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I'm moving my blog. So, if you've been reading my blog, please go over to my new site, Techno Tranny Slut. I want to switch to WordPress because its a better blogging platform than drupal. Also, I don't feel like I write enough about borders to post here all the time. I only post 1 in 5 or even 1 in 10 posts about borders. Best of all, the new blog will have anonymous comments, so please post a comment and say hi if you've been reading my blog and plan to continue!
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San Diego Friends of Day Laborers is a solidarity group that monitors San Diego Minutemen activity at day laborer sites. Our main purpose is to document the physical and verbal harassment and abuse that the Minutemen engage in while at the day laborer sites. We hope that through our video footage and our presence in solidarity with the day laborers that we are able to take back public space that has been controlled by force and intimidation by the minutemen.
"Tomorrow, tell me, where will you wake up?
Beyond title, beyond these careers and laws,
Something more than borders on a map..."
-against me
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A perfect example of the nativists and capitalists both getting their way (not to say they're mutually exclusive) is in today's Arizona Republic.
When the state's employer-sanctions law took effect nearly a year ago, it threatened to shut down businesses that hired illegal workers.
But not a single employer has been taken to court in Arizona, mainly because the landmark law is too difficult to enforce, authorities say.
In Maricopa County, where the law led to raids on a dozen businesses and the arrest of 159 workers and a manager, investigators have not been able to assemble enough evidence showing that employers actually knew the arrested workers were illegal, which the sanctions law requires.
The racist motives of the nativists often run counter to those who wish to profit off of the otherwise unwelcome laborers. Business groups did what they could to prevent the employer sanctions law from going into effect, but the nativists pushed it through. I've written previously about how the employer sanctions law was obviously just a way to target employees, not employers, and sure enough, even the local newspapers are noticing... well, at least they're noticing that the original intent of the law is not taking place.
Authorities have obtained records up to now with criminal search warrants, allowed because the raids were carried out as a probe into immigrants' criminal identity theft. But Thomas said officers need subpoena power to make a civil case directly against an employer and prove intentional hiring of illegal workers. Employers in violation can have business licenses suspended or revoked.
Business groups oppose the change, saying the sanctions law is already the toughest in the nation and most employers are complying. Giving law enforcement more powers would lead to further harassment of businesses when the state's economy is already suffering, they say...
The law applies only to hires made after Dec. 31, 2007, and many of the 151 illegal immigrants arrested in the 12 raids had been hired earlier, authorities say.
Still, supporters say the law is fulfilling its purpose of turning off the job magnet that draws illegal immigrants to Arizona. Employers fearful of losing their business licenses are taking extra steps to make sure they aren't employing illegal workers, which in turn has driven many undocumented immigrants and their families to leave the state, officials said...
Critics, however, contend that the Legal Arizona Workers Act is being used as an excuse to target only illegal workers, not employers, an ineffective way to fight illegal immigration.
"It (raises) the question: After all the expense and resources put into this law, were the employers the real target?" said Phoenix immigration lawyer Gerald Burns. "Probably not. It was to instill fear and to vet out suspected undocumented workers or drive them out of the state."
This is a new film I produced for the Sierra Club about the environmental effects of the U.S./Mexico border wall:
It's good that the Bird (New Times) brought up that Russell Pearce (AZ Representative) had been fired from the Motor Vehicle Department for tampering with someone's record (to remove a DUI as a favor). Not only has Pearce been outed as associating with neo-nazis and forwarding white supremacist literature (OOPS! Racist AZ politician "accidentally" sent out article from National Alliance and see this video), and that he has a violent temper and has abused his wife (see this video, but we are also informed (or reminded if we already had heard) that Pearce had broken the law to help someone who had broken the law.
So, it's okay for him to break the law, and for his friends to break the law, but it's not okay for people to take desperate measures to survive, that just happen to be illegal. This is just blatant hypocrisy and it's just ridiculous that people don't get that.
You might say, well, he wasn't charged with anything. He did get fired, though, but most of us know that people with political connections often get away with committing crimes without punishment.
There is a double standard when it comes to which crimes are acceptable and which are not, and which criminals are acceptable, and which are not.
Another thing that i think is interesting is that anti-immigrant folks regard the law as infallible and not something to be questioned or changed but pretty much only when they're talking about immigration law. People like Pearce obviously think the law in not perfect and should be changed, otherwise he wouldn't be in the legislature making up all sorts of new laws and changing existing ones. How about those people who say that they're okay with legal immigration and legal immigrants, as though access to legal immigration is easy and the people who don't do it legally choose that route when they could do it legally. You and i know (whether you agree with me on these issue or not) that if it really was easy for all these people to be "legal" immigrants, all the anti-immigrant people would be screaming about how easy it is for so many people to get into (and stay in) the country legally!
On July 8th, the Maricopa County Sheriff's department did a sweep on Mesa unannounced. Arpaio said they arrested 19 people in 5 hours and 18 of them were undocumented. The next day, they did a sweep in response to citizen (read racist) complaints in Cave Creek focusing in and around the Good Shepherd of the Hills Church, which was a location of a day labor center up until a few months ago.
One or more graf artists hit an area of mesa, depicting the sheriff with the words "NAZI JOE". Sheriff joe had recently done one of his immigration sweeps in the area. But this is how channel 5 tells it:
Graffiti vandals hit a building in Mesa but the taggers had a message of hate aimed at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
People have been terrorized by police violence since, well, probably the the first police existed. The poorer you are, the darker your skin, the more likely you are to be effected by police brutality, whether directly or in your family. Because the police are viewed/portrayed as infallible and because their victim/survivors are portrayed as criminals, it is seen as okay. The treatment of undocumented people is also seen as okay because they are portrayed as criminals. The law enforcement terrorism brought against undocumented immigrants (and some who are not undocumented) include fear of deportation, separation of family members, bad conditions during detainment, and physical abuse. Getting justice for police brutality or other abuses is nearly hopeless for anyone, but must be so much worse for the undocumented who have rights, yet can just be deported.
While many understand this, somehow, many immigrants' rights advocates separate the issues in their mind. They celebrate politicians/cops who criticize sheriff joe's actions, but excuse the actions of the officers in their jurisdiction, no matter the abuses.
A while back, i commented on the amazing confusion about to whom the new employer sanctions law applies (WTF Just Happened? Employer Sanctions for new hires or not...). Today, while catching up on reading the local news, i found a casual acknowledgment that the legislature had worked it out and decided that it applied to those hired on/after January 1st. From what i could find (and i admit i hadn't had the time/access to be up on the news), there were no news stories that focussed only on this change. But considering the major confusion and the pure insanity of the fact that a law was passed and thousands of workers who were hired before january 1st didn't know if they could legally be fired, and businesses were firing people BEFORE the law went into effect so they wouldn't get in trouble, yet the law didn't even apply to the folks who were hired before january 1st. I can't believe the audacity of the people who left this in limbo until several months after the law went into effect. And no one makes a big deal out of it!
While searching for news articles on the change to the law, i found a number of articles about lawsuits, panels, etc. which may lead to another change to the law. The issue about whether E-verify is accurate enough, whether the state can force businesses to check legal status, etc. are up for debate. In addition, the sheriff's raid on golfland will apparently also "test" the law. And speaking of this raid, why did folks not make a big stink about this either?
Some good news: a couple ballot initiatives brought by racists pearce and goldwater (grassroots my ass) called L.A.W. and S.O.L.E. aren't going to the ballot. Not enough funding from Tanton's national organizations to go around anymore fellas? Another piece of good news is that a guest worker program failed to get a vote.
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