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!
(Sorry for not posting in a while. Hopefully that'll change soon.)
There have been a series of protests against Sheriff Arpaio since his immigration sweeps. Arpaio's last sweep was in Fountain Hills on May 6th. In the month and a half before that, the MCSO hit Guadalupe, Bell Road, starting with the area around 25th St. and Thomas (these events were "crime suppression operations" in specific places which seemed to be arranged for media attention. MCSO has also been making arrests of "smugglers" as well). MCSO also recently did a raid on a waterpark.
Many people have come out to protest the sweeps. Since the MCSO took a break from the sweeps, people have become a bit more proactive, going after him at his personal events. The first protest of this sort was on May 12 at an event where he spoke to an anti-immigrant audience. With less than a day's notice, close to 100 people showed up to the protest outside the building. The book-signings have involved questions being asked on film that the mainstream media don't ask, a request to have a book signed for Scott Norberg, a man who was killed by officers in Arpaio's jail, and disruptions at a speech portion of the book-signing event, in addition to a visible group of protesters outside the store holding signs. Over 300 people showed up to protest Arpaio at the County Board of Supervisor's meeting.
I've called it war before, and they all certainly talk and act like it's war, but until yesterday, i hadn't heard a local official call this situation war. Yesterday on a CNN show that must've been on around 4pm, they had sheriff joe on talking about his immigration crack-down. I distinctly heard him say, "This is war". I spent the last 10 minutes trying to find which show it was and if there was a transcript, but i don't have a lot of time right now. I don't think it's all that surprising anyway.
Here are some things going on lately (mainstream news stories on sheriff joe at the end):
A new house bill targets where illegal immigrants can live.
The Appropriations Committee voted to make it illegal for landlords to rent to those who cannot prove their legal status.
Landlords who knowingly or recklessly rent to illegal immigrants in Arizona will be subjected to a penalty of up to $250 for each day of the violation.
Just two years after Escondido, CA gained media attention, when it passed a controversial law that punish landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, Arizona takes on the same route.
In Yuma, many property management companies are already taking their own measures.
Instead of having to figure out and verify who is legal, the legislation says they must ask prospective renters for one of 12 documents.
Gov. Janet Napolitano signed legislation Friday designed to restore a state law keeping illegal immigrants from having firearms. The measure revamps a 4-year-old state law that was designed to mirror federal statutes that regulate who can and cannot possess a weapon.
But the state Court of Appeals ruled last year that federal statute - the one referred to in state law - specifically refers to weapons involved in interstate commerce.
The judges said that means people could be convicted of violating the state gun law only if prosecutors could prove the weapon in question was "shipped or transported in interstate commerce."
The new version fixes that by saying all foreigners in this state are forbidden from having guns.
The Arizona House gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a proposed requirement that city and county police agencies carry out programs for their officers to confront federal immigration violations.
Local agencies could meet the requirement by getting training for their police and jail officers, putting federal immigration agents in units within their departments or cultivating relationships with federal authorities to confront the problem.
"It's one way of dealing the immigration problem that lets the cities use the most efficient way that they have to do that," said Republican Rep. John Nelson of Litchfield Park, author of the proposal.
A small number of local police agencies in Arizona have already sought special training to enforcement federal immigration law.
Hate groups are increasing in America and no where faster than right here in Arizona, according to the "Year in Hate" report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The number of hate groups operating in America swelled by 48 percent between 2000 and 2007 according to the report.
In Arizona, we saw a 70 percent jump last year compared with 2006, says Matt Potock with the Southern Poverty Law Center. "I the case of Arizona, by our account the state went from 10 groups in 2006 to 17 in 2007 the following year. That really is a remarkable growth."
It's the biggest increase of any state.
"These include several different kinds of hate groups - Klan groups, neo-Nazi groups, in some case black supremacist groups as well as white supremacist groups," says Potock.
"Virtually all of these groups or the vast majority of them have turned almost 100 percent of their attention to immigration, specifically illegal immigration."
Combine that with the latest FBI statistics showing a big rise in hate crimes against Latinos, and Potok says it appears the hate propaganda is making its way into the mainstream.
Potock says there's been an 48 percent increase in the number of hate groups nationwide.
The phoenix p.d. recently announced their change to the policy that formerly required officers to not ask about immigration status. They will now be asking all people who have committed crimes. You can listen to KJZZ's Here and Now which i just did to get some clarification on the change. It sounds similar to what Scottsdale announced in late december that they were going to do. My concern with that is that supposedly the burden of proof is going to be on the people who have been arrested as far as their citizenship. This can cause some major problems. To what extent will we be able to remain silent?
“It's just crazy here.†This is what I tell people who are not from Phoenix, Arizona, the political climate surrounding immigration is like. It's hard to sum up, but having kept up fairly well with local immigration news for the past couple years, I can reflect on 2007 and the direction that things have gone. We have seen ever-increasing repression against undocumented immigrants. In some ways we saw this coming. In other ways, we have been surprised. Overall, things changed gradually enough that it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as an onslaught, though putting it into perspective by looking back at 2007 as a whole might make it hard to be seen otherwise.
Arizona has seen an increasingly unfriendly environment for undocumented immigrants, with the threat of raids, violence, and repression. Within a short time, a select number of officers from different police departments with jurisdiction in Maricopa County were trained to enforce immigration laws. Some agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were deputized as well, giving dual jurisdiction to an increasing number of officials. Immigration law began to be enforced in the jails and prisons as well. The efficiency gained by these changes to enforce immigration laws is likely part of the plan set forth by the Office of Detention and Removal, part of Homeland Security. This plan, which provides strategies to “remove all removable aliens†by 2012 is called Endgame.
