Undocumented immigrants campaign against Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Berta Rita, born in Mexico, was 19 years old when she entered the United States without papers and settled in Phoenix. That was in 1992 — one year before Joe Arpaio was elected to his first term as sheriff of Maricopa County.
Twenty-four years later, Rita has lived in the U.S. longer than she did in Mexico, and for most of her time in the country, she has lived in fear of Arpaio, who built his reputation as the country’s most anti-immigrant sheriff with controversial policing tactics that included workplace immigration raids and traffic stops targeted at Latino drivers.