Yesterday on Fox’s The Big Story, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio described how he jails hundreds of immigrants and subjects them to degrading treatment. Arpaio says he dresses jailed immigrants in pink underwear, pink handcuffs and a stripped jumpsuit. He also forces them to listen to “patriotic songs” multiple times a day. Watch it:
Arpaio’s prison has also been the site of multiple controversial inmate deaths.
Transcript:
SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO, MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ: Yesterday, by the way, I have 1,000 illegals in a jail out of 10,000, including 2,000 we have in tents, so yesterday I started a new program, everyone will have to listen to the national anthem and god bless America. We did it four times yesterday, but every day from now on, in the morning, at night, they’ll listen to the patriotic songs.
[snip]
BANDERAS: Apparently you dress them up in colorful jumpsuit, tell me about that?
ARPAIO: We’ve been doing that for six years, we put them in pink underwear and striped uniforms and pink handcuffs.
BANDERAS: Why the pink underwear?
ARPAIO: They were stealing the white underwear several years ago, smuggling it out of the jail. So I dyed the underwear pink because they hate pink, especially in this county they hate pink. Why give them a color they like?
BANDERAS: Why would you, that’s a great question. All right, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, thank you very much. Keep it up, I guess.