Arpaio protesters have been getting more media coverage lately, and for little reason. Overreported in the mainstream media, supposedly “thousands” or “hundreds” depending on which account you read protested against him Saturday. What the articles fail to tell you is about once a year, illegal immigrants and their supporters have a march to support illegal immigration. Last year the turnout was dismal, probably due to the fact that many illegal immigrants have left the state, and Arpaio is now monitoring the parades, so they’d be risking arrest if caught violating the law. Relative to the first illegal immigrant march about three years ago, which sources report had 30,000 protesters, this one was actually sparsely attended.

The Republic’s pro-illegal immigrant liberal columnist E.J. Montini wrote a column yesterday criticizing the protesters for getting their facts wrong, discrediting their argument by trying to portray Arpaio negatively for things that weren’t accurate, like comparing him to a former racist Sheriff (the title of the march was “Stop Immigrant Bashing in Arizona. No More Bull Connors!”):

Joe Arpaio is no “Bull” Connor. Saying so is not only inaccurate. It’s stupid. It diminishes the credibility of those who make the claim. It would be a good thing to stop immigrant bashing in Arizona, but you can’t do so by Arpaio bashing, particularly if your rhetoric doesn’t match the facts.

Many of the illegal immigrants marching in the parade carried signs that blamed Arpaio for inmates’ mental health treatment, something the jails have received failing grades for from the government. Montini should have mentioned this mistaken blame in his article too. The county – Board of Supervisors – is responsible for choosing the mental health provider contracts, not Arpaio.

But for the most part, as the Republic struggles to breathe its last dying gasps before it follows other newspapers like the Tucson Citizen out of business, it is pulling out the stops to bash Arpaio in practically every issue. On Feb. 26, the Republic featured a top-of-the-fold, front page article declaring, “Report: ICE program used by Arpaio a failure.” A few sentences into reading it revealed that it it wasn’t some legitimate report put out by the government or a reputable, well-known organization. It was by “Justice Strategies” out of Brooklyn, NY. What does a little-known organization in another state know about our jails? If you just go to the About Us – Staff page on their website, you’ll see that BOTH of their two staff members are funded by none other than the left wing millionaire George Soros. Why didn’t the Republic report this, in the interests of fairness and exposing bias? If Soros is funding a study, you can guarantee which way it will turn out. One of their founders, Kevin Pranis, is co-founder of the NY Moratorium Project, which means he wants to eliminate prison altogether. “In 1996 Pranis established the Prison Moratorium Project for the express purpose of working to eliminate all prisons in the United States — particularly private-sector, for-profit prisons. Affiliated with the U.S. chapter of the Socialist International.” He’s also Former Youth Section Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.

So there you have it. An organization that wants to eliminate prisons entirely has concluded that the 287g program permitting local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants “doesn’t work.” Is there *any* program Arpaio could implement that *would* work? According to Justice Strategies, no program would work since their ultimate goal is to get rid of jails and prisons. If they were honest, they would call themselves “Eliminate Incarceration.”

So don’t believe all the hype against Arpaio. It’s just the usual annual clamor by illegal immigrants, now funded by Soros. Arpaio isn’t “anti-immigrant,” he’s anti-illegal immigration, just like the vast majority of law-abiding Arizonans. To try and confuse the two is deceptive and dishonest. Arpaio is doing his job. If the Soros types out there don’t like it, then they need to get the law changed.