Resistance to SB1070: No borders, no state, no papers

Aerial Sheriff

2011-11-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

[Image: A U.S. Predator drone, photographed by Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force via Wikipedia].

The Send Equipment for National Defense Act, sponsored by Texas Representative Ted Poe, would "require that 10 percent of certain equipment returned from Iraq—like Humvees, night-vision equipment and unmanned aerial surveillance craft—be made available to state and local agencies for border-security operations."

Poe denies that this would militarize the border, as reported by the New York Times; but John Cook, mayor of the border city of El Paso, strongly disagrees, suggesting that only "a whole lot of ignorance" could inspire the plan. Cook points out that "moving war zone equipment to the border would send the wrong signal to Mexico and potentially damage the robust symbiotic economic relationship between the two countries."

This comes at the same time that Miller-McCune warns that "armed police drones"—or weaponized UAVs—might soon be flying through a sky near you. While Miller-McCune focuses specifically on the sheriff of Montgomery County, Texas, it's worth pointing out that so-called Leptron Avengers—"battery-operated helicopters designed to take high-resolution video and photos and that can be equipped with night-vision cameras or thermal-imaging equipment"—have also been requested by the Texas city of Arlington, perhaps making Texas—alongside such places as Syria, North Korea, and China—the go-to site today for witnessing civilian adaptations of military surveillance technology.

[Image: The ShadowHawk unmanned police helicopter by Vanguard Defense Industries, via Miller-McCune].

The current version of this equipment, called the ShadowHawk, "won’t carry weapons," we're told, but "the drone’s manufacturer, Vanguard Defense Industries, boasts that it’s strong enough to carry a shotgun or even a grenade launcher." The firm itself adds that the "ShadowHawk can maintain aerial surveillance of an area (i.e. house, vehicle, person, etc.) at 700 feet without being heard or seen unlike full sized aircraft. Imagine the advantage provided to an entry team in the following scenarios: high risk warrant, hostage rescue, domestic violence, etc."

Mechanized urban surveillance is hardly news. Indeed, the currently existing network of CCTV cameras already installed in cities all over the world is equally "unmanned," in an exactly comparable sense; they are fixed-point drones. One could thus make an argument that the ShadowHawk is simply a camera with wings: you have a camera outside CVS or Tesco, ergo you have a camera in the sky above the city. It's easy to see how "mission creep," as Miller-McCune calls it, could occur.

Or compare this, for instance, to plans aflight in the UK, where police "are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the 'routine' monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance." This will take the form of unmanned airships hovering over the English capital, as if simulating the barrage balloons of World War II.

[Image: Barrage balloons above London, courtesy of Wikipedia].

The drones "are programmed to take off and land on their own, stay airborne for up to 15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft, making them invisible from the ground," and they will be launched "in time for the 2012 Olympics." (An Afghanistan-based version of this program is described as follows: "This fall, there’ll be a new supercomputer in Afghanistan. It’ll be floating 20,000 feet above the warzone, aboard a giant spy blimp that watches and listens to everything for miles around.")

[Images: From an October 2009 presentation by Major General Blair Hansen to the U.S. Strategic Command and Defense Intelligence Agency].

Briefly, I'm reminded of the opening scene from Christopher Dickey's book Securing the City, in which a helicopter that falls somewhere between aerial war machine and advanced Hollywood film equipment is breathlessly unveiled: "The winter air is cold and the light hard-edged as the unmarked New York City Police Department helicopter meanders through the winds above the five boroughs," we read.

It is a state-of-the-art crime-fighting, terror-busting, order-keeping techno toy, with its enormous lens that can magnify any scene on the streets almost one thousand times, then double that digitally; that can watch a crime in progress from miles away, can look in windows, can sense the body heat of people on rooftops or running along sidewalks, can track beepers slipped under cars, can do so very many things that the man in the helmet watching the screens and moving the images with the joystick in his lap, NYPD Detective David Zschau, is often a little bit at a loss for words. "It really is an amazing tool," he keeps saying.

This technology—whose unlimited vision seems so mind-boggling as to cause aphasia in those who encounter it—should inspire as much moral and political discomfort as an unmanned version of the same helicopter; in other words, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this very kind of spy equipment already exists and has already been deployed. That is, the unnerving implication that we are being watched from above by undetectable robots should not let us forget that being watched from above by human pilots is just as invasive.

In any case, the ShadowHawk, described above, can also be put to use in fire and rescue situations, able to track down "heat sources and cut through the smoke and haze with it’s Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) or SWIR"—short wave infrared—cameras. Indeed, the company points out that "the vast capabilities of the ShadowHawk are ideal for mitigating and handling disasters whether natural or manmade. From locating victims, serving as an airborne communications relay point or conducting damage assessment, the ShadowHawk will significantly expand response capabilities." In light of this, it is foolish to reject, universally and in principle, the very idea of unmanned systems operating in non-military environments; but it's equally foolish to welcome them without a simultaneous demand for strong regulation and oversight.

To be honest, though, it seems only a matter of time before armed police drones are a reality in the United States, and it would thus be great to see a long discussion of the legality—or, at the very least, the societal implications—of such equipment, before we are faced with a scenario none of us adequately understand. For instance, is there a law course somewhere examining the rights and implications of autonomous urban police technologies? Combine this with a look at repurposed military hardware used in patrolling national borders, and the syllabus from such a course would be well worth exploring in detail.

(In addition to the London example, cited above, another rebuke to the moral self-congratulation of the Miller-McCune piece comes from Northern Ireland, where the use of unmanned aerial systems in urban policing might soon take the form of "mini drones" used "to combat crime and the dissident republican threat"—in other words, autonomous police drones are by no means limited to cities in the United States).

Call for Indigenous Convergence to Resist ALEC!

2011-11-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

Call for Indigenous Convergence to Resist ALEC! – November 29-December 3 – Onk Akimel O’odham Lands (Scottsdale, AZ)
Un-occupy Our Lands!
Indigenous Peoples Gathering in Resistance to Corporate & State Terrorism
Tues. Nov. 29, 6PM – 9:30PM
At Serena Padilla Residence
Onk Akimel O’odham Nation (Salt River)
9312 E. Thomas Rd. Scottsdale, AZ 85256

This is an opportunity to share, connect, and build solidarity.
Dinner will be provided. Please bring your own chairs.
Camping for Indigenous participants available.
Please RSVP with oodhamjeved@gmail.com.
Allies and supporters welcome.

Greetings.

My name is Serena Padilla. I live in Occupied Onk Akimel Jeved, now known as the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community.
I am in support of an Indigenous convergence before and during the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference, scheduled for November 30-December 2, in hopes to share, connect and build solidarity amongst all the Indigenous Nations that are affected by ALEC.
At this time, I am opening my grounds to accommodate all Indigenous participants coming to our territory due to the ALEC Conference. I am opening my grounds for camping and access to my outside kitchen.
I hope this gathering will strengthen our connections as Indigenous Peoples, now and for the future generations to come.

More information: www.azresistsalec.wordpress.com
Energy/Mining Companies & ALEC: http://azresistsalec.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/energymining-companies-and-alec/

ALEC thinks they're meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November...

2011-08-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

ALEC thinks they're meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November...

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a massive non-profit body that brings corporations and legislators together to draft "model" legislation. For example, AZ Senator Russell Pearce and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest private prison firm, have been members for years. ALEC finalized the model legislation which became, almost word for word, Arizona's SB1070, aka "Support Our Law Enforcement." It's the latest in the historical pattern of colonization, slave codes, convict leasing, and the drug war, that CREATES crimes and therefore criminals, for profit.

With British Petroleum (BP) and the Koch brothers as some of their funders, ALEC has pushed for Three Strikes and Mandatory Minimum sentencing, as well as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. More than 200 of ALEC's model bills became actual laws throughout the country over the past year.

We're a group of people in occupied Indigenous lands, now called Arizona, who demand the end of SB1070 and 287g, the criminalization—and then the incarceration—of migrants, and the militarization of the border. We oppose private prisons, detention centers, and security companies, not simply because they are private, but because we are sickened by profiteering on human misery. ALEC desires "free markets" and "limited government," which means they use the state to support profit-making, the continuance of colonization, and neo-liberal policies (NAFTA, CANAMEX, etc.) that draw lines, make laws, and build freeways and prisons to exploit labor and the earth.

Whether maintained by the state or corporations, we're against all systems of control. We are for freedom of movement for all people.

ALEC should know there are a million better things to do with their time than plotting mass incarceration. But there’s nowhere we’d rather be than confronting their meeting. We're calling for four days of action here in occupied Onk Akimel O’odham lands from November 29th - December 3rd, 2011, with an emphasis for action on November 30th (N30!). We encourage a creative diversity of tactics on N30, the 12th anniversary of the Seattle uprising against the WTO. No matter the acronym, ALEC is no different than all the other gangs of businessmen, politicians, and bureaucrats that we’ve been resisting for over 500 years.

In solidarity with everyone locked up and locked down in AZ, and all O’odham, Yaqui, Lipan Apache separated by the border, and anyone dispossessed by the wealthy and powerful…

Project Baldwin
projectbaldwin@riseup.net

see also: azresistsalec.wordpress.com

MUSIC VIDEO:Shining Soul: 'Papers' Militarization of Border

2011-08-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

SHINING SOUL MUSIC VIDEO "PAPERS"

WEBSITE: http://shiningsoul-music.blogspot.com/
DOWNLOAD AT: http://shiningsoulmusic.bandcamp.com/
EMAIL: WORKWITHSHININGSOUL@GMAIL.COM

"The militarization of the U.S./Mexico border
has led only to cultural and environmental destruction
of the indigenous peoples whose land is on or near
the border, such as the O'odham, Yaqui
and Lipan Apache Nations.

Border Militarization brings death and terror
to indigenous peoples from other parts
of the continent migrating to this land.

The immigration struggle is also
an Indigenous struggle. '

http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/2011/07/music-videoshining-soul-papers.html

NOLA Anarcha- Why Anarchists Should Protest the ALEC Conference

2011-08-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is coming to town! They are a bunch of nasty fuckers who bring corporations together with state legislators so corporate lawyers can hand pre-written bills to the politicians, who then try to get the bills passed in their state legislatures.

ALEC has been making the news a lot recently, with NPR pieces[pt.1, pt.2] about how, in meetings with private prison corporations, they wrote the infamous SB1070, the anti-immigrant law that anarchists and others have been fighting against in Arizona.

Leaked documents from inside ALEC prompted an interview segment on Democracy Now! The documents show that ALEC, in partnership with it's corporate members, actually wrote many pro-corporate laws that have since gone into effect, including free trade agreements that were a main focus of the anti-globalization movement many anarchists participated in after the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.

And on the Huffington Post, an article explains how ALEC is carrying forward the ideological program of deregulation and privatization pushed by Milton Friedman. This simplistic, fundamentalist capitalist ideology has had many negative local effects, as was mentioned in a recent article on this blog.

Now, anarchists have no illusions about the fact that big business owns and runs the government, but at least corporate power usually fears public anger that arises from the blatant merger of State and corporate power enough to put on a political puppet show for us! Mostly, the way elites legitimize the unequal and unjust system that they preside over to the rest of us is to make sure that it at least has the appearance of people, through elected politicians, getting to decide democratically what happens in our country. ALEC doesn't bother with that populist song and dance, they facilitate the outright penning of legislation by corporations themselves becoming law. So we end up with things like Immigration Policy, brought to you by Corrections Corporation of America! etc...

While ALEC's dealings aren't a meaningful divergence from the normal machinations of power, it is easier for people to see that the system's a sham, and easier for them to finger the true culprits, when corporations are writing their own legislation. This is why the anti-ALEC organizing to confront those economic power structures is worth supporting.

Of course, there will surely be those in the protest calling for the political charade to be played out fully once again, for the kabuki theater to re-close the curtains that shields us from what's happening backstage, so we can once again be whisked away to fairyland, where democracy exists and people power is in charge, and we can return to our peaceful slumber, dreaming the American Dream.

But, there will be also be people protesting who know returning to the democratic facade is not going to solve any of our problems, and that confronting the corporations behind the curtain of our "democracy" is the first step to destroying their control of our lives and communities.

In that spirit, anarchists should come out to the locally-organized ALEC protests in New Orleans (August 5th, 2pm, 500 Poydras St.). Come out not to demand stricter adherence to lobbying laws, more transparency, or less corruption. Come out to demand an end to the power of corporations, and their use of State violence to increase their wealth, and thereby control over our economy, society, and lives. Come out to say that it doesn't matter whether that power is hidden behind the veil of democracy, or is blatantly transparent, as it is with ALEC, that either way it has to be dismantled. Anarchists should come with flags, in black, or with banners and signs to show our united stance, to show that we are not in favor of a return to the democratic political farce, but organizing for an end to capitalist control.

Not only should anarchists participate in the protest on August 5th, but we should organize other actions to confront the corporations who are members of ALEC during the conference, from August 1st-6th. ALEC's members include oil companies responsible for ruining the Gulf and Wetlands, big banks who own hundreds of foreclosed homes in our city while people sleep on the streets, and private prison companies directly profiting from tough on crime laws, the creation of a racist, militarized police state, and booming incarceration rates, which Louisiana leads the nation in. Let's get creative and use their conference to catalyze our own actions to take back our city from these profiteers of human suffering!

Private Prisons in a Wider Context: Video

2011-07-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

From Chaparral Respects No Borders:

It has been encouraging to see the awareness about the role of private prison companies in influencing criminalization of people grow and grow in the last year. SB 1070 and the relationship between various legislators like Russell Pearce and private prison companies like CCA and Geo Group within the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and between governor Jan Brewer and CCA, has been exposed recently. People had already started to address the connection between Wells Fargo and private prison-run detention centers that hold thousands of migrants in other parts of the country and a tiny bit here in AZ. Now there are country-wide campaigns popping off against private prisons companies and against ALEC.

However, as horrible as the conditions in private prisons are (and they do tend to be several times worse than state-run facilities), and as obvious as it is that SB 1070 passed with great influence on the part of those who stand to make millions off of putting people in cages, I would hate to see the focus be solely on this most recent phenomenon. An anti-private prison campaign can easily fall into the same traps as the "go after the real criminals" message, as though there's nothing wrong with the "criminal" "justice" system. As though the criminalization of people who cross a man-made line is not similar to the criminalization of so many of the people in prisons today and historically. We should also consider the limitations of previous nation-wide anti-private prison campaigns like the one that targeted Sodexho in the early 2000's. A focus only on the privatization of prisons can only divert energy from addressing the prison system in general; the various reasons people end up in jail or prison, and the ways in which the system will never and is not meant to address the real ills of our society.

I put together the following video to provide a complex yet still simplistic (limited by time and resources) history of criminalization of people for the benefit of the few. Please share it with anyone you think would be interested. This video is a follow up from several of my blog entries including No Borders or Prison Walls and What came first: the Racism or the Profit Motive? On Private Prisons' push for SB1070

Please also view the 2nd part. It all ties together, and there's some good commentary towards the end.

Operation Chinga La Migra by LulzSec

2011-06-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/chinga_la_migra_1.txt

##################### CHINGA LA MIGRA BULLETIN #1 6/23/2011 ####################

We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.

The documents classified as "law enforcement sensitive", "not for public distribution", and "for official use only" are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements.

Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust "war on drugs".

Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world. See you again real soon! ;D

LulzSec releases ‘classified’ data of ‘racist’ Arizona law enforcement

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/23/lulzsec-releases-classified-data-of-racist-arizona-law-enforcement/

The group of rogue and jocular hackers known as Lulz Security - or LulzSec - released data Thursday night it claims belongs to Arizona law enforcement in a campaign dubbed "Operation Chinga La Migra."

"We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement," the group said on their website.

LulzSec is targeting the state's law enforcement because they are against SB1070, Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement law.

They called Arizona a "racial profiling anti-immigrant police state."

"We're trying to track down whoever did it and secure our system," Steve Harrison, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, told the Phoenix New Times. "Right now we think they got into our computers through our e-mail."

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said it was not aware of the cyber attack until LulzSec tweeted Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Twitter account.

"The media has been giving me a lot of heat lately but nothing compared to tent city!" Arpaio tweeted Thursday. LulzSec responded, "Media? Heat? You? Chinga La Migra!"

LulzSec announced Tuesday that it would team up with hacker activist group Anonymous, as the manhunt for people involved with both groups continues. LulzSec has also claimed responsibility for the Sony hack that compromised millions of peoples' personal information, as well as several government hacks. The group burst onto the public radar with a well-publicized hack of PBS NewsHour's website in early June.

The group has quickly become an Internet sensation, with over a quarter of a million Twitter followers and numerous LulzSec-inspired songs on YouTube.

"Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarrassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust war on drugs," LulzSec announced.

The package of data was uploaded to the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay.

"Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world."

Updated June 23, 2011 at 9:16pm EST.

LGBT immigrants abused while in U.S. custody

2011-04-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

The Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) on Wednesday filed 13 complaints alleging human rights abuses against LGBT immigrants recently and currently held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.

According to the NIJC, the individuals who filed complaints all came to the United States to escape persecution in their native countries, and have since faced continued abuse in the immigration system.

The NIJC is asking the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the treatment of LGBT people in DHS custody, craft policies to address violations and oversee implementation.

According to the NIJC’s complaint (PDF), some of the people held are legal residents who were previously convicted of a crime -– in some cases, just a misdemeanor; others are felons who were transferred to ICE custody after longer prison sentences; and others were undocumented aliens or people who have overstayed their visas.

All are, or were, held based on civil and not criminal offenses, reports the NIJC.

The alleged abuses against LGBT individuals include denial of medical care, discrimination and sexual assault.

In one case, according to the NIJC complaint, Steve, a gay Peruvian asylum seeker, was held in solitary confinement for six weeks “on the sole basis that he is HIV-positive.”

“Officers frequently prohibited Steve from leaving his cell to get his HIV medication,” the report alleges. “Steve was traumatized when he sought medical treatment and an officer refused to remove the shackles from his feet, waist, and hands despite pleas from his doctor.”

The report describes sexual assaults by fellow inmates followed by repeated denials for transfer from the victim as well as a transgender inmate being denied her hormone treatment, despite her use of hormones for ten years prior to detainment.

“The administration should take immediate steps to apply the protections of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which would provide protections and remedies for individuals who are victims of sexual assault, to all immigration detention facilities,” the group said.

Heartland Alliance has established a letter campaign to President Barack Obama and DHS. (You can add your signature to the letter here.)

NIJC, based in Chicago, provides direct legal services to and advocates for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers through policy reform, impact litigation, and public education.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/04/complaint-alleges-lgbt-immigrants-abused-while-in-u-s-custody/

Comatose Border Patrol Victim Spared Deportation, Removal from St. Joseph's (For Now)

2011-04-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

by Stephen Lemons

Univision

Jose Gutierrez, who is in a vegetative state, with part of his skull removed

Saint Joseph is traditionally the patron saint of workers and immigrants. The latter is because the father of Jesus was forced to flee to Egypt to save the Christ child from Herod the Great's wrath. Once King Herod was dead, Joseph moved his family back to Israel, settling in Nazareth.

There is a large statue of St. Joseph outside of his namesake hospital in Phoenix, which was founded in 1895 by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, but St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center does not always pity the poor immigrant as it should.

This morning, Shena Wilson, the wife of Jose Gutierrez Guzman, kept watch over her husband in the hospital's intensive care unit, under the guard of two U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers. Not that Gutierrez was in any condition to escape their clutches.

At that time, Gutierrez was, for reasons unknown, not listed as a patient in St. Joseph's directory. Nevertheless, he lay comatose with part of his skull removed. He sustained Taser marks, a broken tooth, and a severe head injury after his run in with the Border Patrol near the San Luis, Arizona port of entry. He also has two black eyes.

No wonder CBP wanted to boot him from the country, stat.

According to New Times' sister paper LA Weekly, the CBP has stated that "the man struck his head on the ground during the incident." That's a lot of damage from a trip and fall. Unless, gravity received a little help.

Gutierrez had lived in the United States since he was nine, Wilson told me.

