tagged w/ Racial Profiling
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Racial profiling the artificial drug war, and republican racial politics..the southern strategyRacial profiling the artificial drug war, and republican racial politics..the southern... more
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Los Angeles Times – Armando Nido spotted the flashing lights of a Maricopa County sheriff’s patrol car. He stiffened in fear.Los Angeles Times – Armando Nido spotted the flashing lights of a Maricopa... more
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Comedian Paul Mecurio, who works with John Stewart’s Daily Show, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, defending the groping of 6 year-old girl at the hands of TSA. Mecurio said, “Adjustments Have To Be Made For A New World Order,” joking about the violation of the little girl. First the system denied these practices were going on, now they laugh about it, say it’s necessary and expect us to get used to it.
COMMENT FROM ALEX JONES: This is very sick. Remember that John Stewart’s brother runs the New York Stock Exchange. This is about crushing our will and flaunting it in our face.Comedian Paul Mecurio, who works with John Stewart’s Daily Show, appeared on... more
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This is Serious - it affects all of us, and it should be the easiest thing to cut to decrease the nation's debt. Alcohol Prohibition didn't work, and arresting people for ganja doesn't work, so why not make people who sell card for age verification and get it legal already?
Every one might benefit medically from cannabis at some point in their life, and it prevents cancer and neuro-degenerative diseases, so cut the doctors note bureaucracy and make it over the counter for adults.
In 2007 there were over 850,000 marijuana arrests (PDF). The United States has only 5% of the worlds population but imprisons 25% of its prisoners. The federal government spent over $15 billion on the drug war in 2010, or a rate of $500 a second. Our country is 66% non-Hispanic white people but 70% of our prisoners are non-white. The justice system is overwhelmingly unfriendly to the poor. And on and on.
I don't understand how it can possibly remain the case that these facts are out there and yet marijuana legalization is somehow seen as a less than serious issue. This is a social justice issue. This is a racial justice issue. This is a deficit reduction issue. This is an issue of elementary personal freedoms. But we can't fix things as long as people who are ostensibly in favor of decriminalization continue to say so with a smirk, or relegate the issue to the margins, or treat it as a distraction or joke. It's time to get serious about a serious and deeply troubling issue.
(Photo: Darnell Thomas (L) reads while his cellmate Freddron Mendoza works on his poetry in their cell at Sheridan Correctional Center on November 14, 2005 in Sheridan, Illinois. A dedicated center for the treatment of inmates with drug and alcohol abuse problems, the state opened Sheridan in January 2004 to combat a recidivism rate of 54% in its penal system. Nearly 69 percent of all inmates in the Illinois prison system are serving time for drug or alcohol related offenses. The recidivism rate for prisoners who have served time at Sheridan is only 7.7 percent. By Scott Olson/Getty Images)This is Serious - it affects all of us, and it should be the easiest thing to cut to... more
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juicie
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11 months ago
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A possible arrest for drug possession might have just as much to do with one's race as it does with potential illegal activity.
According to a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Harry Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College, black and Hispanic citizens are more likely to be pulled over for suspicion of illegal drugs by the New York Police Department than white or Asian citizens.
An ongoing federal lawsuit was filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights after it analyzed six years of the NYPD's data and found that almost 150,000 stops were made without reported justification.
Columbia University's Jeffrey Fagan analyzed the NYPD's stop and frisk data and found that race is the strongest way of predicting NYPD activity.
According to Darius Charney, a staff attorney at CCR, the NYPD's attorneys are currently motioning for the case to be dismissed.
"Plaintiffs are very confident that we will survive this summary judgment motion, after which the case will move towards trial," he said.
David Greenberg, a sociology professor in NYU's College of Arts and Science, said racial profiling reports may be misleading.
"You have to think when they stop someone, they would usually have no way of knowing if that person has marijuana in his or her possession," he said. "If virtually all of the people who are found with marijuana on them are going to be arrested and charged, there's probably no room for the race of the individual for it to make a difference."