“It's just crazy here.†This is what I tell people who are not from Phoenix, Arizona, the political climate surrounding immigration is like. It's hard to sum up, but having kept up fairly well with local immigration news for the past couple years, I can reflect on 2007 and the direction that things have gone. We have seen ever-increasing repression against undocumented immigrants. In some ways we saw this coming. In other ways, we have been surprised. Overall, things changed gradually enough that it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as an onslaught, though putting it into perspective by looking back at 2007 as a whole might make it hard to be seen otherwise.
Arizona has seen an increasingly unfriendly environment for undocumented immigrants, with the threat of raids, violence, and repression. Within a short time, a select number of officers from different police departments with jurisdiction in Maricopa County were trained to enforce immigration laws. Some agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were deputized as well, giving dual jurisdiction to an increasing number of officials. Immigration law began to be enforced in the jails and prisons as well. The efficiency gained by these changes to enforce immigration laws is likely part of the plan set forth by the Office of Detention and Removal, part of Homeland Security. This plan, which provides strategies to “remove all removable aliens†by 2012 is called Endgame.
Have you been duped into believing that a person can be an "illegal"? Why is a person who speeds not called an illegal? Is it not obvious that there are some unfair standards put towards undocumented immigrants, their offense often simply a civil misdemeanor?
The anti-immigrant folks, or at least some of them are getting riled up about one of their "patriots" getting hit by a car during a protest at a day labor center, his broken pelvis caused by a Mexican driver without a driver's license. It's especially tricky for the anti-immigrant community to come out behind him because he's been outed as a neo-nazi. And the "we're not racist" racists are going to have to make a choice about whether they're going to distance themselves from him or stand with him.
Some already have. Rusty Childress of United for a Sovereign America posted the following on immigrationbuzz.com:
The usual Phoenix Patriots were demonstrating at the Day Labor site on 25th St just south of Bell Road when a car made an unsafe left turn and hit another car. That car spun around, hit one of our Patriots who was sitting in a chair near the intersection, then ended up backwards on the sidewalk, resting against a fire hydrant.Our Patriot was taken by ambulance to a hospital. We latered [sic] learned that the driver of the car making the unsafe left turn DID NOT HAVE A DRIVER’S LICENSE OR INSURANCE, BUT HE DID HAVE A MEXICAN CONSULAR MATRICULA CARD. (Source).
It also seems he used a picture that he got from the feathered bastard's blog, not even changing the name of the file when he put it on his server. If that's the case, there's no way he didn't know about elton hall's racist ties that the feathered bastard exposed.
Today One or [sic] bravest patriots fell in battle, Today Elton Hall was struck by a vehicle while manning his post...
Elton’s incident is not the first there [sic] have been several assaults on our troops, this incident is the most serious. Granted one could say that if Elton had not been there it would not have happened, but Elton was there ANYONE could have been there and the incident could have been, [sic] deadly.
Friends it is obvious that certain representatives in governments, from the Federal to the State to the Cities are using us as fodder in the fight to obtain the big bucks from the corporations. That certain businesses are bent on making maximum profits off the backs of slave labor and that we True Americans are the SACARAFICAL [sic] LAMBS!...
We Americans are flat fed up with the lamb [sic] duck policies and answers. We WANT enforcement of the laws!!! We want the Borders closed!!! We want the Day Labor Centers in all cities CLOSED! We want The AMERICAN GOUVERNMENT [sic] to protect the AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!!!!
God Bless Elton and HIS hand comfort and heal Elton.
God Bless you all in our quest.
God bless America in her time of need!,
Craig Tillman
The employer sanctions law has recently been upheld by a federal judge. So far it seems that businesses are primarily behind the lawsuits, although i'm reading that it is actually a coalition of businesses and latino rights organizations. For the most part, i see the law as directed towards the workers, not the businesses, but apparently businesses have enough interest in fighting it because otherwise they wouldn't be able to exploit cheap labor. Indeed, there are a number of publications and people saying many undocumented immigrants are moving out of arizona. It also provides incentive for paying workers under the table and doing more shady stuff like not paying the workers after they've worked. I also see it as an opportunity to selectively enforce a law that could cripple small business while leaving big businesses alone.
It appears that Correa was attempting to exercise his rights, even though it is not a right to drive without a license and therefore since he had one, it would've made more sense to show it right away. The immigrants rights movement has been educating people about their rights, advising that the less said the better. Since we all have the right to remain silent and not incriminate ourselves, it is better to give the cops nor ICE anything to use against us. Clearly it makes sense for all of us to do this whether or not we're "legal", no matter our color. This makes it easier for the undocumented.
Perhaps Correa didn't show his ID because of this. Or perhaps he suspected he was being asked to prove his legal right to be in the country, something he shouldn't have to do as a citizen, and no one, in my opinion, should have to do at all.
But i think the point is more about whether anyone deserves the treatment Correa got for having brown skin and an accent. What if a driver forgets his/her license while driving? Is then the burden of proof on them to avoid deportation or at least lengthy detention and questioning? Well, not likely if they're white.
About a month ago, the Scottsdale police also announced they would be asking “for proof of citizenship from every suspect they arrest†as the Arizona Daily Star words it, and calling ICE on those who were suspected of being undocumented.
With the increased intentional targeting of undocumented people, we are going to see changes to all of our rights. We will no longer be innocent until proven guilty, especially folks who with brown skin and accents.