He was deported this past March 21, although he was a resident of Los Angeles, held a steady job as a film engineer, and fronted for LZ10, which the LA Weekly describes as a "popular Spanish-rock band." Wilson told me Gutierrez was desperate to get back to the United States, as Mexico is not his home and as his daughter was in the hospital.

But Gutierrez did not make it back to Los Angeles. After receiving substantial injuries while in CBP custody, he was hospitalized. Wilson's lawyer, Brian Lerner, told me the Border Patrol and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wanted to again deport Gutierrez. But Lerner obtained a stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, blocking this.

When I spoke with him, Lerner informed me that St. Joseph's wanted to remove Gutierrez in his vegetative state to Mexico, and that he was seeking further relief from the Ninth Circuit to prevent such action.

"Their words were that they were going to `transfer' him back to Mexico," Lerner said of his discussions with the hospital.

St. Joseph's spokeswoman Carmelle Malkovich e-mailed me the following statement after I called her for comment:

The situation related to our patient Jose Gutierrez continues to be very fluid. Earlier today we learned that the federal government will not be prosecuting Mr. Gutierrez, and he is no longer in their custody. Homeland Security personnel have left the hospital and he is now here as a regular patient.

This means that the federal authorities are no longer directing his location and gives us very different options for transitioning the patient to serve his long term care needs.

Because of this change, any plans to transfer the patient anywhere today have been cancelled.

We will continue to focus on the safety of the patient as he recovers. St. Joseph's is not licensed to administer long term medical care. We will work with his family to transition him to the next level of care. Mr. Gutierrez's condition has improved and he no longer needs acute care, which is the only type of care we are licensed to provide.

No other details have been confirmed at this time.

Suzanne Pfister, VP of External Affairs with St. Joe's, denied that the hospital wanted to remove Gutierrez on its own, and that it had just been following the lead of the CBP.

Lerner disputed this, stating that St. Joe's "backed down." He found Pfister's characterization "a little disingenuous."

He said that he'd been preparing to ask the Ninth Circuit to step in once more and halt any action by the hospital when he received word that St. Joe's had relented.

Lerner related that Gutierrez would likely be transferred to a California facility next week sometime.

He warned that if St. Joe's attempted to remove Gutierrez to Mexico, "I can get to the Ninth Circuit very quickly."

St. Joseph's is a not-for-profit facility. Malkovich at one point described it to me as "private." It's exempt from corporate taxes, and it receives untold millions in federal grants and Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

Nevertheless, St. Joe's has been known to remove from the U.S. severely ill folks who happen to be undocumented. Back in 2007, I wrote about the death of Joe Arvisu, a North High School student with leukemia who suffered a head injury, became a patient at St. Joe's and was ultimately shipped back to a hospital in Mexico, where he died.

Lerner believes St. Joe's would have put Gutierrez in an ambulance headed for Mexico, despite Gutierrez being in a coma, had he and Wilson not put up a fight.

He promised that "a lawsuit will go forward" on the matter once Gutierrez is back in California and his condition is stable.

CBP did not return repeated calls for comment. Can't say that I blame them. This was turning into a public relations disaster for both CBP and St. Joe's.

Local pro-immigrant advocacy group Puente deserves credit for alerting the local media and for protesting St. Joe's last night and this morning. Such activism and media scrutiny doesn't hurt. In this case, it likely helped, particularly in regard to St. Joe's actions.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/04/saint_josephs_wants_to_remove.php

U.S. Border Patrol agent in Yuma sector indicted on drug charges

2011-04-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was indicted Tuesday on charges of trafficking marijuana along the Mexican border, authorities said.

A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment against Michael Angelo Atondo after fellow Border Patrol agents found him with 44 bundles of marijuana in his vehicle in a remote area April 4, according to Robbie Sherwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Sherwood gave this account:

Atondo set off a sensor several miles away from his Wellton-area patrol zone in an area just east of San Luis. When agents arrived, he was standing in uniform next to his Border Patrol vehicle, which was backed up to the border fence.

Parked on the other side were two Jeep Cherokees backed up to the fence. When the Border Patrol agents approached the three vehicles, the Jeeps fled deeper into Mexico.

The agents discovered 44 packages of marijuana in the back of Atondo's vehicle, each weighing totaling about 745 pounds.

The haul had an estimated wholesale value of $371,000.

Officials with the DEA and IRS launched an investigation.

Atondo was charged with conspiracy to commit importation of marijuana, importation of marijuana, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

If convicted, Atondo could spend up to 40 years in prison on each count, as well as a $2 million fine and four years of supervised release.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/12/20110412yuma-border-patrol-agent-indicted-marijuana-0412abrk.html

UnDeveloping Controls: States of Internment and Humanity at the Crossroads

2011-02-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

This is the text of a leaflet against proposed anti-immigration legislation in Indiana. The leaflet was found somewhere but it is unclear how it got there or who wrote it.

UnDeveloping Controls: States of Internment and Humanity at the Crossroads

“We want the rule of law restored.” –Indiana Senator Mike Delph, author of anti-immigration Senate Bill 590

There is no homeland or nation at the crossroads, just spaces of flight that intersect. The misery of the modern world finds expression in the ongoing flows of global exodus. A population on-the-run is objectified for segregation. So the rule of law restores itself through an elaboration of lies. Race is an old lie, developed in the earliest days of established authority to divide and enslave. “Illegal alien” is a crude maneuver of the political machinery as it wets its appetite for another racialized scapegoat, to obscure the ineptitude and coercion of a dictatorial market, or to avert a rebellion from developing in its place.

In the halls of the politicians’ assembly, legislative measures are developed to further the management of internal populations, to expel some while caging others. “Reasonable suspicion” is a cloak for racist assumptions in the application of the rule of law. The undocumented immigrant faces a perilous journey to escape war, poverty, misery, and persecution only to find the American Dream gasping in democracy’s concentration camps. Precarity wears the mask of normalcy as it circumscribes individual and social possibility.

The rule of law is an elaboration of lies, giving reason to a system of authority and money that progresses without apparent end. There are no outsiders, just nations and states, lives lived in exile or escape. Democracy promises us an enlightened freedom and delivers us to atomized existences fed from the trough of mass production and consumption. The competition of the market is a starvation internalized, provoking another exodus of the will for human solidarity and mutual sustenance.

The citizen differs from the undocumented immigrant only by the manufacture of division: national identity and identification, the political unity of consensus and conformity. Nation-states are evolved strategies of social control through which hierarchy assumes power over fixed territory. Borders are the spatial demarcations of confinement and expulsion, lies in the sand, future ruins of the current crisis of disempowerment and economized distrust. A world of classes, borders, and armed guards is a humanity interned by state violence and deception.

Solidarity is borderless and holds human division in contempt. We are all strangers in a world of identity checks, private property, and states of internment. The ‘path of least resistance’ conceals the brevity of authority’s ascendancy. From the crossroads of shared experience, humanity learns from false freedom and life-as-repression: liberation is an elaboration of rebellion. Rebellion is liberation from control.

Oppose SB 590 and the state’s rule of laws! Our humanity will not be divided into competition, containment, and the fictions of race. Solidarity to those without papers! Abolish all states and dismantle the borders!

Arizona to countersue feds over immigration issues

2011-02-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

Arizona is suing the federal government, claiming the feds have failed to secure the border and protect the state from "an invasion" of illegal immigrants.

Gov. Jan Brewer said the intent of the lawsuit and the state's first priority is to force the federal government to protect Arizonans.

"The first and foremost issue we're facing right now is the security, safety and welfare of our citizens," Brewer said. "The federal government needs to step up and do their job."

The lawsuit was filed Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Phoenix as a countersuit to the lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed against Arizona challenging the constitutionality of its immigration law, Senate Bill 1070.

"Arizona did not want this fight, we did not start this fight," Brewer said. "But now that we are in it, Arizona will not rest until our borders are secure."

The lawsuit alleges that the federal government has failed in five areas:

-To achieve and maintain "operational control" of the border.
-To protect Arizona against "invasion."
-To enforce immigration laws.
-To uphold the 10th Amendment, which states that "powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution ... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

"What we're seeking is to force the federal government to do its job," Attorney General Tom Horne said, adding that the Obama Administration is "actively" not enforcing immigration law.

Horne said there have been similar cases filed out of other states over the years.

"We hope this one will be successful," he said.

The White House declined to comment and referred calls to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who wrote SB 1070, was at Brewer's announcement of the lawsuit, as was Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix.

Sinema called the move a distraction from other issues and a waste of time.

"Gov. Brewer should be focused on solving the problems in our own house," Sinema said. "We need Congress to act. The state of Arizona doesn't have the power to do it."

Sinema, an attorney, said the invasion allegation in particular would likely fail in court.

"While we all agree the immigration crisis is a massive crisis, I don't think it qualifies as an invasion," she said.

Pearce dismissed criticism that the Legislature is focusing on immigration issues instead of jobs or the budget.

"This is about our budget," Pearce said. "This is about the health and safety of the citizens of Arizona."

He said he applauded the governor and attorney general for filing the lawsuit.

"The federal government has been derelict in their responsibilities," he said. "This is way overdue."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/02/10/20110210arizona-to-sue-feds-over-border-security.html

Los Angeles gets tough with political protesters

2011-02-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

For acts of political protest that his predecessor treated as mere infractions, Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is seeking jail time.

Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is throwing the book at dozens of people arrested during recent political demonstrations — a major shift in city policy that has him pressing for jail time in types of cases that previous prosecutors had treated as infractions.

Some of the activists arrested, including eight college students and one military veteran who took part in a Westwood rally last year in support of the DREAM Act, face up to one year in county jail.

Trutanich's aggressive stance is the latest episode in the city's decades-long legal struggle over the rights of protesters. The Los Angeles Police Department's treatment of demonstrators at the 2000 Democratic National Convention and at a 2007 May Day rally at MacArthur Park led to lawsuits against the city.

Trutanich said in an interview that recent demonstrations, conducted without permits, had cost the city thousands of dollars for police response and disrupted traffic. Organizers of illegal protests should face consequences, he said.

"My whole deal is predictability," he said. "In order for us to have a civilized society, there has to be a predictable result when you break the law. I want to make sure that they don't do it again."

The new policy, he added, was designed with an eye on what he called "professional" protesters who demonstrate repeatedly — sometimes for pay, he said — and never seem to be punished for their illegal activities.

"There's a right way and a wrong way" to protest, Trutanich said. "When you break the law, it's a not a mainstream 1st Amendment activity. You have the right to protest; you don't have the right to break the law."

Critics, including civil liberties advocates and at least one City Council member, accuse him of overkill and say his policies could imperil legitimate free speech.

"We should be incarcerating those who are truly public threats as opposed to students who are raising their voices out of passion for a cause," said City Councilman Ed Reyes, who has met with Trutanich on behalf of the DREAM Act supporters.

Reyes said the city should give people arrested in certain forms of protest a chance to work out deals with prosecutors to avoid jail time and criminal records.

Until recently, that was city policy — first-time offenders arrested in protests were typically granted what is known as a city attorney hearing, an informal alternative to a court date where defendants could negotiate deals.

In 2009, under Trutanich's predecessor, Rocky Delgadillo, all but one of 12 students arrested at a protest over fee hikes at UCLA were offered plea deals that reduced their charges to an infraction with a $100 fine.

"Our policy was that this is an exercise of 1st Amendment rights, and if this was your first time, you would get a hearing," said Delgadillo, who said his policy was based on the belief that a protester demonstrating for a political cause is different from a typical criminal.

John Raphling, an attorney who is representing a protester charged with three misdemeanors after a May 21 demonstration at City Hall over rent hikes, said Trutanich's approach is aimed at quashing dissent. "It's saying, 'You better not step out of line, you better not speak out,'" he said. "Why is he taking an approach that's a hundred times more harsh than anyone before?"

Others accuse Trutanich of acting from political motives, noting that he has flirted with a run for L.A. County district attorney — a motivation Trutanich denies.

The effect of his new approach can be seen in the prosecutions of those who took part in at least four demonstrations last year — including 10 people arrested at an August rally for laid-off janitors in Century City and 24 arrested at three protests against Arizona's controversial immigration bill, as well as the DREAM Act supporters.

At the May 20 rally for the passage of the DREAM Act, a bill that would have granted amnesty to illegal immigrants enrolled in college or serving in the military, nine people walked into the street in front of the Federal Building in Westwood, locked their hands together and sat down. They included recent graduates and current college students, one an honors student in her last year at UCLA, and a Navy veteran, Jonathan Bribiesca Ramirez.

The protest snarled rush-hour traffic on Wilshire Boulevard for hours. When police ordered the protesters to disperse, they refused. They were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly and blocking the sidewalk or street — misdemeanors that carry a maximum sentence of up to one year in jail.

As he has in the other protest cases, Trutanich has denied city attorney hearings to the DREAM Act protesters. Their trials are set to begin in March.

In at least one other case, however, the city attorney's office has offered to dismiss charges against some members of a group of protesters, according to their attorney, Cynthia Anderson-Barker. That case involved five students at Cal State Northridge who marched against budget cuts as part of an apparently spontaneous protest. The university's provost, Harold Hellenbrand, wrote a letter to Trutanich asking that the charges be dismissed.

Felipe Plascencia, who along with several other attorneys from the Mexican American Bar Assn. is representing the students in the DREAM Act demonstration for free, said he was shocked to learn that Trutanich was pressing ahead with those cases, as well as Trutanich's suggestion that the protesters were "professionals."

"I have not seen any evidence of that whatsoever," Plascencia said. "These were college students trying to prove a point. It's an injustice for [the city attorney's office] to have dragged on for this long."

Protest, he said, is an American value and has long played a prominent role in L.A. city affairs. In 2006, some 500,000 people marched downtown to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. "The whole foundation of this country was rebelling against an unjust system," he said.

Plascencia also heads the Mexican American Bar Assn. PAC, which supported Trutanich with endorsements and fundraising in his campaign for office. He has lobbied Trutanich to reduce or drop the charges against the DREAM Act protesters and says he hopes they will eventually be dismissed.

For now, however, the various protesters facing charges say their lives have been on hold. Garrick Ruiz, 34, is one of them. In May, he and 13 others locked their hands together outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in protest of Arizona's SB 1070, a measure that requires police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they stop and subsequently suspect may be in the country illegally.

"We knew we were doing something against the law and that we would have to go through the court system," Ruiz said. "That (Trutanich) has taken this path and sought this level of prosecution has been a shock."

This is not the first time Ruiz has been arrested for protesting. He was jailed for demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention in 2000 — and later saw his charges reduced to an infraction.

Last month, Ruiz and the group that staged the Arizona-law protest held a noisy demonstration outside Trutanich's City Hall office. They said his efforts will not deter them.

"If he thinks this is going to stop protest, then he doesn't understand why we did what we did," Ruiz said. "I had to do something, regardless of the personal cost."

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protester-prosecution-20110211,0,6707905,full.story

SB 1070's copycats see trouble now

2011-01-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

As state legislatures convene this month, lawmakers across the country who had vowed to copy Arizona's strict measure cracking down on illegal immigrants are facing a new reality.

State budget deficits, coupled with the political backlash triggered by Arizona's law and potentially expensive legal challenges from the federal government, have made passage of such statutes uncertain.

In the nine months since the Arizona measure, SB 1070, was signed into law, a number of similar bills have stalled or died, or are being reworked. Some have faced resistance from law enforcement officials who question how states or communities could afford the cost of enforcing the laws.

And some state legislators have backed away from the most controversial parts of the Arizona law, which has been challenged in court by the federal government and others. A federal judge has put on hold some of its provisions, including those that would require police to check immigration status if they stop someone while enforcing other laws, allow for warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants and criminalize the failure of immigrants to carry registration papers. The case is awaiting a ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

"Obviously most places were not going to pass Arizona bills," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tighter immigration laws.

"There's always an initial flush of enthusiasm and then the reality of politics sets in. ... These states are bankrupt. They need to decide what battles they want to fight."

"I won't be surprised to see more state task forces looking more fully at this issue," said Ann Morse, program director of the Immigrant Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Currently, Georgia, Mississippi, Indiana, Florida, Nebraska, Kentucky, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and South Carolina are among the states where Arizona copycat bills have been drafted.

In Florida, an Arizona-style bill that appeared headed for passage a few months ago now appears to be on life support. Even its primary Senate sponsor has expressed concern that the provision allowing police to check a person's immigration status during a traffic stop could amount to racial profiling.

In Utah, a state dominated by conservative Republicans, a couple of bills similar to Arizona's statute are in the legislative pipeline. But in November, state leaders from business, law enforcement, education and the Mormon Church urged moderation - and with some success. They drew up the "Utah Compact," which declares immigration a federal issue and urges legislators to focus resources on local crime.

There could be a political downside to enacting tougher laws headed into the 2012 presidential election.

At a recent conference organized by the new Hispanic Leadership Network, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican who has criticized the Arizona law, noted the importance of Latino voters.

"Hispanics will be the swing voters as they are today in the swing states," said Bush. "If you want to elect a center-right president of the United States, it seems to me you should be concerned about places like New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, places where but for the Hispanic vote, elections are won and lost."

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_e50bae95-abbf-5f1a-b7a0-6973f43261a5.html?mode=story

ICE's "Secure Communities" program goes into effect throughout Wisconsin

2011-01-24T15:41:00.001-08:00

ICE's "Secure Communities" program goes into effect throughout Wisconsin

January 12, 2011 - Voces de la Frontera

Yesterday the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) announced that its so-called "Secure Communities" program, a merger of the criminal justice and immigration systems, is now in effect in all Wisconsin counties. Secure Communities allows information on arrests from local jails to be shared with ICE, using biometric data, or fingerprints. ICE agents can ask law enforcement agencies to hold long-time legal residents and undocumented immigrants, and then transfer them into ICE custody to face deportation.

Around the country, activists have united in opposition to Secure Communities, concerned about the program encouraging racial profiling amongst law enforcement, as well as undermining the public's trust and safety by creating new fears of immigrant victims and witnesses to report crimes.

In addition, Secure Communities has already proven statistically troubling in the areas of the country where it is in place. As of December 2010, ICE reported that over 25% (13,054 of 50,972) of all deportations nationwide were of non-criminal immigrants, despite assurances by the Obama administration to focus ICE's efforts on criminals.

"Voces de la Frontera strongly condemns Wisconsin's participation in a program that actually makes communities less safe. The justification is that these partnerships will result in "smart" enforcement which prioritizes individuals who are a danger to the community. However, the reality is this casts too wide of a net, abusing due process rights so that someone who is innocent of a charge will still end up in deportation proceedings," says Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera.

"Wisconsin should follow the lead of other states such as New York and Colorado, which have revised a memorandum of agreement to ensure that smart enforcement is a reality."

Todos Somos Arizona January Update

2011-01-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

from comrades in Cali: Todos Somos Arizona

January 2011

Since Todos Somos Arizona was created in April 2010, upon the signing into law of Arizona’s SB 1070, we have been busy! Our goal has been to call attention and inspire resistance to laws such as SB 1070, and to call for an end to the criminalization of immigrants and communities of color. It is to these racist laws and policies that place a target on the backs of immigrants and people of color, that we say, “it is our moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Check out these highlights:

May 6, 2010: We organized a protest, where 14 people staged a sit-in in front of the Federal Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles blocking buses used for deportations from accessing the facility for several hours.
July 18^,2010: We convened a community town hall to educate each other on immigrant rights, histories of migration, current laws that legalize racial profiling and criminalize our communities.
July 26th, 2020: Dozens of activists participate in banner drops protesting Arizona’s SB1070 and calling for an end to the criminalization of immigrant communities.
July 29^,2010: On the day SB 1070 took effect, 10 more people from our collective engaged in an act of civil disobedience at the Los Angeles headquarters of G4S/Wackenhut Corporation, a private prison and security corporation that lobbied for and stands to profit from SB 1070.