At NYU, the university attempts to keep its drug policy clear. The university's policy on drugs, according to NYU's Office of Public Safety, is that in any case of "finding evidence of the unlawful possession, use or distribution of drugs on its premises by any student, the University will take appropriate disciplinary action, including, but not limited to probation, suspension or expulsion."
"Since I've been at NYU, I've known two people who have been caught with weed by the NYPD, both of whom were arrested," said one Gallatin freshman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I also know someone who was caught with marijuana in a dorm; they were put on housing probation and had to attend a three-hour marijuana class."
NYU students are also still reacting to an article in the New York Post, which said NYU students are more likely to get high than those at Columbia by a 5-to-1 margin. In 2009, according to NYU Public Safety, there were 610 total drug related incidents at NYU, while at Columbia, there were 121, according to the Post. The article did not, however, take into account the population of the universities — where Columbia has a population of 5,667 undergraduates, NYU has over 20,000 undergraduates.
http://nyunews.com/news/2011/02/09/09marijuana/A possible arrest for drug possession might have just as much to do with one's... more
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Fifty Israeli rabbis have signed an open letter warning Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews, saying those who do should be "ostracised".
"Anyone who sells (property to a non-Jew) must be cut off!!"
"In answer to the many questions, we say that it is forbidden in the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a foreigner," they wrote, referring to the Pentateuch - the first five books of the Bible.
The letter, which was signed mostly by state-employed rabbis, warns that "he who sells or rents them a flat in an area where Jews live causes great harm to his neighbours."
According to the Israeli news website Ynet, the letter is to be published in religious newspapers and distributed in synagogues across the country later this week.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel slammed the letter as "racist."
"Rabbis who are civil servants have an obligation to the entire public, including Israel's Arab citizens. It is unthinkable that they would use their public status to promote racism and incitement," the group said in a statement.
The organisation called on Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to take disciplinary action against state-employed rabbis who signed the document.
Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab-Israeli member of parliament, said the letter was "supremely racist" and called for the government's legal adviser to investigate the rabbis behind it.
"It seems that the signatories realise that the Israeli establishment is complicit in the crimes of incitement to racial hatred, so they are acting without fear," he said in a statement.
The letter came as tensions grow between religious Jewish and Arab-Israeli residents of the northern town of Safed, where local rabbi Shmuel Eliahu has called on Jews to avoid renting or selling property to Arabs.
Safed's college attracts Arab-Israeli students from the surrounding area, many of whom seek accommodation in the town while studying.Fifty Israeli rabbis have signed an open letter warning Jews not to rent or sell... more
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Students coming from other countries,other cultures and religion like Muslims,Hindus should be careful when attending Santa Clara University.This university mainly caters to needs to Catholics others could e treated 2nd class citizensStudents coming from other countries,other cultures and religion like Muslims,Hindus... more
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why_new_york_city_is_the_marijuana_arrest_capital_of_the_world
Ethan Nadelmann is part of Change.org's Changemakers network, comprised of leading voices for social change
Governor David Paterson signed legislation last week to limit the NYPD practice of storing personal information on innocent New Yorkers who are stopped-and-frisked but not charged with any crime.
The number of stop-and-frisks by NYPD have exploded over the past decade, increasing from less than 100,000 in 2002 to 581,000 in 2009. The NYPD's own numbers show that 90% of the people stopped are non-white and that 85% of those stopped are not charged with any crime. Despite their innocence, police enter personal information about all of those stopped into their police database system.
Civil liberties groups like the NYCLU and Center for Constitutional Rights have criticized the practice and have called on the NYPD to end this practice.
Governor Paterson should be applauded for signing this important legislation. New Yorkers of all races should be comfortable walking down the streets without being targeted by the police when they have done nothing wrong. It adds insult to injury that innocent New Yorkers, after being unfairly searched, also have their personal information entered into a police database when they have committed no crime.
