All Eyes on Mesa Sweeps

Now the Attorney General's office is on the action as well as the Justice Department, watching Arpaio as he conducts his sweeps today. Combined with the growing heated language from the local activists, it will be interesting to see if there are any incidents in Mesa today.

Gascon's concern for violence is reasonable, as is Arpaio's desire discourage illegal immigration countywide. However, this all must be done in cooperative fashion that allows everyone to win. We must fine tune our thinking on these sweeps and get people's real intentions into focus.

Gascon has a concern for riots and civil unrest - it doesn't appear that he is fundamentally against a crackdown on illegal immigration. However, he is allowing those concerns to stand in the way, or at least allow the perception to prevail that he is trying to stand in the way. The result is people calling for his dismissal claiming that he is part of the problem on why Mesa is considered a "sanctuary city." Gascon must clearly define himself as part of the solution.

Arpaio wants to fight illegal immigration in the best way he knows how, force. However, he must be mindful that people do have rights and checking every person and pulling people over randomly is walking a very fine line. He must also understand that people have concerns over his roughshod nature and while he doesn't mind if the County has to pay millions in fines, cities like Mesa don't have the money to clean up after the types of messes he creates. Just because someone has concerns doesn't mean they are an illegal immigrant hugging communist.

Let's hope that this can come to safe conclusion.