Since then, the 24 Todos Somos Arizona demonstrators along with many others struggling for social and economic justice in Los Angeles have become the targets of an unprecedented politicized prosecution by the Los Angeles City Attorney that seeks to criminalize dissent at a moment when dissent is most necessary. For their decision to stand peacefully for justice, they have been charged with multiple misdemeanors and threatened with the possibility of up to one year in jail. The charges and potential jail time in these cases are far more severe than anything faced by those who took similar actions in Santa Ana, Arizona, and elsewhere.

What does this mean? We have more work to do!

Todos Somos Arizona is organizing an action, in collaboration with the other local groups being targeted by the City for their acts of protest, to denounce this criminalization of dissent and continue to call for end to the criminalization of immigrant communities and communities of color!

PLEASE JOIN US!

WHAT: Street theater demonstration in front of City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich’s office

WHERE: City Hall East.

WHEN: January 18, 2011

TIME: 9:30 a.m.

And please stay tuned for upcoming Todos Somos Arizona events!

In Solidarity,

Todos Somos Arizona

Letter to the DREAM Movement: My Painful Withdrawal of Support for the DREAM Act

2010-12-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

Letter to the DREAM Movement:

My Painful Withdrawal of Support for the DREAM Act

by Raúl Al-qaraz Ochoa

17 September 2010

I have supported the DREAM Act, despite my critiques and concerns over the military service component. In fact, I was one of the arrestees at the sit-in at John McCain’s office in Tucson, AZ; an act of civil disobedience where four brave undocumented students risked deportation and put the DREAM Movement back in the national political stage. I made peace with my participation because I felt I was supporting the self-determination of a movement led by undocumented youth and I felt we could subvert the component that was to feed undocumented youth into the military pipeline if we developed a plan to support youth to the college pathway.

First, let me say that I applaud and admire the tireless work you have all done for the past 10 years. Your commitment and dedication parallels giant student movements of the Civil Rights era. Your persistence in organizing even when the world turned their back on you is inspiring; your creativity in tactics, visuals and media strategy is amazing. Your movement gives hope to hundreds of students I have come across here in Arizona and beyond. It is because of your grassroots efforts—not the politicians’ nor the national Hispanic organizations’—that the Dream is still alive and has come this far. As an organizer with permanent resident status privilege, let me assert that your cause for access to college and path to legalization is just. No one can tell you that what you are fighting for is wrong.

With that said, I want to share how I am deeply appalled and outraged at how Washington politics are manipulating and co-opting the dream. I understand that some folks may say, “we just want the DREAM Act to pass regardless”, but it is critical to examine the political context surrounding DREAM in its current state. It is disturbing to see how Democrats are attaching our community’s dreams for education/legalization to a defense appropriations bill. This is grotesque in a number of ways:

1) Democrats are using the DREAM Act as a political stunt to appeal to Latino voters for the November elections because it is seen as “less” threatening than a broad immigration reform. The Democrats have the political will to recently unite and pass a border militarization bill in a matter of hours ($600 million!), yet they won’t pass a broader immigration reform? And now they are up for the DREAM Act? I’m glad they feel the pressure of the Latino voting bloc, but they obviously do not care about our lives, they only seek to secure their seats in November—which by the way look very jeopardized if they don’t move quickly to energize their “base”. They are also seeking to secure the gay vote with the gradual repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as part of this same defense bill. All in all, insincere, token political gestures only serve to stall real justice.

2) Democrats are telling me that if I support access to education for all my people, I must also support the U.S. war machine with $670 billion for the Pentagon? Does this mean I have to support the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan? By supporting the DREAM Act, does this mean I automatically give a green light for U.S. forces to continue invading, killing and raping innocent people all over the world? This is really unfair. Here in Arizona I struggle with a climate of fear and terror. Yet even though I am so far away, I hear the cries of Arab mothers who are losing their children in U.S. sponsored bombings and massacres. There’s a knot in my throat because victims of U.S. aggression abroad look just like us… victims of U.S. aggression at home. This ugly and twisted political system is dividing us and coercing us into supporting the funding of more bloodshed and more destruction if we want the DREAM Act to pass. Does this mean that our dreams will rest upon the nightmares of people that suffer globally? Obviously, students that call their Senators are supporting their future NOT bloodshed abroad, but we have to be responsible to the larger political implications of this.

3) Democrats are vilifying and criminalizing our parents. A really insulting argument prominently used for passing the DREAM Act that I keep hearing over and over is that because undocumented students “didn’t choose to come to the U.S. to break the laws of this country” you shouldn’t have to pay for the “sins” or “illegal behavior” of your parents. Are they serious?!? It is not okay to allow legislation to pass that will stand on and disrespect the struggle, sacrifice and dignity of our parents. What about blaming U.S. led capitalist and imperialist policies as the reasons that create our “refugee” populations. Our parents’ struggle is not for sale. We must not fall for or feed into the rhetoric that criminalizes us or our parents. We all want justice, but is it true justice if we have to sell out our own family members along the way?

Again, I support this fight–it’s part of a larger community struggle. It’s personal to all of us. Passage of the DREAM Act would definitely be a step forward in the struggle for Migrant Justice. Yet the politicians in Washington have hijacked this struggle from its original essence and turned dreams into ugly political nightmares. I refuse to be a part of anything that turns us into political pawns of dirty Washington politics. I want my people to be “legalized” but at what cost? We all want it bad. I hear it. I’ve lived it. but I think it’s a matter of how much we’re willing to compromise in order to win victories or crumbs.

This again proves how it is problematic to lobby the state and put all our efforts in legislation to pass. We should know that this political route is always filled with racism, opportunism, betrayals and nightmares. History repeats itself once again.

So if I support the DREAM Act, does this mean I am okay with our people being used as political pawns? Does this mean that my hands will be smeared with the same bloodshed the U.S. spills all over the world? Does this mean I am okay with blaming my mother and my father for migrating “illegally” to the U.S.? Am I willing to surrender to all that in exchange for a benefit? Maybe it’s easier for me to say that ”I can” because I have papers, right? I’d like to think that it’s because my political principles will not allow me to do so, regardless of my citizenship status or personal benefit at stake. Strong movements that achieve greater victories are those that stand in solidarity with all oppressed people of the world and never gain access to rights at the expense of other oppressed groups.

I have come to a deeply painful decision: I can no longer in good political conscience support the DREAM Act because the essence of a beautiful dream has been detained by a colonial nightmare seeking to fund and fuel the U.S. empire machine.

I am so sorry and so enraged that this larger political context has deferred those dreams of justice and equality that we all share.

In tears, rage, love and sorrow,

-r

http://antifronteras.com/2010/09/18/letter-to-the-dream-movement-my-painful-withdrawal-of-support-for-the-dream-act/

Study: 100,000 Hispanics left Arizona after SB1070

2010-11-20T18:12:00.001-08:00

A new study suggests there may be 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state's tough new immigration law earlier this year.

BBVA Bancomer Research, which did the study, worked with figures from the U.S. Current Population Survey. The study says the decline could be due to the law known as SB1070, which partly entered into effect in July, or to Arizona's difficult economic situation.

The study released Wednesday also cites Mexican government figures as saying that 23,380 Mexicans returned from Arizona to Mexico between June and September.

U.S. census figures from 2008 say about 30 percent of people living in Arizona are Hispanic, or about 1.9 million.

The state is appealing a ruling that put on hold parts of the law, which would have allowed police to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Immigrants are heavily employed in Arizona's construction industry, which has suffered _ along with the rest of the state's economy _ in the economic downturn.

In that and other studies released at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, BBVA Bancomer Research _ part of the financial group of the same name _ estimated that probably about 720,000 Mexican migrants were unemployed in the United States when the study concluded in late October.

The study also predicts that remittances _ the money sent home by migrants working abroad _ won't recover their peak value of about $26 billion until 2012 or 2013.

Remittances fell in 2008 and 2009, largely because of the U.S. slowdown.

Remittances are Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income after oil exports. Nearly all of the money comes from the U.S., where nearly 12 million Mexicans live.

The research center also estimated that remittances were dwarfed by the amount of money Mexican migrants paid in taxes in the United States _ about $53 billion in 2008.

http://azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/article_fe9734aa-bf5d-5e05-bfbf-a8fb6b2e5848.html

The Fascists Already Have the Keys and the Handcuffs

2010-11-20T18:08:00.001-08:00

From
http://chaparralrespectsnoborders.blogspot.com/

I've heard that even with the success of protesters holding up the nazis for over an hour from starting their rally last weekend, some folks still insist that they should just be ignored. True, they wouldn't have had an audience and perhaps no media coverage had no one showed up to oppose them. While I'm interested in what the opposition may have accomplished as far as the NSM's enthusiasm or ability to organize in this city goes, I am also interested in some differences in media coverage and what that might mean.

Last year, observations were made that at least one TV channel's coverage simply characterized the NSM rally as an anti-immigrant rally (well, that probably wasn't their wording). They showed the seig heils and uniforms and such, but they made no reference to their extremist politics. I thought this was good in a way- blurring the lines between swastika-wearing NSM extremists and the extremists who wear suits or police uniforms and deny their racism is probably a good thing. Especially since most of those who oppose the NSM tend to ignore the other anti-immigrant rallies and tea-party rallies (much of which overlap). On the other hand, it is important for people to know that there are actual nazis in town (okay, a lot of the ones who actually organize are from out of town, fortunately) and that nazis LOVE SB 1070. The resistance against the NSM march and rally brought this out into the limelight.

Not so long ago, NSM members JT Ready (not in NSM anymore but affiliated is what we hear) and Harry Hughes (both attended this last NSM rally), called on others to patrol areas of Pinal County to for migrants. Phoenix Insurgent writes in reference to Stephen Lemons' column, "one of the things I picked up on was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's failure to denounce the Nazi composition of the patrols. Sure, he says that he doesn't think the patrols would be helpful, but it seems as if Babeu, like the local media (with the exception of Lemons), has opted to treat Ready's little Nazi crew as legitimate, giving him a pass on his white supremacist beliefs and his many violent threats. Consider the fact the two media headlines about the event identify the NSM in the title only as a 'militia', not as Nazis or even a 'Nazi militia'. A more honest characterization would surely change the way people view the action" (Source). The Feathered Bastard has also pointed out how newscasters are hesitant to call Nazis what they are.

This weekend, however, the media is being much more clear about who was being opposed. "Neo-Nazi march met by protesters in Phoenix" was Channel 3's headline. "Police Arrest 2 In Clash With Neo-Nazis" was Channel 5's. Channel 10: "Neo-Nazis Protest in Downtown Phoenix".

In some ways it is useful that they are being identified as neo-nazis. In other ways, we mustn't fall into the tendency of seeing the nazis as separate from the other anti-immigrant folks. Within the anti-immigrant movement, they are the fanatics making the others look more legitimate, more reasonable. If we only focus on them, we lose sight of the bigger picture, just as focusing on Arpaio draws opposition away from the other police who make even more arrests but without making a show of it. This comparison also brings up the other point about separating white supremacists from institutional white supremacy/racism, which I brought up in my last post. As pointed out by a sign in a photo on the Prison Abolitionist blog, "The Fascists already have the Keys".

We should consider the ways in which focusing on the fascists legitimizes the other forms of white supremacy- those with more power. This is not to imply that the folks resisting the nazis otherwise ignore these other forms--in fact the protest was in many ways just as much against the police as the nazis. The relationship between the two is explained at the Fires Never Extinguished blog as well, but of course the issue with the police is not only their protection of and participation with nazis, but their role being mostly to enforce the color line such as through police brutality and murder as we saw in the case of Oscar Grant earlier this year.

I hope to see the kind of enthusiasm that surrounds protesting nazis also shown in cases of police brutality and prison issues in the future. There is something to say about how resistance affects the general population's view of things, not to mention the ability of those systems and people to function in the first place.

Arizonans take the streets against fascism, 2 arrested

2010-11-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

A few hundred Arizonans showed up ready to hold it down on Saturday, November 13 against the neo-nazi National Socialist Movement. Downtown Phoenix became pretty heated after a large number of people in black bloc attire took the street directly in front of nazis and their protectors the Phoenix Police Department. With a few different banners to help create a blockade people seemingly unaffiliated took space directly in front of the black bloc at times, showing that a lot of people are more than willing to stand up to both the cops and nazis.
There is already plenty of news and videos out there so I won't go on other than to say that police used pepper spray about ten times only to see demonstrators come right back to face them. They also fired pepper balls into the crowd over tops of shields without even aiming, hitting some in the face. After all the action was basically done two people were arrested. One of them from Tucson. Here's something from supporters:
Saturday, November 13th, 2010 the National Socialist Movement gathered in downtown Phoenix, Arizona as a part of their humorously titled “Reclaim the Southwest 2” tour. Politicians in Arizona who draft and sponsor racist legislation, such as Russell Pearce who sponsored SB1070, have been exposed for their connections to leaders of this movement and furthermore the NSM consider themselves to be on the forefront of the push toward more draconian, discriminatory, and racist laws. This year the neo-nazis came to spread their racist ideology and protest the injunctions made to SB 1070 but were met in the streets by a large, diverse crowd of folks who were there to shut them down and send the message that their hate isn’t welcome in Arizona.
The Phoenix Police Department marched and collaborated with the NSM to attack protesters with brute force and weapons such as pepper bullets and pepper spray. If there was ever any doubt in one’s mind of the veracity of claims that the PPD is a racist institution, they can be laid to rest. Minutes before the NSM's permit would have expired the PPD executed their attack on demonstrators and then extended the permit later into the afternoon wasting time, energy, and resources to protect neo-nazis. Police indiscriminately used pepper spray and pepper bullets, causing injury to demonstrators and innocent bystanders alike. Multiple people were shot in the face with pepper bullets as well. The racist PPD, who actually deport more people than the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, sent undercover officers/antagonists into the crowd of hundreds and into the black bloc working from both sides to target individuals. Photos and written accounts of the day reveal that police officers directed the NSM the entire time and worked alongside them giving orders of where to go, when to tighten up, allowing them to wrap their flags into clubs and move through the police line to instigate and then further their violently racist march.
Two individuals were arbitrarily targeted and arrested at the end of the day to be scapegoats for alleged “assaults.” One of them, Dane Rossman is currently facing 5 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon/dangerous instrument and 1 count of rioting. Dane has done extensive work in numerous communities to resist racism and to create a world that is based on mutual aid. He has been working with No More Deaths since 2007 to do migrant solidarity and humanitarian aid on the US/Mexico border and most recently has been organizing with the Tucson Childcare Collective and Migrapatrol Copwatch to resist the current attacks on Latino communities in Tucson. Dane had a bail of $7,500 that was paid for on November 13th, 2010 through a loan and needs assistance in paying this back and in raising additional legal funds. We are thankful for all the support already received and appreciate your involvement in the fight against fascism!

If you want to help please contact us here and we can put you in touch with the right people.
borderopposition@gmail.com

Thanks,
BOAF
http://borderopposition.blogspot.com/

A Sneak Preview: The Inglourious Basterds Bloc returns this November 13!

2010-10-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest, most sequels suck. With the obvious exception of a Terminator 2, or Empire Strikes Back, sequels rarely reach the creative apex of the source material, just ask anyone who sat through the follow ups to the Matrix. Still, I'd sit through another atrocious Ace Ventura before ever wanting to see one of those nazi goons from the National Socialist Movement (NSM) march in my town again.

Exactly a year ago, we at PCWC put out our first call for a demonstration, The Inglourious Basterds bloc, a tip of the hat to Tarantino's fantastic alt-history film about a group of Nazi hunters who take out Hitler and massacre the leadership of the Third Reich! We like the idea of creating our own mythology around our movement's successful struggles and actions, naturally we were quite taken by incorporating the mythology of the Basterds' victory into our anti-nazi bloc. Yeah, it was a bit meta, but it worked and it lent a good deal of enthusiasm to mobilizing a few hundred people to confront a white supremacist march, and shut it down an hour before their city march permit ended.

The NSM will be back in town to continue their "reclaim the southwest tour", a recruitment effort of theirs in which NSM activists from Texas to California amass in major cities in the southwest for NSM anti-immigrant rallies. They've been counting on their inflated numbers (fifty to seventy people) to give them the look of a growing fascist working class movement that has an actual base of support, so that when the mainstream media uncritically covers a white supremacist anti-immigrant rally, they neglect to mention that the majority of those attending the rally are racist agitators from outside of Arizona. It's in the spirit of last year's Inglourious Basterds Bloc, that we once again invite anti-racists and anti-authoritarians from across the state to converge in Phoenix in a mere two weeks to run these nazis back outta town!

Most movie sequels are just an excuse for studios to tap into the a successful concept and to milk it for every last dollar, and so in calling for a second mobilization against the NSM we were uneasy going "back to the well," to conceptualize the next manifestation of resistance to these damn racists. It got me to thinking, like any good sequel aren't there some "plot threads" left unresolved from the last year that beg for some resolution this time around?

Will the liberal and leftist organizers, who denounced the successful counter protest last year as a bunch of "crazies", come protest the NSM this time, or will they denounce us again? Can we provide the NSM a more disastrous exit this time than their car accident last year while fleeing the anti-nazi mob? Will we once again be standing alongside libertarians, constitutionalists, and veterans, who broke with the rightwing last year to oppose a fascist anti-immigrant rally? Can we bring out more people from across the state this time around and shut down this nazi shindig before it even kicks off?

There will also be a change in venue this time around, last year the NSM rallied at the state capitol, this time around they'll be rallying in support of the anti-immigrant law SB 1070 at the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. District court building in downtown Phoenix. The exact details are below.

The anti-nazi contingent will be gathering at Noon on Saturday, November 13 at the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. District court building located at 401 W. Washington St. in downtown Phoenix. According to their own web page, the NSM plan on marching at 1 PM, arriving at the courthouse by 2 PM for an hour of permitted speeches, before they leave at 3 PM, so plan on spending a few hours in downtown that Saturday.

Spread the word far and wide!

Against all borders, against white supremacy! See you in the streets!

And check out this trailer our comrades made!

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

2010-10-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

Glenn Nichols, city manager of Benson, Ariz., says two men came to the city last year "talking about building a facility to hold women and children that were illegals."

Laura Sullivan/NPR

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law

The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.

When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.

Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country.

"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."

But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.

"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"

Drafting The Bill

The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.

Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.

Key Players That Helped Draft Arizona's Immigration Law

And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.

They even named it. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."

"ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.

Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.

Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."

Nothing about this is illegal. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.

Campaign Donations

Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings.

"I don't go there to meet with them," he said. "I go there to meet with other legislators."

Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.

As soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.

That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.

The prison company declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.

By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.

Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.

Brewer and her spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

In May, The Geo Group had a conference call with investors. When asked about the bill, company executives made light of it, asking, "Did they have some legislation on immigration?"

After company officials laughed, the company's president, Wayne Calabrese, cut in.

"This is Wayne," he said. "I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what's happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."

Opportunities that prison companies helped create.

Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741&sc=fb&cc=fp

Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants

2010-10-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

By PETER CERVANTES-GAUTSCHI

Over the past four years roughly a million immigrants have been incarcerated in dangerous detention facilities in our taxpayer-financed private prison system. A growing number of news reports and investigations confirm that for many of the people funneled into this system, it is a living nightmare. Children were abused, women were raped, and men died from lack of basic medical attention.

These facilities are run by two Wall Street-backed companies that actively promote the criminalization and incarceration of immigrants in the United States -the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group.

The T. Don Hutto immigrant detention facility in Taylor, Texas provides a now well-known example of the abuses that take place within private prisons for immigrants. Beginning in May 2006,the Don Hutto prison was used to house children and their parents who were on a path to deportation. Reports began to surface of widespread abusive treatment of immigrant children by staff of Corrections Corporation of America. An ACLU lawsuit filed on the basis of documented cases of abuse finally led to the closing of the Don Hutto facility for housing families in 2008. After the children were excluded, the Don Hutto only held women detainees. But the abuses continued. Evidence has surfaced that a number of women were sexually abused over the past two years in Don Hutto by CCA staff. Sexual abuse, including rape, has been documented in several detention centers.