But there's another destructive consequence of the stop-and-frisk policy that has not received enough attention: it has made New York City the marijuana arrest capital of the world. While the police justify stop-and-frisks as a way to find guns, what is most often found is a small amount of marijuana. Although marijuana was decriminalized in New York State in 1977, Bloomberg's police arrested more than 46,000 people last year on marijuana possession — 10% of all arrests in the city, up from 1% in the mid-1990s.
If possession of marijuana is supposed to be decriminalized in New York, how does this happen? Often because, in the course of interacting with the police, individuals may be asked to empty their pockets, which results in the pot being "open to public view" — which is, technically, a crime. And because blacks and Latinos are the ones most often stopped, they make up 87% of low-level marijuana arrests, even though they are no more likely than whites to use or sell it. These arrests produce permanent criminal records that disqualify people for jobs, housing, schooling and student loans.
The NYPD arrests Latinos for marijuana possession at four times the rate of whites, and blacks at seven times the rate of whites. It's not that young black and brown men are more likely to smoke a joint in public; it's that they're much more likely than most other New Yorkers to be stopped and searched — and then arrested when the police find in their pockets what they'd also find in the pockets of hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers, if they looked.
Marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws — no other law is both enforced so widely and harshly yet deemed unnecessary by such a substantial portion of the population. While this new legislation goes a long way toward protecting innocent New Yorkers, let's remember that the primary targets of the NYPD's excessive stop-and-frisks are not gun-toting criminals or terrorists. Rather, most of the "guilty" people simply happen to have a small amount of marijuana on them. Unfortunately, being arrested for this "crime" can cause significantly greater harm than the marijuana itself.why_new_york_city_is_the_marijuana_arrest_capital_of_the_world
Ethan Nadelmann is... more
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by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law, is set to go into effect on July 29. With days left to go, Organizers are in a race against the clock to minimize the bill’s impact on immigrant communities. Meanwhile, legal experts are examining the strategy behind a federal Department of Justice suit recently lobbed against the Arizona law, and other immigrant rights supporters continue to pressure the state via boycott. All of these acts are contributing to a tumultuous fight that’s escalating by the day.
A top concern is that SB 1070 will increase racial profiling and harassment against Latinos due to a provision that requires local law enforcement to check an individual’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person is undocumented. The bill also requires immigrants with documentation to carry papers at all times.
At ColorLines, Jamilah King reports that “activists nationwide are stepping up their protests against the measure.” As part of a new campaign called “30 Days, 30 Events for Human Rights,” a variety of actions including works shops, concerts, and protests have been planned for each day leading up to July 28, the day before the bill is set to become law.
Border governors boycott Arizona
GRITtv has more coverage of the Arizona debacle, including commentary from Arizona state lawmaker Kyrsten Sinema and Suman Raghunathan of the Progressive States Network.
On top of that, ColorLines’ Daisy Hernandez also writes that an annual meeting of Mexican and US governors set to take place in Arizona has been canceled over the controversial law. “Six governors of Mexico’s border states have basically said there’s no way in hell they’re stepping foot in Arizona,” Hernandez reports.
This year it was Arizona’s turn to host the meeting, which has taken place for the last 30 years. But Arizona Governor Jan Brewer 86′d the event, citing lack of attendance.
Another lawsuit?
One might think Arizona officials have enough to worry about after spurring international outrage, boycotts, and countless lawsuits with the passage of one law. But now there are reports that the state may get sued by the Justice Department again if documented cases of racial profiling occur after SB 1070 takes effect.
As Gabriel Arana at The American Prospect explains, the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona centers around the legal question of “whether the state is pre-empting the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate immigration,” not the potential for civil rights abuses.
But New America Media notes that “in six months or a year, the Department of Justice plans to study the impact of the law on racial profiling,” and if civil rights violations are found, Attorney General Eric Holder won’t hesitate to take action.
Still hope for the DREAM Act
While media outlets direct their attention to Arizona, other immigrant rights supporters are actively working to support the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act on the national level. The DREAM Act is a federal bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants who were brought into the United States as children and have no control over their immigration status.
