--- title: Donald Trump's Joe Arpaio Pardon Defends Racism: Jorge Ramos description: Jorge Ramos writes: "Trump had the chance to be on the right side of history, with tolerance and diversity. But he chose to be with Arpaio." canonical: https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/ author: Jorge Ramos article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-29T15:09:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:31:45.535Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Is a Defense of Racism og:description: 'Trump is sending the message that racism is something normal' og:url: https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71e2de61d05cc801/6988dbabab6d7784406af996/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-jorge-ramos.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Is a Defense of Racism twitter:description: 'Trump is sending the message that racism is something normal' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71e2de61d05cc801/6988dbabab6d7784406af996/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-jorge-ramos.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Is a Defense of Racism > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=da08e8a3-7bee-46b6-a7c3-425226646e82&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 'Sheriff Joe Protected Our Borders': Donald Trump Defends Controversial Pardon [Watch (HLS stream): 'Sheriff Joe Protected Our Borders': Donald Trump Defends Controversial Pardon](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8c2kjkNV.m3u8) (1:46)  _Published 2017-08-28. President Donald Trump defended his controversial decision to pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, calling him a "patriot" and claiming he was unfairly treated by the Obama administration._ by [Jorge Ramos](https://time.com/author/jorge-ramos/) ## Jorge Ramos Aug 29, 2017 3:09 PM UTC President Donald Trump defended his controversial decision to pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, calling him a "patriot" and claiming he was unfairly treated by the Obama administration. by [Jorge Ramos](https://time.com/author/jorge-ramos/) ## Jorge Ramos Aug 29, 2017 3:09 PM UTC It was Friday night. [Harvey](http://time.com/4918644/hurricane-harvey-before-after-photos-houston/) had become a [Category 4 hurricane](http://time.com/4919224/hurricane-harvey-houston-policy/) and was about to hit the Texas coast. That’s when [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4919792/trump-texas-houston-hurricane-harvey/) announced his [pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio](http://time.com/4916920/donald-trump-pardons-joe-arpaio/). The [worst storm to hit the mainland in 12 years](http://time.com/4918744/hurricane-harvey-houston-damage-drone/) was not on the radar of Trump’s political calculations. The hurricane could wait. The pressing matter was to [pardon a man](http://time.com/4876374/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardons-history/) who had violated the Constitution, discriminated against Latinos and had been [convicted of criminal contempt of court](http://time.com/4545857/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-charged/). A 2007 lawsuit accused the sheriff’s office of stopping and detaining people because of the way they looked. Three years later, the Justice Department sued Maricopa County, claiming that Arpaio’s agents “engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminated against Latinos.” That’s racism. In 2011, a judge ordered Arpaio to stop his racial profiling practices in Maricopa County, Arizona, but he simply defied the order. He was going to be sentenced in October and faced up to six months in jail. Now he doesn’t have to worry about it. Trump saved him. [Trump chose to protect a man](http://time.com/4919350/joe-arpaio-donald-trump-pardon-defense/) who openly discriminated against Latinos and destroyed many families since he was elected Sheriff of [Maricopa County](http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2017/03/28/joe-arpaio-racial-profiling-lawsuit-costs-maricopa-county-another-400k/99712036/) in 1993\. Trump chose to pardon an elected official who humiliated detainees by forcing them to wear pink uniforms and to live in an open-air jail — the so called Tent City — where temperatures sometimes reached over 110 degrees. Once I visited [Tent City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkuOhsoyJyU) in 2013, and Arpaio was unrepentant. He liked to say that he was just doing his job and that Latinos loved him. No, they don’t, I immediately replied. But he wasn’t listening. At the end of the interview, he made me listen to the song, “My Way,” by Frank Sinatra, which he played on his cell phone. And then he walked away. Trump’s sympathy for Arpaio was marked by a lie. In 2012, Donald Trump sent [the following tweet](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/225620165138726912?lang=en): “Congratulations to ‪@RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims ‪@BarackObama ‘birth certificate’ is fake.” Arpaio falsely claimed that Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery. Both Arpaio and Trump, with no evidence, kept that falsehood alive for years. It’s no coincidence that Arpaio became one of the first Republicans to support Trump’s candidacy for the White House. By pardoning Arpaio, President Trump is defending racism. The Department of Justice, the [ACLU](http://time.com/4918662/aclu-donald-trump-transgender-military-ban-lawsuit/) and two judges agreed that Arpaio practiced and promoted racial profiling. His agents stopped Hispanics simply because they assumed that they were undocumented. Many mistakes were made, and justice was not served. Arpaio didn’t care. He kept on doing things his way. President Trump missed a great opportunity to distance himself from racism. But I’m not surprised. On June 16, 2015, when he