County paid $1 million to settle Arpaio-era immigration lawsuit

Maricopa County has paid nearly $1 million in attorneys fees as final settlement of an ongoing lawsuit over former Sheriff Joe Arpaio's workplace immigration raids.

The case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the immigrant advocacy group Puente Arizona, originated in 2014, when Arpaio was raiding businesses and arresting immigrants who were then charged with identity theft because they had used false documents to pretend they were in the country legally.

At the center of the case was the use of a federal immigration document, called an I-9 form, that authorities were using to investigate or prosecute state identity-theft or forgery violations.

In early 2015, a U.S. District Court judge imposed a preliminary injunction on the tactic, ruling that state law was pre-empted by federal law. Prosecutors dismissed 229 cases in progress.

And though Arpaio disbanded his workplace raid unit and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery changed the way identity-theft cases were prosecuted, a federal appeals court ultimately let stand the Arizona state laws barring businesses from hiring illegal immigrants.

And last March, the District Court judge refused to expunge the convictions of the immigrants named in the lawsuit.

In the end, all that remained of the ACLU lawsuit was a permanent injunction against using the federal form in state prosecutions — and the legacy of how the Maricopa County Sheriff's and County Attorney's Offices changed how they investigated and prosecuted workplace identity theft.

And under federal law, that was enough to require the defendants to pay attorneys fees.

In October, the court awarded the plaintiffs $1,056,116.86 in fees and expenses. A settlement reached Jan. 26 arrived at a final figure of $995,030.60, which, according to ACLU attorneys, has already been paid.

“We are grateful that the organizations and firms who litigated the case will be able to recoup some of their investment of time and resources,” said Annie Lai of the University of California-Irvine School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, who was the principal attorney for the ACLU and Puente in the case. “We intend to use the funds to continue providing assistance to vulnerable communities in the fights to come.”

And Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, said, “We are grateful to our lawyers who embraced our organizing, defended our members, and worked for years without any guarantee of compensation. Maricopa County officials have now been permanently stripped of the tools they used to illegally terrorize immigrant workers and families. But the fight continues. Arpaio’s tools are now being deployed at the national level. And his legacy will live on here in Maricopa County so long as ICE is still allowed in the jails.”

But in a press conference Tuesday, County Attorney Montgomery called the lawsuit "a major fail for the ACLU."

Arizona led the nation in identity theft in 2008, he pointed out. He called the lawsuit "the ACLU's unjust efforts to undermine" state laws and said that the settlement would stop "chaotic attempts" on behalf of the ACLU "to steal more money from the taxpayers" to further its immigration agenda.

“At no time could the ACLU rebut our evidence showing Arizona had the highest per-capita complaints of identity theft in the nation, with employment-related identity theft comprising approximately one-third of those complaints at the time this lawsuit was filed,” Montgomery said in a prepared statement. “It would have been a disservice to our community to argue that it was not this Office’s responsibility to protect Maricopa County residents from identity theft, pursue justice on their behalf, and hold offenders accountable. Especially, when the office was and continues to fairly apply identity theft laws and prosecute cases based on conduct without regard to someone’s immigration status.”

Lai, the ACLU attorney responded: "The judge wouldn't have granted us a million-dollar fee award if we lost."

READ MORE:

This man's arrest helped bring down Joe Arpaio. Manuel Melendres speaks publicly.

How Joe Arpaio became one of America's most polarizing lawmen

Taxpayer tab up to $70M in Joe Arpaio racial-profiling case