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Joe Arpaio Seeks Expedited Schedule for Immigration Lawsuit Appeal

By Mark Wilson, Esq. on January 07, 2015 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, America's self-styled "toughest sheriff," isn't taking "no" for an answer. Just two weeks after the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed his lawsuit against the Obama Administration and its nascent immigration policy, Arpaio is urging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite the briefing schedule for this all-important appeal.

What could possibly be so urgent that one of the nation's most important appellate courts has to speed up the calendar for Arpaio's lawsuit?

We're Billing The Flash Out at $300 an Hour

It's the Obama administrations' fault, natch. According to Arpaio's motion for an expedited schedule, the Department of Homeland Security has been instructed to start accepting applications for the new deferred action program no later than February 19, 2015. "The entire enforcement mechanism of DHS ... must abruptly undergo a massive change to stop enforcing the immigration laws," the complaint says, though it's not clear why that's Arpaio's problem.

After repeatedly mischaracterizing the Obama plan as "amnesty" -- which, according to my dictionary, isn't what the plan does -- Arpaio suggests that his brief be filed by January 29, the appellees' opposition brief by February 9 (11 days later), and Arpaio's reply four days later. Oral argument, he says, should happen as soon as possible by utilizing the pool of canceled or rescheduled oral argument slots.

Those Immigrants, Always Committing Crimes!

The "good cause" required by both the federal rules and federal statutes can be found in, "Won't someone please think of the children?" The motion predicts a sequel to the "border crisis of Summer 2014," which Arpaio attributes to children flooding into the United States as a result of the Obama administration's deferred action plan for children. There's a lot of concern for undocumented immigrants in here, actually. Except for the parts where it's claimed they take jobs and commit crimes.

In that vein, the motion goes on into the kind of factually deficient, xenophobic anti-immigrant screed you might expect. Obama is to blame because immigrants thought they would be "granted a job and eventually U.S. citizenship." Obama didn't build the border fence. And, in one of last year's favorite conservative talking points, the false accusation that an influx of immigrants is responsible for epidemics of enterovirus and hepatitis.

Then there's the old standby arguments -- shot down by the district court -- that hypothetical increases in crime, hypothetically the result of increased immigration, and the resultant hypothetical increased expenditure of resources by Maricopa County, Arizona, are the Obama administration's fault.

The D.C. Circuit Court had better hurry! There are only 22 more days left for Arpaio's lawyer, Freedom Watch's Larry Klayman (who believes Obama was not born in the United States and can't be president), to file an opening brief!

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