The other large private prison corporation contracted by the federal government to run immigrant prisons is the GEO Group. The GEO detention facilities have also racked up many reports and complaints of abusive treatment of immigrant detainees and corrupt staff practices that violate the basic human rights of prisoners. Last month we spoke with the sibling of a detainee in a GEO-run facility who was denied basic medical attention for lack of funds to pay. The detainee’s family had to raise funds to get their relative medical attention in the facility from GEO. Other GEO detainees have died from a lack of medical attention.

Another relative of a GEO detainee told us that prisoners who avoid getting on the wrong side of GEO guards could aspire, at most, to a job in the prison that pays 17 cents an hour for doing office work.

GEO recently agreed to pay restitution for its employees’ physical abuse of prisoners who were strip searched in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, and New Mexico. In another case, GEO was ordered to pay $40 million in the wrongful death of a prisoner in its custody in Raymondville, Texas. GEO has also been sued by seven children who were sexually assaulted by a guard while being held in a GEO facility.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), based in Nashville, Tennessee, and the GEO Group, a global corporation based in Boca Raton, Florida are the nation’s two largest prison companies. They run highly integrated operations to design, build, finance and operate prisons. GEO rakes in $1.17 billion in annual revenue, and CCA tops that at $1.69 billion. Together these companies are principal moving forces in the behind-the-scenes organization of the current wave of anti-immigrant legislative efforts, which, if successful, would dramatically increase the number of immigrant prisoners in over 20 states.

Following the Money

GEO CEO, George Zoley, was a Bush “Pioneer” who bundled more than $100,000 in contributions for the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004. In October 2003, GEO was successful in securing the contract to run the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

GEO hired the services of lobbyists who had held influential positions in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Prisons, Office of the Attorney General, and the office of then-Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, to lobby their former employers and Congress. Throughout 2005 and leading up to the largest immigration raid in U.S. history in December 2006, GEO and CCA spent a combined total of over $6 million on lobbying efforts.

On May 1, 2006, while millions of people marched in favor of immigrant rights in 102 cities across the country, GEO and CCA were lobbying the federal government for more business. The marchers, despite their historic turnout and broad citizen base, could not block the growing wave of government support of GEO’s and CCA’s business plans.

The December 2006 raid, in which over a thousand men and women employed at Swift meat-packing plants in several states were detained, marked a change in the federal government’s enforcement of the 1995 immigration law. For the first time, many of those picked up were charged with crimes such as falsifying identity documents or identity theft that carry long prison sentences, rather than misuse of a social security number, a misdemeanor.

This single change in enforcement of existing law created a potential “market” of over 10 million new felons almost overnight, multiplying the lucrative incarceration market for the private prison industry and sending a shock wave through immigrant-related communities across the country. At the time of the Swift raid, USA Today quoted the Reverend Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Logan, Utah, as saying, “They are taking mothers and fathers and we’re really concerned about the children. I’m getting calls from mothers saying they don’t know where their husband was taken.”

Through this change in how federal law is enforced, CCA and GEO suddenly had a huge pool of captive clients, and began to rake in millions of dollars in public funds to house, transport, feed and control immigrants.

Predictably, costs to taxpayers skyrocketed. From 2006 to the present, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) budget for the identification, custody, transportation, detention and removal of immigrants has increased 51%. The U.S. Marshall budget for the custody and transportation of immigrants over the same period has increased 15%, and the Bureau of Prisons budget for detention of immigrants over the same period has gone up 9%. The billions of dollars in increased expenditures have provided the primary source for the billions in increased revenue for CCA and GEO.

In addition, currently 625 state, county and municipality law enforcement agencies are providing identification, custody, transportation and detention of immigrants through agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

According to a federal Government Accounting Office study conducted last year the cost of this program to local taxpayers is unknown because 60% of state and local governments do not keep data on their personnel, equipment, supplies and other costs related to these agreements, and therefore are not reimbursed for those costs. Whatever the exact cost, local taxpayers will feel the pinch as this program is expected to expand to all 3,100 state, county and municipal detention jurisdictions in the nation by the end of 2011. Consequently CCA and GEO can expect to increase their revenues as states and counties increasingly subcontract incarceration responsibilities to these companies.

Last year Seeking Alpha, a website of actionable stock market opinion and analysis popular on Wall Street, reported that GEO’s income from prison health care services ending in March of 2009 topped $1.0 billion, a 5.8% profit. Seeking Alpha also stated that CCA’s profit for the same period in 19 states was over $1.6 billion, with a profit margin of 9.4%. In an article entitled “Where Delinquencies Make for Good Business” the same publication noted, “Crime, unfortunately, is a growth industry and GEO Group has proven to be a successful player in the outsourcing trend for governments at many levels.” Pushing criminalization of immigrants to cast a wider net in society has been a key part of that “success.”

Soon after the Bush Administration implemented the change in law enforcement affecting immigrants, Wall Street advisors publically recommended buying stock in private prison companies like CCA and GEO. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney was heavily invested in Vanguard, one of a handful of major shareholders in GEO.

The lobbying paid off for both companies, in huge revenue increases from government contracts to incarcerate immigrants. From 2005 through 2009, for every dollar that GEO spent lobbying the government, the company received a $662 return in taxpayer-funded contracts, for a total of $996.7 million. CCA received a $34 return in taxpayer-funded contracts for every dollar spent on lobbying the federal government, for a total of $330.4 million. In addition, both companies increased revenues over the same period from detention facility contracts with a number of states.

In 2007, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) conducted 30,407 immigration raids in workplaces, neighborhoods, and public gathering sites such as bus stops and commuter train platforms. The number of raids conducted that year was double the 2006 total. The number of immigrants placed behind bars, for what amounts to the crime of having been born in the wrong place, increased from 256,842 in 2006 to 311,169 in 2007.

As a result of fear induced by the raids and other factors, pro-immigrant May Day marches in 2007 were much smaller than those of the previous year. In mid-2007, while many activists and organizers were focused on legislative reform, public protests, eliminating the raids, and trying to help families and friends of those who had been taken away by ICE and other enforcement agencies, GEO and CCA shareholders reaped a huge profit. Both companies issued 2-for-1 stock splits that roughly doubled the value of their shareholders’ stake.

Although stockholders profited handsomely as revenues from prison contracts rose for both companies, the increase wasn’t large enough to satisfy some of their respective major shareholders. J.P. Morgan Chase, a major owner of GEO, dumped most of its stock and relinquished its leadership position in the company.

One problem for major investors seeking huge gains from the for-profit prison business was that revenue rates couldn’t keep rising because federal agencies didn’t have enough personnel to arrest and process more immigrants than the expanded number they were now handling. It became apparent that the only way to significantly raise revenue through increasing the numbers of people picked up, detained and incarcerated was to hire more law enforcement personnel.

The private prison industry now needed a new source of low-cost licensed law enforcement personnel. CCA and GEO then turned to state governments as the focus of business expansion. Both companies stepped up efforts to acquire contracts with state and local governments that were entering into lucrative agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants in state and local detention and correctional facilities.

The result of this shift in business focus is exemplified by CCA’s role in Arizona’s SB 1070 and both CCA’s and GEO’s roles in other legislative efforts aimed at dramatically increased numbers arrests of undocumented immigrants in over 20 states. Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, who received substantial campaign financing from top CCA executives in Tennessee and employs two former CCA lobbyists Chuck Coughlin and Paul Sensman, as top aides, signed SB 1070 into law on April 23.

On Friday, July 30, 2010 the Republican Governors Association, which so far this year has received over $160,000 in contributions from CCA and GEO, and their respective lobbyists, sent out a nationwide solicitation written by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer requesting contributions to fund an appeal of the partial injunction issued by a judge against SB 1070.

In addition to funds raised by the partisan appeal, Brewer’s legal effort has been bolstered by supporting briefs filed with the appeals court by three states– Florida, Texas and Virginia–that have contracts with GEO or with both GEO and CCA. The two prison companies are currently ramping up their political involvement in these states and in several others that have anti-immigrant bills moving through their respective legislatures. In all, twenty states are considering SB 1070-inspired bills, which have been endorsed by their respective Republican gubernatorial candidates, financed in large part by the Republican Governor’s Association.

Last November, CCA’s top management in Tennessee contributed the largest block of out-of-state campaign contributions received by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.[1] CCA, which already has several detention facilities in Arizona and hopes of expanding its immigrant prison business in that state, is expected to gain a huge increase in revenues with the implementation of SB 1070. Currently, Latinos driving out of the city of Tucson in any direction are being stopped at checkpoints, where they are asked to show their papers.

GEO and CCA are now heavily involved in the governor and state legislative races in states where they plan to expand their respective shares of the prison and incarceration market. GEO, for example, backed first-term Republican Governor, Bob McDonnell, in Virginia last year, and has contributed heavily to the Republican Governor’s Association and to the Florida Republican Party. In addition to Jan Brewer in Arizona, CCA is contributing to the campaigns of both, Republican Meg Whitman, and Democrat Jerry Brown, for governor in California. CCA is also giving money to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, even though Jindal isn’t currently facing an election, and to the Republican Governors Association, which has contributed over $1.5 million to state races this year.[2]

Since the change of administration in Washington D.C., GEO has expanded its presence there by adding the services of lobbyists who formerly served in high positions in the Obama presidential campaign, the Clinton White House, and the Senate and House Appropriations committees. Currently, GEO retains the services of three Washington D.C. lobbyists who also work for Wells Fargo, GEO’s top shareholder. One of GEO’s Washington D.C. lobbyists, Barbara Comstock, is also a member of the Virginia state legislature. CCA relies on its officers to do its lobbying in Washington DC,[3] where some board members, such as former Arizona U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini, are well-connected.

CCA’s and GEO’s share of the taxpayer-funded immigrant incarceration business has grown substantially since 2006. Today, for example, in California, anyone picked up by ICE in Los Angeles is sent to a CCA facility in San Diego, while those picked up by ICE in Seattle or Portland, OR, are sent to a GEO facility in Tacoma, Washington, because detention facilities owned and operated by the federal government are at 137% capacity, with no room to house more prisoners.

Wall Street’s Role

CCA and GEO are owned by major Wall Street institutions, which profit from the immigrant incarceration business as major shareholders.

The most influential investor in CCA is a hedge fund, Pershing Square, which is run by Wall Street investment guru activist investor, Bill Ackman. Ackman also plays a powerful role in Target Corporation and Kraft Foods. Wells Fargo is the most powerful investor in GEO.

Other major investors with the power to influence management in one or the other of the two companies are Vanguard, Lazard, Scopia, Wellington Management, FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock and Bank of America. Each of these major owners is sensitive to public opinion in one way or another. These major investors do not need to rely on either CCA or GEO to make money, since most of their money is invested in enterprises unrelated to private prisons.

By almost any measure, the increased number of deportations of immigrants has not had the desired effects on anyone other than the private prison industry. Unemployment among native-born citizens in the U.S. has skyrocketed as the number of immigrants being deported has risen to over 400,000 a year.

The United States now has more people in prison than any other country on earth. At over 2 million, the U.S. has a half million more people behind bars than China, which has the second highest number of prisoners.

One would like to think that bringing this information to Congress’s attention would be enough to compel them to abandon policies that criminalize immigrants. However, that is not likely to happen soon.

This probable reluctance on the part of Congress to act isn’t merely because of the substantial campaign contributions that Senators and members of Congress receive from the private prison industry. Most members of Congress have personal investments in one or more of CCA’s or GEO’s major shareholders.

While it is true that many people are invested in CCA or GEO through their pensions without knowing it, reports on the personal finances of some key members of Congress suggest some of them have more than a casual interest in the fortunes of CCA or GEO.

One example of a Washington DC powerhouse with a substantial financial interest in CCA is Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, one of a small group of investors in Pershing Square, a hedge fund that holds the most stock in CCA of any of the company’s shareholders. Senator Enzi, a senior Republican who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, was awarded a 100% approval rating by U.S. Border Control (USBC), which describes itself as “a non-profit, tax-exempt, citizen’s lobby. USBC is dedicated to ending illegal immigration by securing our nation’s borders and reforming our immigration policies.”

As Congress is currently tasked with finding ways to reduce the burgeoning deficit and alleviate the suffering caused by the economic crisis, shifting priorities from programs that benefit prison companies to much-needed programs that benefit taxpayers only makes sense. Compelling Congress to abandon immigrant criminalization policies is probably going to require, among other things, that citizens convince some combination of our pension funds, Wells Fargo, and a key hedge fund or two, to pull out of the private prison industry and to go elsewhere to make money.

We should be able accomplish this. IBM and Ford, when challenged, found themselves unable to justify their investments in apartheid in South Africa. As a result of a swelling movement of students, faith-based organizations, unions and shareholders, these companies divested in 1986, contributing to the fall of the racist apartheid system and a transition to democracy.

Similarly, Wells Fargo, Pershing Square, and other financial giants shall be hard-pressed to justify investments in the massive suffering caused by the criminalization of immigrants, as a movement comes together to expose the harm done to the public good by their current investments in the immigrant prison industry.

Who knows? Some of these financial institutions might even see the wisdom in investing in companies that produce family-wage jobs.

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi is the Director of Enlace, a Portland, OR based organization focused on strategic organizing, campaigns, and training in organizational development around workers’ struggles, and the impacts of multinational corporations in the lives of people in all sectors of society. Peter has been a labor activist since 1965, starting as a young farm worker in Southern California. He is a frequent contributor to the Americas Program www.cipamericas.org.

Sources.

[1] Arizona campaign contribution reports compiled by the National Institute On Money in State Politics show that CCA’s CEO Damon Hininger, CFO Todd Mullenger, CDO Anthony Grande, and then General Counsel, Gus Puryear, contributed to Jan Brewer’s campaign.

[2] National Institute on Money in State Politics.

[3] Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets.org

http://www.counterpunch.org/gautschi10152010.html

Australia: Solidarity actions with the Villawood detainees

2010-09-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

This is one reportback about a series of actions that took place in various parts of Sydney today in solidarity with the detainees at Villawood detention center - who were occupying the roof there in an act of defiance at their own incarceration and out of respect for Josefa Rauluni who had committed suicide there yesterday morning.

Today afternoon a group occupied the foyer of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIC) and locked themselves to the front counter. This action was undertaken with the direct purpose that it could affect the outcome of the protest taken by detainees at Villawood who were saying they would be forced to jump from the roof if no-one from DIC would speak to them regarding their cases. By occupying and refusing to leave the DIC office we intended to apply some more force upon these faceless officials to actually respond to the desperation of those occupying the roof.

The action was also taken because it had become clear that the militancy of those incarcerated within these detention centers was far outstripping that of anyone outside. We hoped to raise the level of solidarity with those inside beyond passively pleading to some higher authority to be 'more humane'.

After gaining entry and occupying, the group asserted they would not leave until things were sorted out on the roof at Villawood. Management at DIC refused to accept any responsibility for the situation there, typically trying to pass the buck like the faceless bureaucrats they are. Eventually they expectedly passed the buck right on to the police, who were happy to threaten all with arrest.

Inspite of the intimidation tactics of the police, stalling tactics allowed the protesters to stay in a fair bit longer. All the while, we were in contact with those on the roof at Villawood, expressing our solidarity and finding out how they thought negotiations were going. By the time police rescue arrived to cut free those locked on at DIC it was becoming clear that there was a chance of a resolution out at Villawood that was at least satifactory enough to make the detainees on the roof not jump off.

By this point however, the police were determined to harass, intimidate and make arrests and so 2 of the protesters inside DIC were arrested and held for a number of hours and charged with trespass. A number of people gathered outside the police station where those arrested were being held in an act of defiance and solidarity. Due to further police provocation and harassment a further arrest was made at this stage.

In solidarity with all those incarcerated in prisons, detention centers or whatever name they are given we scream...
"Our passion for freedom is stronger than their prisons."

The Villawood detainees that had occupied the roof eventually came off not because of any discussions with the pathetic officials from the Immigration Department, but because of some significant, but only intermediary assurances from UNHCR.

It is also worth pointing out there were 2 other equally significant actions undertaken in solidarity with those on the roof today. One involved a few hundred people heading out to Villawood so that they could be visible and heard by detainees in a strong and direct show of support. The other was the taking over of a public square in Newtown by 30 or so people who hung banners and handed out flyers during peak hour.

The following is a text that was being distributed by those who were involved in the occupation at DIC...

Solidarity with Villawood Detainees

“It has come to this because we have seen life lost and we believe we have to do this in order to protect our lives” – detainees in Villawood

Early yesterday morning, Josefa Rauluni committed suicide in Villawood detention center. He was to be deported that day. This death rests in the hands of Australia’s paranoid and racist border policy.

Other detainees immediately responded to show respect for Josefa and express their anger at their own detention. 11 people have occupied the roof of Villawood and many more have been on hunger strike for over 20 hours.

The events of yesterday demonstrate the desperate situation in the detention centres and the brutality that underpins border control. Deportations and invisible queues have claimed more lives than we will ever know. The experience of living under this oppression cannot be measured.

The rooftop protest of several detainees is part of a growing militancy amongst those incarcerated in detention centres. In the past months we’ve seen hunger strikes, breakouts, roof occupations and self harm. The present protest in Villawood is an expression of rage by people whose control over their own lives has been taken away by the Australian Government. It acutely expresses how fortress Australia takes lives.

Yesterday there were protests on both sides of the fences in Villawood. We must continue to take action in solidarity with the struggles occurring from within the detention centres. Our actions must reflect the urgency of the situation as the government amps up its racist, anti-migrant rhetoric and implements harsher policies that cost people’s lives.

We struggle against the policing of peoples movement and micro-control of peoples lives at the borders (and in detention) not because of humanitarian concern, but because their struggle is also ours. We have more in common with these people than with the bosses and the politicians who make the decisions that affect all our lives.

We struggle against all borders because no death as a result of border protection brings us more freedom.

We tear down all cages because peoples’ desire to move will never be caged.

http://indymedia.org.au/2010/09/22/solidarity-actions-with-the-villawood-detainees

Prison Industry Funnels Donations To State Lawmakers Introducing SB1070-Like Bills Around The Country

2010-09-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

In December 2009, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a powerful front group that helps corporate representatives craft template legislation for state lawmakers, funded partially by the private prison industry — hosted Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R) and began debate on legislation that would provide broad powers to local police to arrest anyone who might look like an immigrant. ALEC then distributed the template legislation to its members. The January/February 2010 edition of ALEC’s magazine highlights the draft version of SB1070 — the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” — as model legislation.

In April of this year, Pearce then introduced ALEC’s template as the infamous SB1070 law. Notably, the ALEC task force which helped Pearce devise his racial profiling law included Laurie Shanblum, a lobbyist from the mega-private prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) which previously played a role in privatizing many of Texas’ prisons. An investigation from Arizona’s KPHO-TV found more ties between SB1070 and the private prison industry: Paul Senseman, Gov. Janet Brewer’s (R-AZ) deputy chief of staff was a former lobbyist for CCA (his wife is still a lobbyist for CCA) and Chuck Coughlin, Brewer’s campaign chairman, runs the lobbying firm in Arizona that represents CCA. In These Times reporter Beau Hodai, who also reported much of SB1070’s connections to the private prison industry, has a chart to explain the relationship.

CCA is set to receive well over $74 million in tax dollars in FY2010 for running immigration detention centers. In a presentation given earlier this year, Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with a large financial stake in CCA, suggested that CCA’s profitability depends on increasing numbers of immigrants sent to prison. Many of the legislators helping to earn CCA more profits with radical anti-immigrant bills mirroring SB1070 have been recipients of private prison industry cash or have worked closely with the CCA-funded ALEC organization:

– TENNESSEE: Earlier this year, legislators in Tennessee passed an immigration bill with provisions “similar to, but less harsh than, those of SB 1070, including requiring city and county jails in the state to report any person who may be in violation of immigration laws to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” But that wasn’t enough: right-wing local lawmakers also passed a resolution honoring Arizona’s SB1070, and a delegation of state lawmakers promised to introduce an anti-immigrant bill even “broader” than SB1070 in 2011. Many of the leading local lawmakers who voted for the anti-immigrant bill and resolution received thousands of dollars from CCA’s political action committee in the past two years, including State Reps. Gerald McCormick ($250), Barrett Rich ($500), Eric Watson ($250) and State Sens. Bill Ketron ($1,000), Jim Tracy ($500), Dolores Gresham ($1,000), Bo Watson ($500), and Jack Johnson ($500). Tracy, who sponsored the resolution honoring Arizona’s SB1070, also received $2,000 directly from CCA founder Tom Beasley, reports the Nashville City Paper. CCA retains five lobbyists in the state and spent at least $50,000 this year to lobby on immigration and other issues.