Feministing reports on the Campus Progress National Conference that took place in Washington DC last week, which featured David Cho, whose parents immigrated from South Korea when he was nine. Because he is undocumented, Cho, through no fault of his own, is barred from most schools and jobs.
Trapped in an ‘invisible prison’
“My dad believed that my two younger sisters and I could fulfill the American dream,” said Cho, who would like to be able to serve in the US Air Force. “But I feel like I am living inside an invisible prison cell. Because there are these invisible bars in front of me that limit me from doing the things I want to do.”
The DREAM Act would benefit people like Cho, by allowing immigrants who came to the country before the age of 16 to obtain citizenship after graduating from high school by either going to college for two years or serving in the armed forces.
Mikhail Zinshteyn at Campus Progress reports that if the DREAM Act were enacted today, “800,000 individuals would qualify for legal status on a conditional basis or having already completed a high school degree,” while an additional 900,000 would qualify upon turning 18. But it all depends on the Senate, and it remains to be seen if it will can tackle the issue by the end of the year.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious... more
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The Perspectives panel discuss Arizona's new legislation aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants and the implications of its enforcement.The Perspectives panel discuss Arizona's new legislation aimed at identifying,... more
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A truck driver was handcuffed and detained in Arizona after pulling into a weigh-station to have his commercial vehicle weighed. The driver's wife had to provide his birth certificate to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representative to secure the driver's release. An ICE representative said it was standard operating procedure.
Both the driver and his wife were born in the United States.A truck driver was handcuffed and detained in Arizona after pulling into a... more
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"A coalition of leading rights organizations will hold a national media call to announce and discuss the filing of its legal challenge to Arizona's unconstitutional racial profiling law.
The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union; MALDEF; National Immigration Law Center (NILC); the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice."
In my opinion the police have too much power in our country to enforce laws that unfairly target minorities and the poor. Giving them a license to "demand your papers" is not American. This is just a backlash against the influx of immigration that has been vilified by the right. We need to fight poverty, the real world enemy, not make people into separate racial categories. No matter how angry people who have already immigrated to America get, someone who needs to feed themselves or their family will listen to their poverty and hope - not your anger. ❤
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10137/1058777-84.stm
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jXrin5h7Hn8OoVwIwyXerEzwHacA"A coalition of leading rights organizations will hold a national media call to... more
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“It’s somewhat consoling to know that the man who first noticed the smoking Nissan Pathfinder and sought help is also Muslim, a Senegalese immigrant. … I grew up Muslim in this country, with Muslim friends and non-Muslim friends, and there was very little difference between the two groups. We were all American.”
more at link...
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/05/senagalese-muslim-vendor/“It’s somewhat consoling to know that the man who first noticed the... more
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Well yeah that might do more damage then good for the whole state of arizona if everyone decides to pull out the state and takes business other places. In Retrospect it might turn Arizona into a "hate" state if everyone decides to boycott it and then arizona will more then likely never change there opinion or views about immigration reform and keep this current bill in place. Its really tough when it comes to seeing what side is going to win in this battle.
There is TONS of jobs normal americans would not do especially in arizona (i do not see many people just dying to live there in the desert thats for sure). It makes up 80% of arizona's economy to keep there business(s) in business due to all the illegals they put to work in some of the most remote and crappy locations in the desert and also yeah some of the jobs they do they can keep them.
What i find depressing is that they actually tried to say they would be even willing to deport all of the spanish people who were born here but there family is illegal. yeah major failure and that i would totally boycott i do not think that it should be the kids or teens conflict or go thru that drama or stress since there parents were not legal. the united states is the only thing a lot of these kids and young adults and teens know they would be totally shell shocked if they had to be deported for that reason.
I could just imagine everyone who is spanish in the united states going to arizona to boycott it, that might change some laws and regulations right quick LOL. But also that might cause some massive chaos and destruction from protests and minutemen and other radical racists who are against hispanic or mexicans in general.
