A federal appeals court ruling upholding Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s authority to enforce Arizona state law that makes it a felony for unauthorized immigrants to use stolen identities to obtain work has been bitterly denounced by the hosts of Telemundo’s morning show, Un Nuevo Día.
Telemundo’s Diego Schoening and Adamari Lopez railed against Arpaio’s record enforcing the law, and condemned the Maricopa County facilities built in their words for “people…earning their living honestly” (but who have been arrested for identity theft) with “concentration camps.”
DIEGO SCHOENING, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: ...and I think that he has built these small like, sorry I say it this way, concentration camps where he separates Latin Americans, segregates them, puts them in there to separate them from Americans
ADAMARI LOPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: People that are working, that are doing something for the country, people that are earning their living honestly!
Unauthorized immigrants in the workplace often used documents with invented, borrowed or stolen Social Security numbers to get jobs. In enforcing the ID-theft provisions of the Arizona law, Sheriff Arpaio conducted workplace raids that led to the arrests of more 700 unauthorized immigrants in violation of these laws, and by so doing enabled federal officials to initiate deportation proceedings against them.
It’s actually pretty simple. If you’re in the United States and you stole or invented out of whole cloth a false identity, you will be and should be in trouble with the law. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, in point of fact, has declared identity theft as “America’s fastest growing crime.”
In addition to Telemundo’s morning show hosts pontificating against the law, the network’s news anchors also didn’t miss a beat in characterizing Sheriff Arpaio as “anti-immigrant.” This flies in the face of the Sheriff’s open support for legal immigration, including the recent plans he announced to recruit more legal immigrants with green cards to work in his department.
Maybe it’s just me, but you’re not earning your living ‘honestly’ if you are stealing someone else’s identity, on top of breaking federal immigration law in the first place.
Below you can find the transcript of the cited segment on Telemundo's morning show Un Nuevo Dia aired on May 3:
UN NUEVO DIA (TELEMUNDO)
5/3/16
7:10:38 AM - 7:13:52 AM EST | 3 MIN 14 SEC
ADAMARI LOPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: Where things are not very good is in Arizona.
DANIEL SARCOS, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: Yes sir, the controversial Maricopa County Sheriff yesterday scored a legal victory in a federal appeals court like Neida Sandoval told us a few minutes ago. The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor, and listen well - my dear friends, my dear countrymen, my dear Latin American brothers, ruled in favor of making anti-immigrant raids on workplaces.
RASHEL DIAZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: For you to understand what happens with this, this gives green light to Sheriff Arpaio to resume this way their raid operations that was what he did with the law that applied to it, it prohibits businesses hiring undocumented immigrants [to work] for them, these officers come in as a surprise to businesses and obviously begin to investigate what is the immigration status of these employees.
ADAMARI LOPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: This is the freedom it gives, this ruling, to Joe Arpaio to send his sheriffs as a surprise to different places in that area of Arizona, there's, um, I think that composes Phoenix, Scottsdale, Glendale and Mesa, among others, to bring these officers to insert themselves in these workplaces and can make these raids that are obviously harmful to many Latin American families.
DIEGO SCHOENING, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: Note that this talks about the five important places in Arizona where for the most part they’re gathered, not only Mexicans - but Central Americans, Latin Americans, for me it’s something that really hurts because we were giving contrast yesterday, right? Where we spoke exactly in San Diego that the door [on the San Diego border wall] opened for three minutes so that families could reunite, but the greatest, for me, the biggest culprit of this separation of families has been precisely Sheriff Arpaio, who what has been dedicated, [cough] forgive me, for imprisoning people, separating families and broken families, and I think that he has built these small like, sorry I say it this way, concentration camps where he separates Latin Americans, segregates them, puts them in there to separate them from Americans.
ADAMARI LOPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: People who are working, and doing something for the country, people who are earning a living honestly!
RASHEL DIAZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: They aren’t criminals, who are not doing anything against the law, somehow this creates a panic among our people trying to seek a better life and it’s not fair.
DANIEL SARCOS, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: I will ask a question. If these immigration officials or law enforcement officers who do these raids find people who are working without permission, they arrest them, right? To initiate deportation proceedings. And what about those who employed them? Are they also being detained, also start a process against them?
ADAMARI LOPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: They get fined.
RASHEL DIAZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: They get fined somehow, a penalty, so to speak.
DANIEL SARCOS, HOST, UN NUEVO DIA: Ah! Okay.