– OKLAHOMA: Rep. Mary Fallin (R-OK), who won her party’s nomination to run for governor this year, received the maximum donation permitted by law from CCA. State Rep. Randy Terrill (R-OK), who announced that he was planning an “Arizona-Plus” immigration bill that would be harsher than SB1070, is a proud member of the CCA-funded American Legislative Exchange Council.

– COLORADO: A group of Republican lawmakers in Colorado, after a research trip to Arizona this summer, have stated that they plan on passing a SB1070 law in Colorado next year. CCA’s lobbyists in Colorado have raised funds for many of the lawmakers in the group. CCA lobbyist Margy Christiansen raised $400 State Rep. Randy Baumgardner, one of the leaders of Colorado’s Arizona expedition, and CCA lobbyist Jason Dunn raised $150 for State Sen. Mike Kopp, the Republican minority leader who is promising to promote an SB1070 bill next session.

– FLORIDA: During the gubernatorial primary campaign between disgraced businessman Rick Scott and Attorney General Bill McCollum (R-FL), the prospect of importing Arizona’s SB1070 became a prominent issue in the race, with both candidates promising to bring a version of the law to the state. While many Florida Republicans recoiled at the idea, which stands to alienate many Hispanic voters, a cadre of state lawmakers and candidates for the state legislature, most funded by the prison industry, announced their support for an SB1070-type law. State Rep. Bill Snyder, who has received $500 from CCA, pledged to introduce a bill more draconian than SB1070. State House candidate Ben Albritton, another outspoken supporter of SB1070, took $500 from CCA, and State Rep. Joe Negron, who has been working with Snyder to sponsor the bill, received $1,000 from the Geo Group, another major private prison contractor which operates immigrant detention centers. Overall, the Republican Party of Florida has been the biggest recipient of prison industry cash in the past two years: $37,000 from CCA and $145,000 from the Geo Group.

– PENNSYLVANIA: In the Key State, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-PA) introduced the ALEC-drafted “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” one month before State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ) introduced his version of the bill in Arizona. Metcalfe is a highly active member of ALEC. He was paid $1,500 by ALEC just to attend its meetings with CCA lobbyists on how to draft the law.

In Tennessee, the average daily number of immigration detainees sank to 40 in FY2009, down from 95 in FY2008. This may change with CCA’s aggressive lobbying for more laws encouraging aggressive arrests of immigrants or people who look like immigrants. Charles Maldonado, who has reported on CCA’s corrupting influence at the Nashville City Paper, notes that CCA may see new business at its West Tennessee Detention Facility with the passage of more SB1070-related laws.

ALEC, with funds from several private prison companies, helped sponsor “truth-in-sentencing” and “three-strikes-you’re-out” laws all over the country for the past two decades. These laws have greatly increased incarceration rates, and have contributed to America’s distinction of having the largest prison population in the world.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/16/sb1070-prison-lobby/

Tucson Group “Polices” the Police on Immigration

2010-09-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

TUCSON, Ariz.— A coalition of community groups in Tuscon is using video to show how readily police are cooperating with Border Patrol, despite local law enforcement’s stated opposition to Arizona’s new immigration law before it took effect.

The “Yo Soy Testigo” ("I’m a witness") campaign, launched by Tucson-based Coalición Derechos Humanos, seeks to shine a light on the practice of police cooperation with Border Patrol in the city.

The group, in partnership with PanLeft Productions and Migra Patrol CopWatch, has been using video cameras to document just how often police officers are detaining Latinos—with or without documents—and turning them over to immigration authorities. The group hopes that the videos will increase community awareness of how police are really treating Latinos, despite their supposed opposition to SB1070, and will pressure law enforcement to change its policies.

“We want to expose this reality and for people in the community to take responsibility,” said Isabel Garcia, director of Coalición de Derechos Humanos. She urges people to call the Yo Soy Testigo hotline to report any incidents so they can be videotaped and documented.

Prior to SB 1070, local police departments and other state agencies already had their own policies to detain undocumented immigrants on a discretionary basis. Had a court allowed the new law to take full effect, such detentions would have become mandatory throughout Arizona.

But the mandatory detention provision of SB 1070 provoked a strong outcry from the state's local law officers.

“We are not interested in enforcing federal immigration law,” said Captain Michael Gillooly, the Tucson Police Department's chief of staff. “The problem with SB 1070 is that it mandated we did that.”

In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star in July, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said: “Although illegal immigration has undeniable impacts on Arizona, requiring local police already strapped for resources to act as immigration agents is not the answer.”

The Pima County Sheriff's Department and the South Tucson Police Department also opposed SB 1070.

But despite such widespread opposition, videos captured by Jason Aragon of PanLeft and Migra Patrol Copwatch show a different picture.

A recent video posted online, titled “SB 1070 is in full effect,” shows a woman detained by Tucson police and then shortly after taken away by Border Patrol.

Lynda Cruz, a volunteer with Migra Patrol CopWatch, was present that day, and said the woman was pulled over for a minor infraction. The woman, a legal resident, had forgotten her wallet at home and didn’t have any identification, Cruz says.

Volunteers like Cruz advise people who are detained to refuse to speak with their captors and to request the presence of their attorney.

When New America Media asked about this incident, Gillooly said the Tucson Police Department was confident that the officer acted appropriately and was following department policy.

“Our investigation of that revealed that when the Border Patrol arrived, that female refused to answer any questions,” Gillooly said. He said the federal agent was forced to take her to the station to check whether she was an undocumented immigrant.

When asked why the police detained this woman and called the Border Patrol, Gillooly said he wouldn’t provide any more information.

Cruz said similar incidents have occurred in South Tucson, an area that is predominantly Hispanic.

Gillooly said the department has not seen an increase in complaints from community members about possible racial profiling or police abuse.

“People don’t complain? How are they going to complain if they are the ones retaliated against?” responded Garcia of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

The situation in Tucson hasn’t attracted nearly as much media attention as the controversial immigration raids in Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies. But, in many ways, the dynamics at play in Tucson are creating heightened tensions.

About 40 percent of the city’s half-million residents are Latinos. Tucson, located less than two hours from the Mexican border, is also home to a Border Patrol station, which facilitates more direct cooperation between police and U.S. immigration authorities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has 3,300 Border Patrol agents dedicated to the Tucson sector of the border.

In the past five years, the Border Patrol added 1,000 agents as part of a federal effort to escalate border security.

Unlike Phoenix, it is not uncommon to see Border Patrol cars driving through Tucson. Many of those who work at the Border Patrol station live in the community.

“People are divided over this issue,” said Alex González, a volunteer [or “promotoras”] with Coalición de Derechos Humanos. “Even families are divided on this.”

She said the new “Yo Soy Testigo” hotline has been flooded with calls denouncing police detentions and cooperation with Border Patrol.

One of the calls she took last week came from Gerardo Robles, a heartbroken undocumented immigrant, who sobbed over the phone in desperation. His wife, who was also undocumented, was pulled over by a Tucson police officer in a traffic stop. The officer called the Border Patrol, and now his wife is in a detention center.

Robles and his family have been living in Tucson for six years. He said they considered leaving the state because of SB 1070 but had been hoping for the best— in the past, police had stopped him on several occasions but had never called the Border Patrol. The politics behind SB 1070 might have changed things, he said.

“A criminal that traffics with drugs—those people are in the streets,” he said. “They are the ones that are free. My wife was coming back from work to feed our two children.”

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/09/tucson-group-polices-the-police.php

BOAF Art Auction

2010-09-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

Join us for an excessively fun time. The Boxing Gym(no, it's not a boxing gym anymore) is located in Barrio Anita near the Southwest corner of I-10 and Speedway Blvd. Check out the Art page to see some of the art that's already come in.

Border Opposition Action Fund: Call to Artists!

2010-09-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

BOAF is hosting an Art Auction on Saturday, Oct. 9. Details of the event will be posted soon. Money raised at this event will go to O'odham VOICE Against the Wall, O'odham Solidarity Across Borders and those who locked down at the Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson, Az in May. The basics of art submissions are as follows.
Any medium is welcome.
Content does not have to be border related.
We are asking for submissions or their photos by Fri., Sept. 24. Photos with artist information will be posted.
We are asking for submissions by Fri., Oct 1.

O'odham Ofelia Rivas to National Guard: 'We do not want you on our lands'

2010-09-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

Ofelia Rivas, traditional O'odham living on the border, released a statement to the National Guard, who are to arrive on the US/Mexico border in Arizona on Monday.

To the United States National Guard arriving in O'odham Lands,

We are not compliant people, we are people with great dignity and confidence. We are a people of endurance and have a long survival history. We are people that have lived here for thousands of years. We have our own language, we have our own culture and traditions.

You are coming to my land, you may find me walking on my land, sitting on my land and just going about my daily life. I might be sitting on the mountain top, do not disturb me, I am praying the way my ancestors did for thousands of years. I might be out collecting what may be strange to you but it might be food to me or medicine for me.

Sometimes I am going to the city to get a burger or watch a movie or just to resupply my kitchen and refrigerator. Some of us live very much like you do and some of us live very simple lives. Some of may not have computers or scanners or televisions or a vehicle but some of us do.

The other thing is that some of us are light-skinned O'odham and some of us are darker-skinned O'odham. Some of us spend a lot of time indoors or outdoors. Sometimes my mother might be of a different Nation (refers to different tribal Nation) or sometimes our father is Spanish or we may have some European grandmother or grandfather.

If you want to question who we are, we all have learned to carry our Tohono O'odham Nation Tribal I.D. Card. It is a federally-issued card which is recognized by the federal government which is your boss. This card identifies us and by law this is the only requirement needed to prove who we are. We do not have United States passports because most of us were born at home and do not have documents, but that does not make us "undocumented people." Your boss, the Department of Homeland Security, and the government of the Tohono O'odham Nation have negotiated an agreement which is, our tribal I.D. card is our identification card and no other document is required.

The O'odham, (the People) as we call ourselves, have been here to witness the eruption of volcanoes that formed the lands we live on. We have special places that hold our great-great-great-great-great great grandparents remains, our lands are a special and holy place to us. Some of us still make journeys to these places to pray. Some of these places hold holy objects that maintain specific parts of our beliefs. When you see us out on the land do not assume we are in the drug business or human smuggling business. Sometimes we are out on the land hunting for rabbits or deer or javelina to feed our families. We may be carrying a hunting weapon please do not harm me, my family loves me and depends on me.
When you are out on our land, be mindful that you are visitor on our lands, be respectful, be courteous and do not harm anything.

Sometimes you may see us gather all night long, dancing and sometimes we are crying loudly, do not approach us or disturb us in anyway, we are honoring a dead relative and preparing them for burial. Sometimes we are conducting a healing ceremony out on the land, do not approach us or disturb us. Sometimes we may be singing and dancing all night long, these are our ceremonies that we have conducted for thousands of years. We are not behaving in a suspicious nature, this is our way of life.

As original people of the lands we honor everything on our lands and we regard all as a part of our sacred lives, do not kill any plants and animals or people on our lands. Do not litter our lands with your trash. When we visit other peoples lands and cities and homes we do not litter or leave behind trash.

We might be driving our cars, sometimes old, sometimes very new, do not try to run us off the roads or tailgate me. I value my life and my family, I might have a newborn in my car or my grandmother or my mother and father, my brothers and sister or my aunts and uncles or my friends. These are all important people to me and I do not want to see them hurt or dead.

If I seem like I do not understand what you are saying, please call the Tohono O'odham Police and ask for an O'odham speaking officer to come and assist you. I might be laughing at you if you talk to me in English, I don't know what you are saying and I am laughing out of nervousness and fear because you are armed.

If you are afraid of us and draw your weapons on me, I am more afraid of you because I am unarmed and my family is in the vehicle with me or they are in my house when you come into my house. Sometimes my house might be in poor condition but it is my home, it is my sanctuary, be respectful. Sometime there are elders in my house that are already afraid of armed people in our communities such as the border patrol and other federal agents.

There are some people that do drug business or human smuggling business but we are not all doing that, we are not all criminals. Do not treat us like criminals.

We might call you killers and murderers as you just came from killing people. To the O'odham you are a dangerous person, to walk onto our lands bringing fresh death on your person is very destructive to us as a people. You may have diseases we do not know, illnesses of your mind that you might inflict on us. Please do not approach us if you are afflicted with fresh death.

Remember we do not want you on our lands, we did not invite you to our lands.

Do remember that we have invited allies that will be witnessing your conduct on our lands and how you treat our people.

From the the O'odham Lands
Ofelia Rivas

Originally posted at Censored Blog:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

33 charged with blocking L.A. city streets during immigration protests

2010-09-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles prosecutors have charged 33 immigration activists with a variety of misdemeanor crimes related to three protests beginning in May that blocked city streets.

The protesters face charges, such as remaining at an unlawful assembly, resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer and blocking the sidewalk or street.

Those facing resisting-arrest charges face up to year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted. Those charged with unlawful assembly face up to six months in jail if found guilty, a spokesman for the city attorney's office said.

In the first incident May 6, eight women and six men participated in a protest against the new Arizona immigration law by blocking an intersection near the federal courthouse on Alameda Street with their hands locked together inside tube devices.

Prosecutors claim it took officers several hours to remove the protesters, who are to be arraigned Sept. 22.

Later in the month, California Highway Patrol officers arrested nine immigration protesters in front of the West Los Angeles Federal Building. The suspects sat in the street, locking their hands together and causing a massive traffic jam for several blocks.

On July 29, protesters blocked the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Highland Avenue by putting their hands together in a locking device and refusing to move.

Officers had to physically carry the demonstrators and used specialized equipment to remove the elaborate tube and chain locking systems connecting the protesters' arms.

-- Richard Winton

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/33-charged-with-blocking-la-city-streets-during-immigration-protests.html

Noise Demonstration at Santa Cruz County Jail

2010-08-09T14:33:00.001-07:00

“Bunch of overgrown boy scouts/but it’s us against them ‘til they let every one of my boys out” –Unalike, A-Alikes

On Friday evening, August 6, we gathered outside the Santa Cruz County Jail to demonstrate our solidarity with the people locked up inside and express our hatred of imprisonment. About 30-40 of us stood in the middle of Blaine Street, next to both the main County Jail (where 336 people are locked up) and the Women’s Facility (21 people). We banged on drums made from 55-gallon barrels with the intention of creating as much noise as possible to breach the prison walls. Our portable sound system blasted insurgent hip-hop, including N.W.A’s “Fuck the Police” and the Geto Boys’ “G-Code.” We carried two banners stating, “Free All Prisoners” and “Chinga la Migra/Fuck I.C.E.”

Chants included “We Are All Illegal, Todos Somos Ilegales,” “Chinga la Migra, Y La Policia,” and “Revolt on the Outside, Revolt on the Inside!” We also told jokes at the expense of cops and jail guards. At one point, as the jail guards stood on the roof of the jail watching us, people started chanting “Jump! Jump! Jump!” We also used a megaphone to attempt to speak directly to the prisoners and let them know that they are not forgotten and that they have support from the outside.

One of the main reasons we were there was to express our rage at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (AKA La Migra). We despise the very existence of I.C.E. and borders, but we’re specifically pissed off about a program (named “Secure Communities” by some twisted bureaucrat) that is going to be implemented in the local jail starting August 10. "Secure Communities" mandates that every person booked into jail will have their fingerprints run through an I.C.E./Department of Homeland Security database. Currently there are 25 people on I.C.E. hold in the County jail system, meaning that they will be held an extra 48 hours after they should be released, so that I.C.E. can kidnap them. The new program, funded by Obama, will lead to even more people being detained and deported. Also, earlier this year, the city decided to hire eight more cops, and the police’s gang unit has started working directly with I.C.E.

The apartment complex next to the jail has similar architectural features—isolated units surrounded by high walls and a metal fence. Some of the neighbors came outside and spoke with participants in the demo. Generally, they seemed supportive; one young girl even joined in briefly by playing a drum. We also passed out a pamphlet containing our analysis in hopes of spreading a critical dialogue about I.C.E. and imprisonment. The demo was an attempt at breaking out of our own isolation and communicating with others, both the prisoners and the neighbors. In some ways, we were successful, but we have much to learn. It was an empowering event for participants and some passersby, though we haven’t yet heard what the prisoners’ reactions were. In a heartbreaking moment as we were leaving, we exchanged glances with a woman in the Blaine St. Facility standing at the window. The grim reality of confinement was unavoidable as we departed and she remained.

REVOLT AGAINST ALL PRISONS.

On ICE, Imprisonment, and White Supremacy

2010-08-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is a pamphlet that was passed out at the Friday noise demonstration outside the Water St. Jail. We hope to radicalize the dialogue about immigration, and draw lines between the criminalization of migrants and and other marginalized people.

Social Control In Santa Cruz:
ICE, Imprisonment, and White Supremacy

August 2010

In our midst there are humans living in cages: tucked between the San Lorenzo River and Ocean Street over 300 people sit behind bars, serving sentences or awaiting trial. From the drunks in their stupor, caught up on yet another DUI, to the gang members arrested for having the wrong family or tattoos, to the gun-toting killer: our crimes are a product of our society, a response to the everyday violence that capitalism inflicts upon our lives and bodies by the mechanisms of poverty, by the police’s baton, the pesticides in the field and the “accidents” in the factory. Crime and criminals only exist because the law exists to categorize people as such, just like illegal immigration is only a phenomenon because of the existence of nations and borders. To escape the situation we are in we must step back and examine it clearly, and look at the real functions of imprisonment in our society.

Some residents of Santa Cruz have been in an uproar about the supposed crime problem: “Our town is being taken over by illegals!” “If we know who these people are, can’t we just go in their houses and get them?” “How would those anarchists like it if we threw a rock through their windows?” Since the killings of Tyler Tenorio, Carl Reimer, and the May Day property destruction, the police and their allies have needed a scapegoat for their failure to control Santa Cruz and keep out the riff-raff. Of course, the obvious choices were those who the police already wanted locked up: people of color and anarchists. The Santa Cruz Sentinel has only contributed to the hysteria and witchhunt-like atmosphere by publishing misleading articles and pictures of SubRosa collective members. While the death threats seem to be over, the city council has used the riot and recent violence as a justification to fill eight vacant positions in the police force, as well as to begin working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

With neo-nazi and fascist activity in our country on the upswing, we must fight any ICE presence in our area. Immigration control and the militarization of the border are but one more way to divide and conquer the lower classes: racism and fascism go hand in hand. In the guise of national security, the federal government is establishing a system which gives them the ability to detain people of color at will, indefinitely, without access to legal help or medical care. A 2009 article in The Nation reported that ICE has 186 unmarked and unlisted offices they use to detain people, incommunicado. 107 people have died in ICE custody between 2003 and 2009. But we don’t need this proof to know that the whole project of immigration control is fucked. We know it’s just another tool of a white supremacist power structure, another method to control us and keep us in line. We see the effects in our communities, we feel the terror of the situation when ICE is knocking at the doors of friends and family.

Regarding our local situation, it would help us to look at the recent past. In 1982, the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE’s predecessor) raided the Beach Flats and took kids out of class at Bay View Elementary School. In 1984 INS did sweeps of the Beach Flats twice, snatching 22 people from their homes, a soup kitchen line and the street. Even though the City Council declared Santa Cruz a “sanctuary city”, meaning city employees can’t inquire about or report on someone’s immigration status, the INS raided Beach Flats again in 1993, arresting 6 people. In Watsonville, there were ICE raids in 2006 and 2008, both part of regional sweeps. 107 people were arrested in the 2006 raids, and even though only 19 had warrants for arrest, 90 were swiftly deported. Watsonville also calls itself a sanctuary city: it’s plain to see how meaningless this is.

