The
U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation of
the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office after months of mounting
complaints that deputies are discriminating in their enforcement of
federal immigration laws.Officials from the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday that they
had begun the investigation, which will focus on whether deputies are
engaging in “patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices
and unconstitutional searches and seizures.”An expert said it is the department’s first civil-rights probe related to immigration enforcement.