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Glenn Beck, on his Fox News show yesterday, hosted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose misbegotten approach to law enforcement last week inspired the House Judiciary Committee to join the ranks of those calling for a Justice Department investigation.

After Arpaio -- in typical Crazy Bigoted Joe style -- loudly proclaimed that the Latin American-style kidnappings now taking place in Phoenix are a product of illegal immigration (in reality, they seem to revolve around drug dealing and human trafficking), he got a nice rubdown from Beck:

Beck: But Joe, you're now facing heat in Washington. Here you are, a guy who has cleaned that town up more than anybody could -- I mean, if you go away, it ain't gonna be good. But you're facing heat now from members of Congress who are trying to shut you down.

Arpaio: Well, I'm gonna give you a scoop. I'm writing a letter to those members -- these four liberal Democrats on the Judiciary Committee -- didn't have the courtesy to call me. I think I know what goes on at the border -- fourteen years I've spent there with the feds. So I'm gonna write them a letter. I'm going to invite them down to visit the fence and visit our operations.

This is all part of the local politicians going to bed with these congressmen, going to the new attorney general. The mayor of Phoenix has already gone to the attorney general last year to try to get me investigated.

But let them all come down. Call the FBI, call everybody, if you think I'm doing something wrong. So I welcome all these investigations.

Sure. And Dick Nixon welcomed the Watergate investigations, too.

There might be a reason, after all, that local politicians -- and not merely the mayor of Phoenix -- want Arpaio investigated. The state's civil-rights commission is only the most recent entity to join the bandwagon demanding his racial profiling and outright refusal to follow civil-rights laws be brought to a halt.

And just how much has Arpaio "cleaned up" Maricopa County? Well, thanks to his blinkered, racially driven emphasis on illegal immigration in everything he does, even the Goldwater Institute found that actual law enforcement work in his county was being badly neglected:

Although MCSO is adept at self-promotion and is an unquestionably “tough” law-enforcement agency, under its watch violent crime rates recently have soared, both in absolute terms and relative to other jurisdictions. It has diverted resources away from basic law-enforcement functions to highly publicized immigration sweeps, which are ineffective in policing illegal immigration and in reducing crime generally, and to extensive trips by MCSO officials to Honduras for purposes that are nebulous at best. Profligate spending on those diversions helped produce a financial crisis in late 2007 that forced MCSO to curtail or reduce important law-enforcement functions.

In terms of support services, MCSO has allowed a huge backlog of outstanding warrants to accumulate, and has seriously disadvantaged local police departments by closing satellite booking facilities. MCSO’s detention facilities are subject to costly lawsuits for excessive use of force and inadequate medical services. Compounding the substantive problems are chronically poor record-keeping and reporting of statistics, coupled with resistance to public disclosure.

If that's Glenn Beck's idea of "cleaning up" a town, I'd hate to live in his town.

When he isn't hosting Brazil-esque "reality" shows and having his deputies arrest people for applauding at county council meetings, Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been making Maricopa County's law enforcement a national disgrace.

Now, finally, the House Judiciary Committee is calling for the Justice and Homeland departments to investigate Arpaio's activities:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct by Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Arpaio has repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the rights of Hispanics in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Under the guise of immigration enforcement, his staff has conducted raids in residential neighborhoods in a manner condemned by the community as racial profiling. On February 4, 2009, Arpaio invited the media to view the transfer of immigrant detainees to a segregated area of his "tent city" jail, subjecting the detainees to public display and "ritual humiliation." Persistent actions such as these have resulted in numerous lawsuits; while Arpaio spends time and energy on publicity and his reality television show, "Smile… You’re Under Arrest!", Maricopa County has paid millions of dollars in settlements involving dead or injured inmates.

"Racial profiling and segregation are simply not acceptable." said Conyers. "Media stunts and braggadocio are no substitute for fair and effective law enforcement."

As Frank Sharry observes:

The Judiciary Committee also asks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review the agreement that DHS has signed with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which Joe has so roundly abused. Report after report has shown that Sheriff Arpaio regularly engages in racial profiling in Latino neighborhoods. It's part of the reason he has 2,700 lawsuits filed against him.

For his latest publicity stunt, Arpaio paraded immigrant detainees through the streets of Phoenix in order to segregate and relocate them to a "Tent City" surrounded by electric fencing. The 287 (g) agreement gives the Sheriff authority to enforce federal immigration laws, but it does not provide permission to use racial profiling or other tactics that violate an individual's constitutional rights.

It does not give one the right to create mini-Gitmos.