Now Santa Cruz is taking part in a national Department of Homeland Security program called Secure Communities, or S-Comm. The State of California has agreed to participate in the program, and although technically counties can opt out of the program, California Attorney General Brown denied San Francisco County’s request to opt out. In effect, the program provides funding for local jails to check the immigration status of anyone who is booked into the jail, whether or not they are convicted of a crime. This means police could arrest anyone they think might not be a citizen, for something as petty as jaywalking, take them to jail, and have them deported. This is what’s happening in Phoenix, Arizona right now, under the direction of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. S-Comm is Obama’s version of SB 1070. In Santa Cruz, S-Comm is scheduled to go into effect on August 10th.

This plan plays perfectly into what Santa Cruz has been trying to do for years. Though the city council has opposed S-Comm, they haven’t challenged ICE’s partnership with the SCPD. Besides that, their anti-homeless laws and destruction of community space in favor of creating a sanitized downtown shopping district prove whose side they’re on. The lines are being drawn, clearly. Groups like Take Back Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz Neighbors, functioning as eyes and ears for the police, would like to whitewash our town. But there are many more of us, even if it may not seem so. Despite our racial, cultural, and class divides, all who are persecuted and marginalized by the law have some common cause. Some of us are forced into conflict with this society, and some of us have chosen to struggle. Either way, those of us who aren’t directly affected by ICE should do whatever is in our power to resist and show solidarity with affected individuals and communities.

But what we need isn’t immigration reform, it’s the destruction of all borders and detention centers. The first step is kicking ICE out of Santa Cruz, but this isn’t the end. Santa Cruz’ neo-colonial relationship to Watsonville and the other nearby Hispanic populations needs to be challenged also: it’s just one node of the economic system that coerces people into picking strawberries to support a family back home or working in the dining halls at UCSC. While of course immigration reforms make a huge difference in the lives of families and workers across the country, we can’t stop there. The roots of the problem lie much deeper.

To challenge imprisonment in general, we can start with the specific facts. Santa Cruz’ downtown jail is already 114% over capacity, and the minimum security wing of the Rountree Lane Facility outside Watsonville was recently closed due to budget constraints. On July 21st the downtown jail had two fights in one day, to which Sheriff’s Office Lt. Shea Johnson responded with an apt criticism of incarceration: “I don’t know what the fight was over. No one’s talking, but when you have people locked up in a facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there’s tension sometimes.” Whatever the conditions may be, imprisonment is unacceptable, and won’t solve our society’s problems. The law doesn’t provide justice or safety for everyone: rather, it maintains the current order and hierarchy, enforcing our social roles and defending the moneyed classes. Prisons are a huge source of profit: especially ICE detention centers, which are run by private corporations such as the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group (which Wells Fargo Bank is invested in). While Santa Cruz may not see the effects as clearly as, say, Oakland, police repression and violence still reverberate in our communities. The same system that kills and imprisons black youth in the ghetto also raids the homes of Central American immigrants and tears apart families, the same mechanisms that allow suburban white kids to attend a UC and get a respectable job force others to sell drugs or their bodies to survive.

Those who want to defend capitalism and white supremacy in Santa Cruz are getting organized: so should we. While some talk to their neighbors to support police power, we can talk to our neighbors to subvert their power.

Spread information, show up in the streets, find each other and build collective power. Resistance is gathering around the country. Along with many other actions on July 29th in Arizona, when SB 1070 went into effect, protestors blocked the entrance to the Maricopa County Jail, delaying Sherrif Arpaio’s immigration sweep. If we struggle together we stand a better chance than if we let each group, culture or demonized minority get repressed individually. California is headed down the same path as Arizona, and our position as immigrants, workers and dissidents gets more precarious every day. The net of social control is drawn tighter with each new law, budget cut and layoff, and only we can choose what our response will be.

yours truly,
some local anarchists

comments, critique, or ideas? email serfcityrevolt@gawab.com

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/07/18655578.php

Demonstrators use noise to break down barriers; anarchist march held at County Jail in solidarity with prisoners

2010-08-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

SANTA CRUZ - A group of about 40 people stood behind the County Jail for more than an hour Friday night banging on large drums, empty water jugs and other noise makers in a demonstration to show support for prisoners in jail "with or without papers."

Around 6:30 p.m., the group of self-proclaimed anarchists and their supporters marched from San Lorenzo Park to the County Jail in protest of ICE's presence in Santa Cruz and the controversial federal program that checks the immigration status of anyone booked on criminal charges set to launch at the County Jail on Tuesday.

As many as eight sheriff's deputies stood on the jail roof to monitor and film the protesters, but did not interfere with the protest.

The event had a personal connection for Watsonville resident Nayeli Gil, who said she watched a cooperative effort between police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest and deport her undocumented brother seven days ago.

Gil, who was born in Tijuana, said living in the U.S. has delivered an opportunity for a higher education for her. She said her brother was trying better himself as well.

"What they are doing is disrespecting people's rights; it's rude and unfair," Gil said. "It's frustrating. He was trying to work for his family. They're making our lives miserable."

The noise drew neighbors outside to the street to investigate. Many stood on the sidewalk and watched.

"I'm over it, I think immigration should be here; this is getting outrageous," said Blaine Street resident Frankie Daly. "There is too much gang violence in Santa Cruz. This is a beach town, not a gang town."

Visiting Santa Cruz from Florida, Paula Lalinde said the demonstration was impressive.

"It's a creative way to deliver their message," Lalinde said. "There is something very basic about it and natural, using [noise] to stand up for basic human rights. It breaks through the walls."

Neighbors who had questions about the noise were handed a pamphlet put together by "some local anarchists."

"Despite our racial, cultural and class divides, all who are persecuted and marginalized by the law have some common cause," the flier read. "Those of us who aren't directly affected by ICE should do whatever is in our power to resist and show solidarity with affected individuals and communities. But what we need isn't immigration reform, it's the destruction of all borders and detention centers.

"The first step is kicking ICE out of Santa Cruz, but this isn't the end."

The flier also points the finger at the media and neighborhood organizations for an increased awareness of crime in the city and efforts aimed at increased police presence.

Around 8 p.m., protestors marched down the street and dispersed quietly.

Jail Commander Lt. Bob Pursley said there is always a concern when the focus of a protest is the jail and internal security measures were put in place, although he would not say what those were.

"We're happy it ended the way it did," Pursley said. "They were able to get their point out and did it in a peaceful manner, which is always a good thing.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15697532

"UA Against SB1070" asks the Regents to take a stand

2010-08-05T17:25:00.000-07:00

Glen Grunberger and Daniela Ugaz from UA Against SB1070 addressed the Arizona Board of Regents today during the call to the public.

The grad students both urged the board to take a stand against SB1070.

Ugaz said the regents should publicly decry SB1070 to promise to students that they stand for diversity.

Grunberger said that fear, hatred and devisiveness are at the root of the law, and said those are contrary to university ideals of free expression, free thought and diversity.

If that didn't get a rise out of them, he added: "This state has become a net importer of Nazis."

Update at 5pm:

Regents chairwoman Anne Mariucci said she thinks SB1070 is worthy of discussion and public comment by the regents, and she said the topic could be on a future regents agenda.

http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/campus-correspondent/article_dc34a69e-a0d2-11df-96bb-001cc4c002e0.html

Anti-SB1070 graffiti popping up in downtown Phoenix

2010-08-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

PHOENIX - Arizona's border battle is leaving its mark on downtown Phoenix, but not in a good way.

"Usually people, when they see graffiti, they think of crime or a run down area," said Manager of Alta Phoenix Lofts Chiara Elie.

Within the last week, downtown Phoenix has become a spot for anti SB 1070 tagging, which has residents in Alta Phoenix Lofts upset.

"What's terrible is that we're really trying to bring up this community, not just this property but the neighboring businesses and the last thing we need is graffiti," said Elie.

The messages are showing up on everything from stop signs to a mural on the side of a building.

Within a few blocks there are eight different anti-SB1070 messages.

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/tagging-an-anti-sb-1070-message-in-phoenix

12 arrested in protest outside Phoenix jail

2010-07-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Twelve protesters were arrested Friday afternoon after allegedly blocking access to the Lower Buckeye Jail near 35th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road in Phoenix, authorities said.

The protesters, who have been vocal in their opposition to Arizona's immigration law, were reportedly trying to stop a crime-suppression sweep run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said.

The road was cleared as of 4:45 p.m., officials said.

Salvador Reza, the leader of a group called Puente, was among those arrested, according to Puente spokeswoman Opal Tometi.

On Thursday, at least 50 protesters were arrested after allegedly blocking a public thoroughfare at Fourth Avenue Jail in Phoenix. Reza was arrested at Thursday's protest as well.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/30/20100730phoenix-arpaio-sweep-protesters-arrested-abrk.html

Phoenix police trained for immigration protests

2010-07-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

The officers sat in the cool of the Phoenix Municipal Court basement watching DVDs on laptop computers, reading books and dozing off with their riot helmets as pillows, waiting patiently for the protesters to arrive.

As the crowd swelled near Phoenix City Hall, the officers moved in formation to clear the street of protesters and journalists amid chants denouncing Senate Bill 1070.

Phoenix deployed several hundred police along Washington Street and other busy downtown streets on Thursday, led by a core group of about 150 crowd-control officers carrying detailed protest plans.

By midday, more than 20 protesters were in custody, including women and youngsters who linked arms in solidarity before they were led off the street.

A mile away from the action, operation chiefs were calling shots from the second-floor of a Phoenix Fire Department administration building as part of a coordinated effort spanning multiple law-enforcement agencies. Police leaders said they aim to overstaff security for large-scale protests and other major events to ensure backup for officers on the front lines.

Thursday morning's march and protests were mostly peaceful, though tactically trained officers know that any major event can turn violent quickly.

"It can go from peaceful to riotous in a second," Phoenix police Sgt. Ed DeCastro said. "It just takes one sentence or a bottle being thrown."

Phoenix trained additional precinct patrol officers in crowd-control tactics after April's protests in downtown and near the Capitol, in which high-school students funneled unexpectedly into the area en mass.

Phoenix police Lt. Jeff Lazell, who oversees tactical-response teams through the Phoenix Police Downtown Operations Unit, said the goal was to prepare officers citywide in case of any unexpected violence that would force them into critical supporting roles downtown. Training included tactics on forming "skirmish-lines" to safety disperse unruly crowds.

"We trained about 1,200 officers in 10 days," Lazell said. "To coordinate that kind of training is an undertaking."

Command-center operations began at 6 a.m. Staff wore headsets tuned to a secure radio frequency for event communications and kept watch over video screens showing live feed from SB 1070 hot spots: the federal courthouse, Wells Fargo building, Cesar Chavez Plaza, Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail, and a building housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lt. Brian Lee, operations chief, said street activity was fairly quiet for much of the morning; most police activity was limited to assisting a group of 150 to 200 demonstrators safely wind their way through the streets.

"As far as expectations, it's really kind of hard to tell with this group," Lee said. "We have people coming in from out of state; we have other people that aren't part of our local community. We try to get as much information as we can on what their intentions are, but a lot of it is reactionary because we just don't know what they plan to do."

Radio traffic started to pick up about 9 a.m., as demonstrators began to swarm around First Avenue and Washington Street. Images of the group flashed from flat-screen TVs hanging overhead in the four corners of the room, each tuned to local and national news stations.

At 9:06 a.m., a voice crackled over the command radio channel.

"We've got 150 or so people at Washington," the voice said above a din of crowd activity. "Game plan is they're supposed to come over at 10 or 10:30. We'll have some issues at that time."

Command-center staff gathered around the live feed as, like clockwork, people began to flood Washington Street at 10 a.m., blocking in westbound vehicles.

At 10:15 a.m., another voice came over the command channel: "Be advised, we have initiated our first warnings" for pedestrians to get out of the street. "We're going to issue second warnings. In 10, we'll start issuing number ones," or arrests.

Twelve minutes later, another voice: "OK, we're going to go ahead, start making our first arrests. Arrest the gentleman in the gray hat."

Within seconds, live TV feed showed four officers closing in to cuff the man and lead him away to a white van. One by one, the command was issued to arrest four people who had been standing in a line next to the man in the gray hat.

And one by one, they were led away.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/30/20100730arizona-immigration-law-police-training.html

Arizona's New Immigration Law: Cops vs. CopWatchers

2010-07-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Arizona's SB1070 is now law but, gutted of the provisions that made it a national controversy, it is a remarkably toothless instrument for policing, despite the huff and guff of anti-illegal-immigration hardliners like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix), who did not postpone scheduled sweeps through Latino communities. Indeed, for all the hype of Arpaio's "Crime Suppression/Illegal Immigration Operation" on Thursday, the day the law went into effect, he and his deputies arrested only three undocumented people. By contrast, on Wednesday nearly 90 illegal immigrants were arrested in a two-part sweep in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

What vaporized from Arizona's new immigration law were stipulations that law enforcement could require proof of immigration status from people they have stopped for questioning. The original version would have made it a state crime not to carry documentation; and it would have let police arrest undocumented immigrants if they were found seeking employment in a public space. If Arpaio were armed with all of that, the likelihood is that he would have detained a large number of people. In his 16 prior operations, nearly 1,000 suspected violators were arrested, 60% of whom were undocumented immigrants. This time, out of about 40 people the Sheriff's office apprehended Thursday, only a handful — just 7% — were illegal immigrants.

But there may have been other reasons the numbers were low, apart from the temporary injunction blocking the most contentious parts of the law. Some officers said the desert monsoon weather dampened the operation. Another factor may well have been Lydia Guzman, a prominent Hispanic activist, who, along with a group called CopWatch, designed a detailed messaging system to warn the Phoenix Valley of immigration sweeps. Guzman sent an initial text blast to 100 rapid response teams of business owners, Spanish radio stations, pastors and teachers, each of whom messaged their respective networks. At the same time, Guzman contacted lawyers, social workers and elected officials to be at the ready to help. "It spiderwebs out," she says. "Before you know it my text tree spreads out to thousands of people."

Sheriff Arpaio has called her out for undermining his work. "The Sheriff has even accused me of putting coyotes [the popular name for operators of people smuggling rings] on text tree," she told TIME. "But number one, they don't live here and, number two, a lot of smugglers are the ones we want put away. They are the ones who hurt our people."

In addition to Guzman's tweets, CopWatch visibly tails police operations. On Thursday, in one small West Phoenix mobile command center, members of CopWatch monitored police communications. "They just said '294 King' — that means immigration. Let's go," cried one member listening to the police scanners. And with that CopWatch activists grabbed cameras, lawyer contacts and car keys to follow Arpaio's sweep.

Sheriff Arpaio has been tweeting as well. A few messages sent to his followers and the press from Thursday: "Just got a report that protesters are now trying to block my downtown jail sallyport and are chaining themselves to the jail"; "Just finished up with protesters at the jail, we will now resume our operation"; then immediately after, "I'm heading over to 4th Ave Jail to see what's going on w/ protesters around the jail."

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arranged for nearly 45 media crews to trail along with the patrols. Sometimes, it seemed that Arpaio's media strategy got in the way of his own operation: his deputies had to delay the crime sweep to enable Arpaio to give a press conference at the jail where protesters chained themselves across the main booking entrance. "He can't stay away from the camera," says CopWatch activist Dennis Gilman. "We successfully disrupted his sweep, because all his deputies were down there dealing with the protesters."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007858,00.html

Immigration protesters try to close Tucson freeway with tar, tires, glass

2010-07-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

Traffic on Interstate 19 was briefly disrupted south of Ajo Way this morning after a group of protesters placed tar and tires on the highway.

A group calling itself "Freedom for Arizona" said it planned to cover the southbound lanes of I-19 with tires covered in tar and broken glass to shut down "the very road that is used to deport people deemed 'illegal' as well as a direct disruption of the flow of capital," the group said in a news release.

Law enforcement officials have cleaned up the tires and reopened the interstate, according to the Department of Public Safety.

There were no reports of injuries.

Andres Chavez was arriving home from school and saw the whole incident. He said two trucks driving parallel on southbound Intestate-19 between Ajo and Valencia stopped and threw tires connected by rope from the truck beds.

The 8-12 men in the trucks then threw brown paint, broken glass and a sign over the tires. The sign read: "Stop the militirazation on the border." Then, they drove away, Chavez said.

"They halted traffic completely and almost got rear-ended by cars behind them," Chavez said.

Chavez pulled the 15-20 tires off the road because he was worried about wrecks.

"I have no problem with people protesting or whatever, but they were putting people's lives at risk," said Chavez, a 23-year-old University of Arizona journalism student. "There could have been a multi-car pile up there."

He described the tire-throwers as men between the ages of 20-25 who wore regular regular clothes.

In its news release, a group claiming responsibility said: "Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate.

"U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive."

Downtown protest

Meanwhile in downtown Tucson there were mostly peaceful protests in front of the state building at Congress and Granada.

One man, who supported SB1070, was arrested on suspicion of the threats and intimidation after he continued agitating those opposed to the law, and threatening two people, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

Officers had asked him to calm down before the arrest. He was removed from the protest area and taken to the Tucson police west side substation. The man was cited and released.

That was the only arrest at the Tucson events.

Several hundred people with signs, bull horns and drums demonstrated Thursday morning, most of whom oppose the law. Most said they were pleased with the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton that blocked key provisions in the law but that they still had concerns about the remaining provisions that went into effect.

"I'm pleased but not satisfied," said Lino Vasquez, a 25-year-old college student.

"It was a small stepping stone," said Angelina Castrillo-Sereno, who brought her two children with her to the rally.

There was also supporters of SB1070 who were unhappy with the judge's decision.

"I'm very disappointed," said Renee Allison, of Tucson. "It's a very sad day. It's sad that people don't support the law."

By 11 a.m., the number of protesters had decreased substantially.

Phoenix Arrests

Opponents of Arizona's immigration crackdown went ahead with protests Thursday in Phoenix despite a judge's ruling that delayed enforcement of most the law, and dozens of people in Phoenix were arrested after peacefully confronting officers in riot gear.

Outside the state Capitol, hundreds of protesters began marching at dawn, gathering in front of the federal courthouse where Bolton issued her ruling on Wednesday. They marched on to the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration one of his signature issues.

At least eight protesters approached a police line and allowed themselves to be arrested. A group of about two dozen protesters then sat down in the middle of the street or refused to leave, and police arrested them as well.

Earlier, three people were detained at the courthouse after apparently entering a closed-off area. Former state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, was among them.

Marchers chanted "Sheriff Joe, we are here, we will not live in fear," and among the crowd was a drummer wearing a papier-mache Sheriff Joe head and dressed in prison garb.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

Arizona immigration law protesters arrested after blocking street

2010-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of activists marched on downtown Phoenix in protest of Senate Bill 1070 Thursday, participating in mass acts of civil disobedience, prayer vigils and other rallies.

Dozens were arrested at various locations, including members of the media who were covering the event.

The protests were peaceful, but disruptive. Opponents of the tough new immigration law blocked Washington Street near Phoenix City Hall for nearly an hour Thursday morning, snarling traffic and light-rail service.

At least two dozen were arrested at that location, after linking arms and lying down in the street, said Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department.

They were charged with obstructing a public thoroughfare, which is a misdemeanor, Thompson said.

By noon, the bulk of the activity was centered on the 4th Avenue Jail, a primary booking location for felony arrests in Maricopa County.

Several hundred people had converged on that location, and six people were arrested after chaining themselves to the building; about 10 others were taken into custody by deputies dressed in riot gear after they blocked the jail's driveway and refused to move.

In total, about 30 people were arrested for blocking a public thoroughfare, including some members of the press. Law enforcement officials said the members of the media were given the same warning as the activists before being taken into custody.

Protesters at the jail blocked the entrance at 3rd Avenue and Madison, chanting, "No Justice, no peace, no racist police," and "Arrest Arpaio, not the people." At least one squad car from Goodyear turned a way and had to find a different entrance. "We're not trying to get arrested, we are trying to make a point," said Ruben Lucio, 21, of Phoenix. Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Phoenix, said she came to the jail because "I am standing for human rights. Not one more person, not one more mother, not one more grandfather will be taken from their family."

