PHOENIX (AP) 鈥 Twenty years ago, when Arizona became frustrated with its porous border with Mexico, the state passed a series of immigration laws as proponents regularly griped about how local taxpayers get stuck paying the education, health care and other costs for people in the U.S. illegally.
Then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio gladly took up the cause, launching 20 large-scale traffic patrols targeting immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. That led to a and of the agency鈥檚 traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.
Eight years after Arpaio was voted out, taxpayers in Maricopa County are still paying legal and compliance bills from the crackdowns. The tab is expected to reach $352 million by midsummer 2026, including $34 million approved Monday by the county鈥檚 governing board.
While the agency has made progress on some fronts and garnered favorable compliance grades in certain areas, it hasn鈥檛 yet been deemed fully compliant with court-ordered overhauls.
Since the profiling verdict, the sheriff鈥檚 office has been criticized for of Hispanic and Black drivers in a series of studies of its traffic stops. The latest study, however, shows significant improvements. The agency’s also dogged by a of internal affairs cases.
Thomas Galvin, chairman of the county鈥檚 governing board, said the spending is 鈥渟taggering鈥 and has vowed to find a way to end the court supervision.
鈥淚 believe at some point someone has to ask: Can we just keep doing this?鈥 Galvin said. 鈥淲hy do we have to keep doing this?鈥
Critics of the sheriff鈥檚 office have questioned why the county wanted to back out of the case now that taxpayers are finally beginning to see changes at the sheriff鈥檚 office.
Profiling verdict
Nearly 12 years ago, a federal judge concluded Arpaio鈥檚 officers had racially profiled Latinos in his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
The patrols, known as 鈥渟weeps,鈥 involved large numbers of sheriff鈥檚 deputies flooding an area of metro Phoenix 鈥 including some Latino neighborhoods 鈥 over several days to stop traffic violators and arrest other offenders.
The verdict led the judge to order an overhaul of the traffic patrol operations that included retraining officers on making constitutional stops, establishing an alert system to spot problematic behavior by officers and equipping deputies with body cameras.
Arpaio was later convicted of criminal contempt of court for disobeying the judge鈥檚 2011 order to stop the patrols. He was spared a possible jail sentence when his misdemeanor conviction was by President Donald Trump in 2017.
Several traffic-stop studies conducted after the profiling verdict showed deputies had often treated Hispanic and Black drivers differently than other drivers, though the reports stop short of saying Hispanics were still being profiled.
The latest report, covering stops in 2023, painted a more favorable picture, saying there鈥檚 no evidence of disparities in the length of stops or rates of arrests and searches for Hispanic drivers when compared to white drivers. But when drivers from all racial minorities were grouped together for analysis purposes, the study said they faced stops that were 19 seconds longer than white drivers.
While the case focused on traffic patrols, the judge later ordered changes to the sheriff鈥檚 internal affairs operation, which critics alleged was biased in its decision-making under Arpaio and shielded sheriff鈥檚 officials from accountability.
The agency has faced criticism for a yearslong backlog of internal affairs cases, which in 2022 stood around 2,100 and was reduced to 939 as of last month.
Taxpayers pick up the bill
By midsummer 2026, taxpayers are projected to pay $289 million in compliance costs for the sheriff鈥檚 office alone, plus another $23 million on legal costs and $36 million for a staff of policing professionals who monitor the agency鈥檚 progress in complying with the overhauls.
Galvin has criticized the money spent on monitoring and has questioned whether it has made anyone safer.
Raul Pi帽a, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff鈥檚 office, said the court supervision should continue because county taxpayers are finally seeing improvements. Pi帽a believes Galvin鈥檚 criticism of the court oversight is politically driven.
鈥淭hey just wrote blank checks for years, and now it makes sense to pitch a fit about it being super expensive?鈥 Pi帽a said.
Ending court supervision
Christine Wee, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the sheriff鈥檚 office isn鈥檛 ready to be released from court supervision.
Wee said the plaintiffs have questions about the traffic-stop data and believe the internal affairs backlog has to be cleared and the quality of investigations needs to be high. 鈥淭he question of getting out from under the court is premature,” Wee said.
The current sheriff, Jerry Sheridan, said he sees himself asking the court during his term in office to end its supervision of the sheriff鈥檚 office. 鈥淚 would like to completely satisfy the court orders within the next two years,鈥 Sheridan said.
But ending court supervision would not necessarily stop all the spending, the sheriff鈥檚 office has said in court records.
Its lawyers said the costs 鈥渨ill likely continue to be necessary even after judicial oversight ends to sustain the reforms that have been implemented.鈥
