, send them home. If they want to have babies here to suck off the system, send the parents home, put the kids in foster care, stop placating to these CRIMINALS. My hat off to Arpaio. Keep up the good work and don't let these anti-Americans get to you!