Even though a federal judge on Wednesday blocked key provisions of the state's tough new immigration law, rallies, protests, prayer vigils and acts of civil disobedience were held throughout the morning.

The provisions of the law that were not blocked took effect at 12:01 a.m.; Gov. Jan Brewer's legal team is expected to file an expedited appeal of the judge's order with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals within the hour.

Thursday morning's protests started quietly with an early morning prayer vigil and march from the state Capitol to the Trinity Cathedral in downtown Phoenix. Only about 100 people attended that demonstration, but the protestors have steadily picked up steam since then.

About 400 people attended the service at the Trinity Cathedral, and then demonstrators marched toward the federal courthouse. Three people, including former state legislator and activist Alfredo Gutierrez were arrested there around 8:30 a.m.

The other individuals who were taken into custody identified themselves as Dan O'Neal and Doris Perez.

"The injunction did not go far enough," O'Neal moments before getting arrested. "This movement is about more than 1070."

After that, several activist groups converged on Sheriff Joe Arpaio's offices near the Wells Fargo building in downtown Phoenix. Arpaio, who planned one of his immigration sweeps Thursday, was one of the primary targets of demonstrators' ire.

The groups that joined up outside his offices eventually led to the multiple arrests on Washington Street.

From there, the activists moved on to the 4th Avenue Jail, where where the scene grew increasingly rowdy and intense before organizers started calming protestors down and moving them away. One protestor chained himself to what appeared to be an emergency exit, saying Wednesday's court ruling didn't go far enough. "It's a small victory," said Devin Fleenor, of Phoenix. "We need to have a lot more change, than just a temporary injunction on SB 1070."

At about 12:30 p.m., Sheriff Joe Arpaio re-deployed a dozen deputies armed in riot gear to the location.

The deputies were supposed to be part of a crime sweep operation planned for early afternoon. The sweep has now been postponed until at least 4 p.m.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/29/20100729arizona-immigration-law-protest-0729.html

Arpaio's crime sweep delayed by protest

2010-07-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

Sheriff Joe Arpaio postponed a crime sweep Thursday after diverting resources to the Fourth Avenue Jail, were a protest was to be held this afternoon.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said the sweep would still take place, probably about 4 p.m.

During a news conference attended by a throng of international, national and local media outlets, he wouldn't say exactly where the sweeps were taking place.

"I'm not trying to get into any judge's face (with this operation)," he said. "But I'm trying to let the public know: we enforce human smuggling (laws), we enforce employer sanctions (laws)."

Arpaio said they are going to divert resources from the sweep to the Fourth Avenue Jail, where a protest is expect to draw busloads of people who oppose the state's immigration law.

"I got a gut feeling we will not be arresting any illegal aliens with all this hype going on," he said.

Arpaio has said frequently that he doesn't need the law, which created a misdemeanor offense in Arizona for immigrants who fail to carry registration documents, and his track record backs him up.

Thursday's operation would mark the 17th time Arpaio has deployed hundreds of deputies and volunteer posse members in an area of the Valley to root out illegal immigrants. Deputies typically take a "zero tolerance" approach to traffic offenses and then check the criminal history of the motorists. Some of Arpaio's deputies who were trained to enforce federal immigration law used to be able to conduct roadside immigration screenings, but the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement stripped deputies of that authority last year, forcing sheriff's deputies to wait until they bring suspects to jail to determine immigration status.

If the deputies come across residents who admit to being in the country illegally but who have not committed a state crime, the deputies typically coordinate with local ICE officials to transfer custody of those suspects.

A key piece of the law that Bolton blocked on Wednesday would have allowed deputies to arrest some of those suspects for violating the new law if they weren't carrying registration documents.

"That would have been a nice little extra twist if we could have locked them up instead of handing them over to ICE," Arpaio said Wednesday after Bolton's ruling.

The size and scope of the sweeps have varied since Arpaio launched the efforts in 2008 near 32nd Street and Thomas Road.

A three-day sweep in Mesa last summer paid 83 deputies and supervisors to arrest 59 people at a cost of $38,387. A two-day operation in Fountain Hills in May 2008 used 13 deputies, cost $3,947 and resulted in 20 arrests.

The Sheriff's Office pays for the operations through its general fund, state funding and grants. Arpaio is not concerned about the expense, saying the deputies in those operations would be working anyway -- it is just a matter of when and where.

Advocates of the sweeps say their value is largely in discouraging illegal immigrants from remaining in the community.

However, critics suggest they simply scare legal and illegal immigrants alike and drive a wedge between members of the community and law enforcement.

While Arpaio's past 16 crime-suppression operations have captured a variety of criminals, the majority of offenders were booked for relatively minor offenses, an Arizona Republic review of crime data shows. For example, an April sweep caught 93 people, most of whom were snared either solely for immigration violations or for minor offenses. Only two violent offenders were arrested.

Arpaio's deputies have arrested 932 people in their operations dating back to March 2008. Of those, 708 were suspected of being in the country illegally, according to the Sheriff's Office.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/07/29/20100729joe-arpaio-immigration-sweep.html

Communique: Tucson Interstate Temporarily Blocked!

2010-07-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Sigue en español abajo:
DIRECT ACTION DISRUPTS ARIZONA RACISM!

Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged. This is why today we shut down Interstate 19 (I-19)

July 29, 2010 Tucson, AZ—On the morning that SB1070 is scheduled to take effect in the state of Arizona and three days before Obama deploys 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a group of concerned community members blocked traffic on I-19 south of Ajo Rd. in Tucson, AZ. A blockade of tires covered in tar and broken glass were placed across both southbound lanes along with a banner reading “Stop All Militarization! The Border is Illegal!” This blockade is a temporary shutdown of the very road that is used to deport people deemed “illegal” as well as a direct disruption of the flow of capital. By blocking I-19 we have halted the transportation of migrants and the profits Whack-n-hut and Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka make by these inhumane acts of separating families, communities and loved ones. This morning we interrupt the privatization of the criminalization of people of color.

The State of Arizona ruthlessly disrupts and terrorizes the lives of non-white communities on a daily basis. SB 1070 is yet another example of how migrants and people of color are criminalized. Today’s action is a declaration of resistance to the criminalization of affected communities and the militarization of indigenous land.

Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end these capitalist exploitations and stop their military invasions abroad.

We want an end to the militarization of indigenous land, I.C.E. raids, deportations, the attacks on ethnic studies, violence against women and queer people, the expansion of prisons and immigration detention centers, empire, the border wall and the genocide at the Arizona-Sonora border that has claimed the lives of over 153 people during the first 8 months of this fiscal year alone.

Today we interrupt the flow of Arizona’s traffic to bring attention to the following points:

ABOLISH ALL OF SB 1070 AND OTHER ANTI-MIGRANT LAWS.

STOP ALL MILITARIZATION. NO NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ON INDIGENOUS LAND.

BORDERS AND THE ARIZONA GOVERNMENT ARE ILLEGITIMATE.

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL—THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS TO BLAME.

WE WANT RESPECT AND JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE.

We affirm our dignity and promote the well-being of all people. We stand for solidarity, peace, self-determination and autonomy. We assert the rights of all people everywhere to feel safe and live free of oppression and state violence.

**************************

************************************

ACCIÓN DIRECTA INTERRUMPE EL RACISMO DE ARIZONA!
A pesar de la decisión de la Juez de bloquear componentes polémicos de la medida SB 1070, el perfil racial, las redadas, deportaciones y la militarización de la frontera continuaran sin ser desafiadas. Es por eso que hoy bloqueo la Interestatal 19 (I-19).

29 de Julio 2010 Tucson, AZ—En la mañana que la SB 1070 esta programada para entrar en vigor en el estado de Arizona y tres días antes de que Obama desplegue a 1,200 tropas de la Guardia Nacional, un grupo de miembros comunitarios bloquearon el tráfico hacia en la I-19, sur de La Calle Ajo en Tucson, AZ. Un bloqueo de llantas cubiertas con alquitrán y vidrio quebrado fueron colocadas en los dos carriles que van hacia el sur. En la carretera se ubicó un cartelón que declara “¡Alto a toda la Militarización! ¡La Frontera es Ilegal!” Este bloqueo es un paro temporal de la misma carretera que es usada para deportar a personas consideradas “ilegales”, al igual que es una interrupción directa del flujo de los productos y mercancía. Al interrumpir el tráfico de la I-19 hemos logrado suspender el transporte de migrantes y las ganancias que empresas como Wackenhut y Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka ganan al cumplir actos inhumanos como separar a nuestras familias. Esta mañana nosotr@s interrumpimos la privatización de la criminalización de las comunidades de color.
El Estado de Arizona sin piedad perturba y aterroriza a diario la vida ñde nuestras comunidades. La SB 1070 es otro ejemplo de cómo los migrantes y las personas de color somños criminalizadas. La acción de hoy es una declaración de resistencia a la criminalización de nuestras comunidades y la militarización de tierras indígenas.
Ni la SB 1070, ni el desplegue de tropas de la Guardia Nacional hacen nada para combatir las causas de por qué la gente emigra. Las guerras y las pólizas económicas de los EE.UU. han desplazado y empobrecido a millones de personas en todo el mundo. Pólizas impulsadas por ganancias, como el Tratado de Libre Comercio, causan la pobreza. Estas políticas y leyes no sólo consumen y explotan la tierra y la gente, pero también nos desplazan de nuestros hogares, obligándonos a emigrar para sobrevivir. Si los políticos tuvieran la seriedad de frenar la "inmigración ilegal", pondrían fin a su sistema económico que empobrece al mundo y acabarían con sus invasiones militares en el extranjero.
Queremos poner un fin a la militarización de tierras indígenas, redadas, deportaciones, los ataques a los estudios étnicos, la violencia contra las mujeres y gente gay, lesbiana, bisexual, transgenero, la expansión de las cárceles, los centros de detención, el imperio, el muro fronterizo y el genocidio en la frontera entre Arizona y Sonora, que ha cobrado la vida de más de 153 personas durante los primeros ocho meses de este año fiscal. Hoy interrumpimos el flujo del tráfico de Arizona para llamar a la atención los siguientes puntos:
SUPRIMIR COMPLETAMENTE LA SB 1070 Y OTRAS LEYES ANTI-MIGRANTES.
FRENAR TODO LA MILITARIZACIÓN. FUERA TROPAS DE LA FRONTERA.
LAS FRONTERAS Y EL GOBIERNO ARIZONENSE SON ILEGITIMOS.
NINGUN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL—ESTE SISTEMA ECONÓMICO ES EL PROBLEMA.
QUEREMOS RESPETO Y JUSTICIA PARA TODAS LAS PERSONAS.
Afirmamos nuestra dignidad y promovemos el bienestar de todas las personas. Estamos a favor de la solidaridad, la paz, la auto-determinación y la autonomía. Afirmamos el derecho de todos los pueblos del mundo a sentirse seguros y vivir libres de la opresión y libres de la violencia estatal.

Joe Arpaio's Deputies Faced Down by Anti-SB 1070 Protesters in Guadalupe

2010-07-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

Demonstrators await the MCSO's response last night in Guadalupe

Chanting, "We will not comply," and, "Whose streets? Our streets," a group of about 70 protesters took over one of the entrances to the square-mile town of Guadalupe Wednesday night, facing down Maricopa County sheriff's deputies in a tense standoff that lasted a little over an hour.

From 11:45 p.m. till a little past 1 a.m., demonstrators blocked traffic going into or out of Guadalupe via Avenida del Yaqui, not far from Arizona Mills Mall. City buses and other vehicles were forced to turn back or take a route around the line of Guadalupe residents and other activists.

MCSO deputies, befuddled by the late night protest

The protesters said they were against the enactment of SB 1070 and opposed to the abuses of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose deputies are contracted by the town for law enforcement services.

Early Wednesday, federal Judge Susan R. Bolton enjoined the most significant provisions of SB 1070, leaving other aspects of it to take effect today, July 29. But the protesters insisted this was not enough.

"We do understand that not all of SB 1070 was passed," said Guadalupe resident Diane Sanchez-Alvarado. "But that doesn't mean it's all right. Regardless of what the law says, we're all human beings. We shouldn't be treated as something else."

"We will not comply," the theme of the event

Regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his boys in beige, who have patrolled the town for years, Sanchez-Alvarado and others complained of a litany of abuses perpetrated by the MCSO in the town, which is half Mexican-American, and half Yaqui Indian.

"We're always being harassed by him," Sanchez-Alvarado said of Arpaio. "He thinks he can do whatever he wants with us."

The postage-stamp size municipality has been the subject of numerous complaints by residents who say they are routinely harassed by MCSO officers. Guadalupanos report that deputies unnecessarily pull guns on them and enter their homes without warrants.

Guadalupe residents Veronica Vargas (left) and Diane Sanchez-Alvarado

In 2008, Arpaio conducted one of his controversial anti-immigrant sweeps of the town, terrorizing people whose families have lived in Guadalupe for generations. Relations between the MCSO and residents have been especially strained since then.

Of the sheriff's deputies, Sanchez-Alvarado stated, "They're vicious with us. They're what we would consider savages."

Savages or not, last night, Arpaio's minions seemed perplexed by the situation, and unsure of what to do.

Around eight MCSO patrol cars responded to the scene, and deputies with the MCSO's gang unit stood around being taunted by the protesters as they contemplated a response.

Andrew Sanchez, organizer of the midnight demonstration

"You're the real gang here," protesters yelled at them.

Eventually one of the deputies approached the double-line of demonstrators, some of them activists from nearby Tempe and Phoenix. Members of a local anarchist group also reinforced the crowd.

The deputy, who declined comment to reporters, asked the demonstrators to leave the street. He was met with stony silence from protesters who had locked arms in preparation for a showdown. Many had stated earlier that they were willing to be arrested.

It seemed as if the protesters and the deputies were fated to butt heads. But a little after 1 a.m., protest organizer Andrew Sanchez told the crowd that he'd spoken with the mayor of Guadalupe and that they'd made their point about MCSO police abuses and SB 1070.

Demonstrators withdrew to the sidewalks, and the deputies drove away to the cheers of those present.

"It was peaceful, it was successful, and we managed to get the cops' attention," Sanchez told me afterward. "We had said previously that we were only going to hold the street for an hour, and we did."

The MCSO was outnumbered last night, and deputies looked worried at the prospect of having to wade in to the crowd and arrest people. The issue now will be, what sort of retaliation, if any, Guadalupe residents will endure from the MCSO.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/07/anti-sb_1070_protesters_face_d.php

Los Angeles: Banner drops in solidarity with the struggle against SB 1070

2010-07-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

"THESE ARE THE FRONT LINES" - Community Discussion and Dialogue

2010-07-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

"THESE ARE THE FRONT LINES"

CONFRONTING the racist attacks and legislation's such as SB1070
CHALLENGING the police state and racist vigilantism, and building
A NETWORK of revolutionary strategies and organization.

Come join us for an intense panel discussion with various organizations, direct action strategies, revolutionary perspectives to popularize an analysis of our common enemy and how we MUST move a movement forward TODAY with ACTION.

Panelists include:

Immortal Technique
Colectivo Tonantzin
Cop Watch Los Angeles
+ many more to be announced

Please check back for location details soon to be posted
or go to http://www.RaisetheFist.com/ for more info.

Mark your calendar: WEDS , AUGUST 25, 2010
Support Colectivo Tonatnzin

(panel will also be broadcasted live on Raise the Fist Radio (98.5fm Watts, Lynwood, Compton, N. Long Beach, N. Carson) and streaming world wide at http://www.raisethefist.com/radio)

Native American Tribes Say They Won't Enforce Immigration Law

2010-07-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

Native American Tribes Say They Won't Enforce Immigration Law

Evan Wyloge, 2010

http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5633%3Anative-american-tribes-say-they-wont-enforce-immigration-law&catid=52%3Anorth-america-indigenous-peoples&Itemid=74+

As the July 29 enforcement date for Arizona’s strict new immigration law nears, Native American tribes are charging that the law was written without considering their unique circumstance and that it will violate their sovereignty and their members’ civil rights.

Despite a request by Gov. Jan Brewer’s office to comply with the new law, Native American tribes will continue to oppose it and seek ways to avoid its implementation, said John Lewis, executive director of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, which represents 20 tribes in the state.

“Tribes have jurisdiction within their land, and state law doesn’t apply,” Lewis said. “And the law just doesn’t work in the interests of the American Indian population.”

A resolution passed by the tribal council on June 4 states that the new law would lead to disproportionate stops and detentions for tribal members, violate their sovereignty and negatively impact the tribal economy.

In their resolution, the group says long-accepted standards of tribal life would suddenly be incongruous with the new law.

Enforcement of the law would force many law officers to reach the “reasonable suspicion” of illegal status for a large portion of Native Americans, whose legal presence within the U.S. has never been in question, the resolution states.

The resolution points out that English is a second language for many tribal members. And although each tribe has different laws, members of the tribes have not been required to carry their tribal membership documents, and some don’t possess a birth certificate or proper documents.

Navajo Nation Councilman Delegate Kee Allen Begay, Jr. said Arizona’s new law violates the civil rights of members of the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the U.S. He said tribal members will be disproportionately targeted because some police might conclude that they are Hispanic.

“In a way, the immigration bill is an attempt to harass Native Americans,” Begay said. “When we are pulled over or stopped we are usually pulled over and asked for our IDs. Sometimes we do not carry those things, and perhaps at that time we will have difficulty proving we are Native American.”

Action!

2010-07-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

End NAFTA!

NO to continued invasions on O’odham land!

NO to environmental destruction to secure the border!

Border Security = Militarization

Transformative Justice NOT the Police State!!

NO to forced divisions between us and our brothers and sisters based

on immigration status (or anything for that matter)!

by Sum

Arizona is the site of the worst immigration legislation so far. SB 1070 (aka Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act) further criminalizes and targets undocumented immigrants- increasing fear, harassment, arrests, and sanctioning state-sponsored hate. This is only one part of a war on migrants and a larger war on people of color and the poor. This law has been a catalyst for a round of civil disobedience actions in and outside of Arizona. While higher numbers and stronger opposition by decentralized action is needed in Arizona, the struggle should not be focused solely on SB1070. Capitalism, neo-liberalism, imperialism, and state power are root causes of migration and of oppression. This bill has been in the making for hundreds of years and now is the time to expose this by taking to the streets!

We’re calling for anarchists and other anti-authoritarians making plans to participate in creative actions here in Arizona! We are interested in solidarity, creativity, broadly-focused analysis and direct action. Many folks from the RCP to ANSWER in addition to the more moderate and conservative elements of the immigrants’ rights movement are organizing and promoting their pseudo-solutions here. We are not concerned with managing the struggle or with maintaining reputations worthy of scholarships and political office. This message against borders, for freedom, and breaking down all the borders between us (gender, sexuality, race, etc.) is necessary now more than ever.

Here in Arizona, we are broadening the struggle beyond SB 1070 and just migrants’ rights (see examples of recent actions below). The immigrant rights movement has touted Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) as the answer. A big part of the CIR plan is heightened border security. Border security means militarization, which will only get worse if border security is part of CIR. The border, some of which is a constructed wall, divides O’odham land, preventing or complicating border-crossing for many members of this indigenous community. They are now required to carry passports, they get their personal belongings searched at checkpoints going back and forth from visiting family and attending gatherings, and some O’odham people have been violently threatened at gunpoint by Border Patrol.

The federal government militarizes and builds walls along the border, runs the detention centers caging hundreds of thousands of migrants, and has plans for more border security. Their intentions are not benevolent, even if some folks are “legalized” through reform. We mustn’t call for the federal government to swoop down and save Arizona or any other state facing similar legislation when they are equally part of the problem. If we limit our goals, when will all this end? The border and immigration law are illegitimate in the face of the colonization of this land.