announced that he was running for the White House, he made racists remarks by saying that [Mexican immigrants were criminals and rapists](http://time.com/4473972/donald-trump-mexico-meeting-insult/). Then, during the campaign, he doubled down on that by stating that [Judge Gonzalo Curiel](http://time.com/4747465/gonzalo-curiel-donald-trump-dreamer-daca-juan-manuel-montest/) couldn’t do his job because of his Mexican heritage. Also, he called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” If this is not racism, then what is? Trump was visibly upset by the criticism in the media after the recent racist violence in [Charlottesville, Virginia](http://time.com/4917524/joe-biden-trump-charlottesville-response/). But it was a crisis of his own making. It [took him two](http://time.com/4899813/donald-trump-charlottes-ville-remarks-transcript/) days to condemn the KKK by name. Then he equated Neo-Nazis with the demonstrators protesting against racism and said that “very fine people” were marching alongside white supremacists. [Trump](http://time.com/4910203/donald-trump-charlottesville-protest-poll/) even described the monuments of Confederate leaders that believed in slavery as “[beautiful statues](http://time.com/4904510/donald-trump-twitter-confederate-statues/).” If President Trump really wanted to put aside the suspicions of racism and distance himself as much as possible from the alt-right movement, any senior advisor would have recommended not to pardon Arpaio. But he did it anyway. Racism is never O.K., even if condoned by the President of the United States. By legally protecting Arpaio, Trump is sending the message that racism is being accepted as something normal and that it even deserves a presidential pardon. Trump had the chance to be on the right side of history, with tolerance and diversity. But he [chose to be with Arpaio](http://time.com/4917014/joe-arpaio-pardon-reaction-john-mccain-jeff-flake/). That’s the man he saved in the middle of the storm. ## Transcript [00:00] Sheriff Joe, he's done a great job for the people of [00:03] Arizona. He is very strong on borders, very strong on [00:07] illegal immigration. He is loved in Arizona, I thought [00:12] he was treated unbelievably unfairly when they came [00:15] down with their big decision to go get him Right before [00:18] the election voting started as you know. And he lost in [00:21] a fairly close election, he would have won the election. [00:23] But they just hammered him just before the election. I [00:26] felt that was a very, very unfair thing to do. But [00:30] I wanted to look at some of the other people that were [00:33] pardoned over the years. And if you look at as an [00:36] example, President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich Who [00:40] was charged with crimes going back decades including [00:43] illegally buying oil from a Iran while it held [00:48] 53 American hostages, wasn't allowed to do that. [00:51] Selling to the enemies of the United States he was [00:53] pardoned after his wife donated hundreds of [00:56] thousands of dollars To the Clintons. President Obama [01:00] commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who [01:03] leaked countless sensitive and classified documents to [01:08] WikiLeaks. President Obama commuted the sentence [01:11] of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was charged as part of a [01:15] violent independence group From Puerto Rico, [01:19] responsible for 28 Chicago area bombings and [01:23] many deaths. Sheriff Joe is a patriot. Sheriff [01:28] Joe loves our country. Sheriff Joe protected our [01:32] borders. And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly [01:36] treated by the Obama administration. I stand by my [01:40] pardon of Sheriff Joe. And I think the people of [01:43] Arizona, who really know him best, would agree with [01:46] me. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/"},"headline":"Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Is a Defense of Racism","datePublished":"2017-08-29T15:09:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-08T09:31:45.535Z","description":"\"Trump is sending the message that racism is something normal\"","url":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/","keywords":["Race","politics","Racism","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71e2de61d05cc801/6988dbabab6d7784406af996/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-jorge-ramos.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jorge Ramos","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jorge-ramos/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71e2de61d05cc801/6988dbabab6d7784406af996/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-jorge-ramos.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio","caption":"Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio","creditText":"Mary Altaffer—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/race/","name":"Race"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/","name":"Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Is a Defense of Racism"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"'Sheriff Joe Protected Our Borders': Donald Trump Defends Controversial Pardon","description":"President Donald Trump defended his controversial decision to pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, calling him a \"patriot\" and claiming he was unfairly treated by the Obama administration.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8c2kjkNV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-08-28T21:58:08.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8c2kjkNV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/","duration":"PT1M46S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4919991/jorge-ramos-donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon-racism/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```