I was watching Larry King live tonight and i had picked up on something that they all talked about and that was about the whole racial profiling and also letting it take its course to see if that will actually happen and from what i have seen so far there has already been 2 lawsuits filed and i can just imagine about a zillion more coming into action, but on a state level that really will not do much since pretty much 70% of the state wants this new bill.
The Federal Government got shit up to there knee's now and i cant wait to see what they do to try and put a giant bandaid over this whole deal. Do you think a national boycott will really be effective or will it mostly cause riots and chaos? Do you think this might be our next WAR? trying to battle with instead of terrorists but battle with the mexican population.
I have spanish people in my family i am glad they are ALL Legal. i hope they never venture to arizona and i hope that california since it is so close does not adopt the arizona immigration bill that there state has passed i feel its a sad day for america and a sad day for the statue of liberty.
Wait does the statue of liberty still stand for anything or have they put it in storage yet?Well yeah that might do more damage then good for the whole state of arizona if... more
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Boycott Mexican Tacos this Saturday MAY DAY !
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Washington (CNN) -- Latino members of Congress Tuesday called on Arizona's governor to kill a state bill that would require police to determine whether people are in the United States legally, arguing that it unconstitutionally authorizes discrimination.
"When you institutionalize a law like this one, you are targeting and discriminating at a wholesale level against a group of people," Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, told reporters. Grijalva and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force on Immigration Reform, said Republican Gov. Jan Brewer should veto the measure, which the state Senate approved Monday.
The bill would require immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and require police to question people if there's reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.
Brewer, a Republican, has yet to take a public stance on the bill.
Grijalva, whose congressional district runs from the Mexican border to the outskirts of Phoenix, said the legislation "is not just mean-spirited, it is directed at a specific population." Gutierrez, D-Illinois, said the measure infringes on the federal government's authority over immigration laws as well as being discriminatory.
"I'm Puerto Rican. I was born in Chicago, and my family has been U.S. citizens for generations," Gutierrez said. "But look at my face, listen to my voice. I'd probably get picked up in Arizona and questioned. Is that what we want in America?"
Currently, officers can check someone's immigration status if the person is suspected in another crime. Critics argue the new law would foster racial profiling, saying that most police officers don't have enough training to look past race while investigating a person's legal status.
The bill is considered to be among the toughest immigration measures in the nation. Supporters say the measure is needed to fill a void left by the federal government's failure to enforce its immigration laws. Its leading sponsor, state Sen. Russell Pearce, said, "Illegal is not a race, it's a crime."
"We're going to take the handcuffs off of law enforcement. We're going to put them on the bad guy," Pearce, a Republican, told CNN.
"You know, this is amazing to me. We trust officers, we put guns on them, they make life and death decisions every day," he added. "They investigate capital crimes, they investigate sophisticated crimes, but we're afraid they're going to pick up the phone and call ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]."
The tough rhetoric has angered immigration advocates, such as Isabel Garcia, an Arizona legal defender, who says the legislation "legalizes racial profiling."
"I think this bill represents the most dangerous precedent in this country, violating all of our due process rights," she told CNN. "We have not seen this kind of legislation since the Jim Crow laws. And targeting our communities, it is the single ... largest attack on our communities."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/20/arizona.immigration/index.htmlWashington (CNN) -- Latino members of Congress Tuesday called on Arizona's... more
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mrfnk
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Arizona police chiefs call fears of racial profiling under new immigration law unfounded. Casey Wian reports
"We've never had a policy of racial profiling," Martinez said Saturday night at a town hall meeting in Casa Grande. "In fact, quite the contrary, it's been outlawed."
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon appeared at the rally in support of the protest, calling the law unconstitutional and "just plain wrong."
"America is a country that is compassionate and that welcomes everyone," he said. "This is not what this country and this state was founded upon."
Gordon vowed to take the fight through the state's judicial system.
"We'll go to the state courts and we'll go to the federal courts and we'll go all the way to the Supreme Court," he told the cheering crowd. "I promise you."
Gordon told CNN on Saturday that he will bring up an item calling for legal action against the law at Tuesday's City Council session.
Others were also vowing this weekend to legally challenge the law.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, along with leaders from the National Action Network and the Hispanic Federation, announced Sunday that he will legally challenge the law.
The law "is an affront to the civil rights of all Americans and an attempt to legalize racial profiling," Sharpton said in a statement after the bill's signing Friday. "As one who helped to make racial profiling a national issue and who has in the last year visited Arizona several times to rally against these draconian immigration policies, I am calling for a coalition of civil rights organizations to work with those in Arizona to resist and overturn this state law."
The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a group that represents 30,000 Latino churches worldwide, also said Saturday it plans to file a lawsuit against the bill.
"In addition to this law being illegal, if this law goes into effect, we expect it to have a dramatic affect on the state with U.S. citizens, legal residents and others moving out of the state out of fear of being singled out," William Sanchez, an immigration attorney representing the coalition, said in a statement.Arizona police chiefs call fears of racial profiling under new immigration law... more
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I’d hate to be a cop in Arizona about now. The Arizona state Senate just passed a bill that requires cops, under threat of lawsuit, to enforce federal immigration laws. I blame the Feds; particularly Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano.
The bill makes it a misdemeanor to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona. It requires cops to check immigration status if they develop a reasonable suspicion that a person is in the country illegally. The bill, Senate Bill 1070, passed 35-21 in the Arizona House of Representatives last night.
Among other factors, it requires cops to enforce federal immigration laws if they believe a person is in the country illegally. They’re not supposed to use race to develop reasonable suspicion but how could they avoid using the color of a man’s skin as a preliminary determinant?
Police departments can also be sued if they don’t comply with the new enforcement powers. Of course, they can also be sued for racial profiling if they can’t prove that race wasn’t the only factor in pulling up to check the papers of a man. And they can be sued if citizens think they’re not enforcing immigration laws.
Arrest warrants no longer apply, either. If a cop thinks a person committed a crime worth being deported over, they won’t need to obtain a warrant. You may disagree, but in my opinion, the new rules, expected to be approved by Gov. Jan Brewer, create two classes of human being in Arizona and God help you if a cop thinks you might fit into the second class.
I also don’t dismiss the new rules as mere racism. In fact, I put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. government. I’ve been writing about the issues that have turned Arizona into the North American concourse it has become since 2003. Again and again and again, federal ineptitude has taken over the issue. You have U.S. Border Patrol officials who capitalize on increased enforcement budgets to line their own pockets. They have taken per diem kickbacks from flooding sections of Arizona with new agents needing places to live. They have sold technology contracts worth millions to companies run by their own daughters. They spend money needlessly on armored personnel carriers. They have engaged in phenomenal projects like the virtual tower mess that they then paid millions of dollars into for years only to pull back at the end and scrap the entire program. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for years, allowed local cops like the Phoenix Police Department to manage their own affairs at a time when the city was being inundated by hundreds of home invasions, narco-executions and kidnappings every year. The Feds waste their time and resources chasing drug mules through central Arizona while Ismael “Mayo” Zambada’s familymembers attend schools in Phoenix. A regional drug trafficker for the Juárez Cartel, Adán Salazar Zamorano, recently purchased a home in north Tucson, about ten miles from me, in fact. They neglected the entire southeast corner of Arizona at the border with New Mexico and Chihuahua since 2006. That neglect culminated in the murder of a good man, a rancher in the area, last month, Robert Krentz.
Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano has held the administrator position for more than a year now. As former governor, Napolitano knew of the failings of federal law enforcement in Arizona. I can’t begin to count the number of times I interviewed her on the matter of the lack of federal involvement. As governor, she also vetoed bills like this one numerous times, saying the border was a federal issue.
Well, Janet; now what? Now you’re a Fed. You leave 388 miles of lateral border between Tucson and Yuma Sectors bereft of new ideas and new technologies, applying the same enforcement standards as your predecessor, standards that failed then and failed now. The only difference is that at the time you were the governor and could dismiss bills like 1070 as racism, politicking and douchebaggery. You knew where this headed, especially when you accepted the new appointment, leaving the Republican, Brewer, in charge of Arizona.
Esta gente no tiene vergüenza.I’d hate to be a cop in Arizona about now. The Arizona state Senate just passed... more
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By Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
While immigrant rights groups pressure the federal government via high-profile marches and rallies, anti-immigration forces are pushing punitive laws on the state and local levels. Thousands of immigration reform proponents rallied last week to push federal lawmakers to pass reform this year, but the Arizona House of Representatives passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the country, which enables racial profiling of Latinos.
If the Senate fails to propose a reform bill this Spring, immigration reform won’t be on the agenda for 2010. With elections at the end of the year, it’s uncertain if reform will pass after that, as the resulting Congress could be more conservative.
More rallies from the grassroots
As Seth Freed Wessler reports at RaceWire, “Rallies for immigration reform were held in at least seven cities on Saturday, including Las Vegas, Seattle and Chicago, and were meant to maintain momentum from the massive march in Washington last month.” The rallies were part of a sustained effort by reform supporters to pressure the Senate to take up reform this year.
In Las Vegas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made an appearance and told supporters that the Senate would start work on reform soon after legislators came back from a brief recess this week.
“Speaking before a crowd of more than 6,000, Reid, a vulnerable incumbent, assured his audience of his commitment,” Steve Benen wrote for the Washington Monthly.
“We’re going to come back, we’re going to have comprehensive immigration reform now,” Reid was quoted as saying. “We need to do this this year. We cannot wait.”
New America Media cites a report from Univision, writing that “Reid, fresh from the fight for health system reform and with a difficult re-election campaign ahead, told demonstrators that there is some urgency to passing legislation to reform the immigration system, including improving border security and creating a guest worker program for seasonal workers.”
New America Media also reports on a surprising conservative-evangelical alliance that supports comprehensive immigration reform that protects children and families. “While not entirely new, the involvement of conservative Latino and evangelical leaders in the immigration debate puts additional pressure on Congress and the president to take up the issue this year.”
In Seattle, AlterNet reports on the large presence of Asian immigrants at the local rally, quoting Diane Narasaki, executive director of the Asian Counseling and Referral Service: “There are about 1 million Asians living in this country who are undocumented, so comprehensive immigration reform is really key to our community,” Narasaki said.
Local laws target immigrants
Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives voted along party lines this week to pass a state law that would, as RaceWire’s Freed Wessler reports, “make it a criminal offense simply to be an undocumented immigrant on Arizona soil and to require local cops to determine a person’s immigration status if there is any ‘reasonable suspicion’ the person is undocumented.”
“The law would essentially require police to racially profile Latinos and threatens to terrorize immigrant communities already trying to survive in what is arguably the country’s most anti-immigrant state,” writes Freed Wessler.
In Colorado, where a similar state law passed despite wide criticism of civil rights abuses, there are reports on an effort in Denver to push back against a a local city-wide anti-immigrant law that encourages police to impound vehicles of undocumented immigrants.
“Members of the city council here are considering eliminating a controversial vehicle impound law that has raised financial and constitutional questions,” Joseph Boven reports for the Colorado Independent. “It’s unconstitutional, for example, to require Denver police to judge whether someone driving in Denver without a license might be an illegal alien.”
Linking national concerns with local issues, the National Radio Project reports on a panel called “Race, Immigration and the Fight for an Open Internet,” which focused on how telecommunications corporations’ moves to restrict internet access could affect immigrant communities.
“Right now, telecommunications companies are pursuing a restrictive pay-for-play business model for online access that many say will only further the digital divide, discriminating between those who have Internet access and those who do not,” the news outlet notes.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
While immigrant rights groups pressure the... more
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