In connecting with each other in this struggle we must also deepen our connections to our communities. Our everyday interactions can break the borders of skin privilege, class, settler privilege, and resolve conflict stemming from cultural differences as we work together.

While you are here, recognize that you are on O’odham land. Familiarize yourself with the resources below, and determine how you can take action and support indigenous resistance in Arizona. Come with courage, respect, and humility. Let’s get creative!

There is limited information about plans so far, but the bill will go into effect before we know it (July 29 pending any obstacles). There will be actions throughout the month, but July 28-30 is critical for support. Sherriff Arpaio is planning to raid the county with another “crime suppression operation” July 30th. We must keep organizing against whiteness/white supremacy promoted in the interest of capitalism and the state. We must strategize on creative solutions to demilitarize the border. Continuing in the months ahead, we will actively target icons within this system of violence, and organize for the liberation and self-determination of our communities.

Meet up in Civic Space Park July 28th 7pm 424 North Central Ave.
Please view these resources:

Check out these recent actions for an idea of what’s been going on here::

no one is free until everybody is free

“When we support each other in actions and tense situations, when we act together to protect the most vulnerable among us, when we can face the potential violence of the system in community instead of alone, we undermine fear.

When we cease complying out of fear, we force the system to actually enforce its decrees. This is costly in terms of money, materials, and the undermining of public support. We force the system to reveal the underlying violence that supports it.” – Starhawk

Need assistance with housing rideshares and participating despite ability?

Desire to give/need by providing daycare, LGBTQ solidarity, to feed the masses, medic skills, fundraising, legal assistance, wanna connect a skillshare, and whatever else you can think of-

Contact: breakthruborders@riseup.net

SB1070 in Flagstaff: Watching and worrying

2010-07-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

The shop is dotted with religious ceramic figurines.

Next to the figurines stand popsicles with Spanish markings.

Mexican candy lines an aisle next to pinatas.

The marinated meat is some of the best for making carne asada.

Jose Melendez, owner of Mexico Lindo market on North Fourth Street, has been offering Mexican goods to customers in Flagstaff for the last 10 years.

But now, with the passage of SB1070, Melendez is worried.

"Right now, business isn't really that good," Melendez said, adding that many of his Mexican customers have either moved or are thinking of moving out of state before the new law goes into effect July 29.

"A lot of them are hopeful the new law's not going to take effect," Melendez said, adding that many are waiting to see whether comprehensive reform at the federal level takes its place.

Armed with that hope, some families are staying until the end, he added.

EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT

Across Arizona and the country, SB1070 has garnered support among a majority of residents. A recent Gallup poll determined that 51 percent of Americans who had knowledge of SB1070 supported it.

In the Hispanic community in the city, Melendez said everybody is talking about the new law going into effect. Most are worried about law enforcement officers stopping them in public for no reason at all.

Some people coming into the store have said they are afraid of driving because of the possible consequence if they are stopped, Melendez said. They have resorted to riding bicycles or walking.

"It's the main topic," Melendez added. "This law is even affecting legal residents. They don't want to go through that. I know that because a lot of them come to say 'Good bye.'"

RACIAL PROFILING WON'T HAPPEN

Sheriff Bill Pribil and Police Chief Brent Cooper both stated after training protocols on the new law came out last week that they would both be emphasizing training to ensure that racial profiling does not happen.

Both agencies have begun reviewing a draft policy issued by the Arizona Police Officer Standards and Training Board and are in the process of creating their own policies on enforcing the new law.

Chief Cooper also has recently attended a community meeting at St. Pius X Catholic Church to explain in detail what officers will and will not do in enforcing the new law, according to members of the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council. The council has a mission of building "... Relational power for collective actions in the pursuit of justice and the common good. We act to strengthen family and community in solidarity with others across lines of race, class and religion," according to the NAIC website.

MOTEL HOUSEKEEPERS FIRED

Maria (not her real name to protect her identity) is a customer of Melendez. She said she and her family are facing employers who are using SB1070 as a "hammer."

She said she and her husband are afraid and are making plans to leave the state because her husband has been told he must bring legal papers into work before July 29 or he will be fired. She said she and her daughter have already been fired their jobs cleaning rooms at a local motel.

Maria also said she has tried to get U.S. birth certificates for her grandchildren who were born here, but she's afraid to turn over any identification, because it is not from the U.S. The same goes for getting Social Security numbers, she said.

Her four children, now adults, were brought here when they were young and speak better English than Spanish, Maria said. Her five grandchildren know no other life.

BUSINESS OFF 40 PERCENT

As for the people who have already left Flagstaff, Melendez said they told him they believed they were not wanted in this state. Those people have moved to states where they believe they are wanted, or they have moved back to their country of origin.

Melendez looked around his store. Nobody was shopping mid-afternoon last week.

"As it is, I think I've lost 30 to 40 percent of my customers," Melendez said, adding that he is able to gauge the loss by the drop-off in money transfers and phone cards to Mexico.

A window sign calling for workers to strike and shoppers not to buy goods for two weeks if the law is not rescinded hung in a window at Melendez's market.

"I don't know if that can be done," Melendez said.

Most families in Flagstaff wouldn't be able to afford a two-week strike, Melendez said. Down south in Maricopa and Pima counties, such an effort might have more legs.

"But it would be an idea to show how much buying power and taxes are generated by the buying community," Melendez added.

If people are going to lose their jobs and get deported anyway, "they might as well do something about it," he said.

WILL STICK IT OUT

Melendez said he will try to stick it out to the very end, even though he is sure he will lose even more customers. Most of his goods are Mexican, and few Anglos come into the store to shop.

"If I can't pay my bills, I'll have to close my store down," he said, adding that if he has to close, he won't be able to pay his mortgage and might have to receive public assistance.

"I've always helped the economy, but if I lose my business, I won't be helping the economy anymore," he said. And job-hunting will be difficult for him at age 55.

As for the furor over the issue and people staunchly opposed to offering any kind of citizenship to illegal immigrants already here, Melendez said, "They are on the other side of the fence and have never been on this side of the fence."

Melendez was 10 years old when he came to the United States with his parents in 1960. His father had been born in Bisbee. When younger, Melendez did a stint in the U.S. Navy.

"All my brothers were in the service," Melendez said. "So we have all served this country. But we have always been proud of our Mexican heritage."

FEET IN TWO WORLDS

Melendez said he and his brothers are people with their feet in two worlds -- Mexico and the United States. Some people do not understand his and his family's struggles.

"If they knew how hard it is, they might ask the government to help more," Melendez said.

As for the imminent enforcement of the law, Melendez said he's frustrated.

"I'm trying everything I can to defeat this law," Melendez said, adding that 99 percent of the people who come to the United States illegally come to work hard for a better life when they return home.

Larry Hendricks can be reached at 556-2262 or lhendricks@azdailysun.com.

http://www.azdailysun.com/news/local/article_4519c97f-1de6-5fb9-b3b9-0df247c428a2.html

Norway: Lier asylum centre in Buskerud burnt to the ground

2010-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

theforeigner

8 July 2010 - Police have arrested 23 people on suspicion of arson after last night’s fire that destroyed Lier asylum centre in Buskerud

The fire started in three separate buildings that were far apart almost simultaneously, and preliminary investigations show traces of inflammable liquids.

Inmates already knew what was going to happen, as several refugees had packed their belongings, according to VG.

Jan Erik Skretteberg, regional director of SOS Rasisme, says he can understand why the fire was started, claiming there are many frustrated people who don’t get enough food or vitamins. There isn’t enough hot water in the showers, and a complete lack of mental health services.

“Several residents have warned previously it was only a matter of time before someone either harms of kills himself because of conditions at the institution. Not only do they live under severe mental pressure, but living conditions at the centres are also not fit for human beings,” he says.
Trouble at both the Lier, as well as Fagerli asylum centre in Nannestad in Akerhus municipality started early yesterday morning. Rioters destroyed fixtures and fittings, broke windows, and started smaller fires. Both facilities are now uninhabitable.

The centres house refugees who are awaiting deportation, after their asylum applications have been a final rejection. Some have been living there for four years.

http://sysiphus-angrynewsfromaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/

Denver: Community Members Remember Those Recently Killed on the Border and Fight for Migrant Justice

2010-07-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

From Denver Anarchist Black Cross

Each month DABC members join with others from the community in a vigil outside the Aurora ICE Detention Center. This month’s vigil took place after several murders committed by the Border Patrol in recent months, including that of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca. Authorities originally claimed that the agent shot and killed Sergio only after being “assaulted” by rocks, but video evidence later surfaced that Sergio was not throwing rocks and actually ran away. (Sidenote: there are some kids throwing rocks in the video and the people looking on are heard to say “How stupid! They’re throwing rocks.” Even if they were throwing rocks, shooting someone in the head is a disproportionate response). Earlier in the month several Border Patrol agents beat and tasered a handcuffed Anastacio Hernandez Rojas to death in what the San Diego coroner ruled a homicide. Mr. Rojas was picked up by Border Patrol agents as he was trying to re-enter the US and rejoin his wife and 5 children.

Sergio’s death is just one of the 17 people who have died at the hands of the Border Patrol in the past few 6 months, twice as many people as in the last 2 years combined. This is a direct result of the increased repression waged upon migrants since Obama has taken office. In his first year as president, 387,790 immigrants were deported, an increase of more than 60% from Bush’s last year in office.

So, this vigil was an especially powerful one. We gathered in a circle for an opening prayer by United Methodist Pastor Peg Newell and then heard from El Frente de Lucha member Alonzo Barron who described the horrifying events that lead to Sergio’s murder. K followed with a passionate speech on ending detention and standing together to seek out justice.

Coffins were placed in the center of the circle representing those who have died on the border. People then placed flowers on the caskets. For each flower they received a piece of paper with a person’s name and cause of death. The white paper represented the 111 deaths in immigrant detention from 2003 to May 2010. The colored pieces of paper represented the 153 deaths on the Arizona-Mexico border alone from October 2009 to the present.

After remembering those killed on the border, we walked up to the detention center itself for a loud and festive denunciation of the detention system. We chanted, we shouted and we even sang the classic Ranchera song Cielito Lindo!

These monthly vigils are an imporant part of the broader resistance that needs to be taken to the detention system. It provides a visible opposition to the center which is seen by the general public, detention center officials and the detained themselves. It’s also a great way to meet like-minded people who share the same vision of a world where no one is illegal. People are always coming in from Denver, so if you need a ride you can always email us denverabc@rocketmail.com or contact Jennifer Piper of the American Friends Service Committee at jpiper@afsc.org.

SB1070: Will Be Stopped, but Worse Will Come from Feds

2010-07-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

from Chaparral respects no borders

Here's my prediction about SB1070. It may or may not go into effect on July 29th, but I think it will be stopped in some way, probably by the federal government. Then the federal government will come up with some Comprehensive Immigration Reform that is as bad or worse than SB1070, but not as blatantly horrible. It will provide a few crumbs for certain folks- perhaps to buy off the some of ones with the most capacity to build resistance, but it will involve more border security and attrition through enforcement (with a new gentler formula). We are also possibly going to see a guest worker program and perhaps some sort of id that involves biometrics.

After Prop 187 in California passed it was found to be unconstitutional. Yet it was important historically because it set things in motion. In particular, the federal government passed welfare reform that instituted restrictions on welfare to immigrants that mirrored some of prop 187.

The excerpts at the end of this post, from Border lines blog discuss the reasons the federal approach to immigration is not likely to be much different from AZ's.

This is why I say This is bigger than SB1070. We have people coming to Arizona from out of town, doing this Arizona Freedom Summer (beware the RCP) and thirty actions in thirty days sorts of things, but need to be clear that SB 1070 is not the main issue here. People keep voting for Sheriff Joe and racist legislation- there need to be some efforts to change minds and/or undermine the strength of racism here. As I've mentioned before, if we don't look beyond the pieces of legislation and the bad sheriffs and the raids, the economic situation that so many face is overlooked. We also have a criminal "justice" system that seeks to criminalize people they see as a problem- particularly people of color, whether immigrants or not. In seeking to move immigration reform along, some folks think it's okay to further militarize the border even when it already harms the communities such as the O'odham down at the border.

For more reading on these topics (especially if you're new to these issues in AZ), see This is Bigger than SB 1070. Whether or not my prediction comes true, this is still bigger than the latest law. It was too big before.

From Border Lines blog:

It’s likely that SB 1070 will be judged, in whole or in part, as unconstitutional and will never be fully implemented. Even so the Arizona law marks another step forward in the consolidation of the attrition through enforcement strategy, just as its Legal Workers Act of 2008, which the courts have upheld, signaled the deepening dimensions of immigration law enforcement...

The Arizona law highlights a deepening conundrum for the federal government. By no means is DHS opposed on principle to having local law enforcement join in immigration enforcement. But it does insist that such cooperation be on the terms it sets. Having opened the door to federal-local cooperation, DHS is finding it hard to control the eagerness of localities to join in the immigrant crackdown...

With its Support Local Law Enforcement Act, Arizona not only adopted the “attrition through enforcement’ framework of the restrictionist institutes. It also adapted parts of the federal playbook for immigration enforcement: identifying new ways to increase what DHS calls “law enforcement partnerships” and extending the federal government’s own focus on the expanding category of “criminal aliens.”

Rather than waiting for DHS to reach out and expand its own federal-local collaborative programs, Arizona politicians have asserted the state’s right to enforce existing federal immigration laws. In the view of the supporters of the new law, the main problem they are attempting to address is not some inadequacy in federal immigration law. Rather it’s the failure of the federal agencies to adequately enforce the law...

The federal government has not explicitly endorsed ["attrition through enforcement"], but its actions are closely attuned with this restrictionist agenda.

Even as the White House and DHS continued to insist that only a CIR strategy will fix the broken immigration system, it has systematically moved to make it increasingly difficult for unauthorized immigrants (illegal border crossers and those overstaying their visas) and for legal immigrants who have violated criminal laws (mostly drug use) to live and work in the country. At the same time, DHS has steadily strengthened border control through increased checkpoints, increased agents, and increased border-control infrastructure...

The Obama administration has also proved an ardent advocate of increased federal-local cooperation in immigration enforcement. Among other things, it has strongly supported collaborative programs initiated by the Bush administration such as Operation Community Shield, Criminal Alien Program, Fugitive Operation Teams, Operation Stonegarden, Border Enforcement Security Taskforces (BEST), and the 287(g) program – all of which involve local police and sheriff deputies in the enforcement of immigration law.

In addition, the Obama administration has consolidated and promoted the Secure Communities program, which was developed under DHS Secretary Chertoff as a pilot project to encourage and facilitate the checking of the immigration status of all those arrested by local law enforcement. Secure Communities is advancing rapidly under Secretary Napolitano, who has prioritized the detention and removal of all those DHS and the Justice Department identity as “criminal aliens.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency responsible for immigration investigations and interior enforcement, has a special program to promote what its calls “law enforcement partnerships.” ICE Access (Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) “provides local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to team up with ICE to combat specific challenges in their communities.”

Established in 2007, ICE Access underscores the increasing outreach of DHS to local law enforcement officials in immigration and other homeland security matters. The program supports “a multi-agency/multi/authority approach that encompasses federal, state, and local resources, skills, and expertise.”

By The Time I Get to Arizona

2010-06-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

مرحبا بكم في ولاية أريزونا promo from viejas del mercado on Vimeo.

THE HARDEST BUTTON TO BUTTON

By David Cotner

Immigration in America is today's hot-button issue -- and by "hot-button" I mean "press here for nukes." By The Time I Get to Arizona, a new exhibition about the recent Arizona immigration laws -- Senate Bill 1070 in particular, ranking in notoriety with Prop. 187 or AB 7734 -- includes a video installation by guerrilla artist The Phantom, taped surreptitiously along the U.S.-Mexico border, exposing everything from coyotes and black helicopters to the desolate wasteland that faces immigrant hopefuls trying to make it into the U.S. Featured in the exhibition: multimedia artworks by Acamonchi, Dabs & Myla, Dash 2000 Fidel, El Mac, Estevan Oriol, Jaime Germs Zacarias, and Ritzy Periwinkle. Curated by in-house artist collective Viejas Del Mercado and sponsored by shoemaker Puma, it's your chance to see the latest avant-garde street art that tackles today's issues in a relevant way -- and it's not for nothing that the avant-garde are always the ones who get shot at first.

Tucson: Anti-borders/SB 1070 banners dropped

2010-06-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

On the morning of June 25, 2010 two banners were hung on the 22nd St. overpass for commuters heading NW on Aviation Parkway in Tucson, Az.

Chandler: Coalition asks city to oppose implementation of SB 1070

2010-06-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

A group that calls itself Coalition for Immigration Reform - East Valley asked the Chandler City Council to pass a resolution opposing Senate Bill B1070 and vowed to take the campaign to Mesa, Tempe and Gilbert.

But after the council's brief response to their plea Thursday night, members said they were not hopeful that a resolution would ever come up for a vote.

"I didn't see any great openness on their faces. It's not in their political interest," said retired teacher and longtime Chandler resident Brian Barabe, who made the presentation.

SB 1070 takes effect July 29 and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. Barabe argued that enforcement will be a financial burden. "Has the city calculated the losses to tax-paying constituents in terms of lost rentals, lost mortgage payments and lost sales in general as breadwinners are arrested or families flee the city out of fear of arrest," he asked the council.

Two other members of the group said even though they are longtime Chandler residents and U.S. citizens, their Hispanic heritage and appearance makes them fearful. "I still remember what happened in 1997; I was here," said Ana Cabrera.

Chandler drew widespread criticism for a roundup of suspected illegal immigrants in 1997. For four days police and federal agents set out to arrest undocumented immigrants in downtown neighborhoods, and they arrested 340. But some of those taken into custody were legal residents, and Hispanic community leaders were outraged. The city was sued and paid more than $500,000 in out-of-court settlements.

Raquel Leyva serves on a city commission but said she is worried what would happen to her adult mentally disabled son if he is confronted by police. He carries no identification and is fearful of strangers, she said.

After the three spoke, Mayor Boyd Dunn said Chandler will make certain the law is followed carefully and without racial profiling. Councilwoman Trinity Donovan encouraged them to meet with the city's Human Relations Commission. Neither addressed the request for a resolution.

Police Chief Sherry Kiyler told the speakers outside the meeting that officers would not engage in racial profiling and police departments across the Valley are working to understand the law and how to enforce it. "I think the fear is greater than the reality," she said.

Barabe said his organization is an informal group of about 30 longtime friends and many are supporters of local Latino arts and culture. They will appear before the other East Valley city councils and meet with municipal officials in coming weeks, arguing the economic bill's negative economic impacts, he said.

Barabe, a former high school Spanish and English teacher, questioned whether enough of the city's police officers can are fluent enough in Spanish to make arrests and read suspects their Miranda warnings.

"Have the city and police department calculated the human costs with an eye toward the distrust of police and damage to the spirit of cooperation with police in the Latino community that will result from enforcement of this law?" Barabe asked the council. "Has the police department been able to assure the council that racial profiling will not occur during traffic stops and criminal investigations?"

Earlier this month in Tempe an activist group pushed that city to defy the state's new immigration law, but municipal spokesman Nikki Ripley said the city will enforce the law when it goes into effect next month.

Refusing to enforce the state law could subject a city to lawsuits, said Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor.

Tolleson, Flagstaff, San Luis and Somerton have joined a lawsuit to block the bill from taking effect.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/2010/06/25/20100625chandler-coalition-resolution-against-immigration-law.html

Nogales: Laborers in limbo as SB 1070 nears

2010-06-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

As Nogales’ Friday morning bustle begins amid the sound of chirping birds and the rumble of a nearby garbage truck, a tan-colored pickup pulls up slowly to the strip of Grand Avenue in front of the Pimeria Alta Museum.

The driver, a smiling, wrinkled man honks twice as men dressed in denim, work boots and baseball caps hold up fingers in a gesture to ask how many workers he needs.

The truck, its bed loaded to the brim with wood, pulls in to the parking lot behind the museum and two men jump in.

Meanwhile, just up the street, a group of crisply dressed women sit anxiously on benches, clutching their purses. One stands up and waves at a blonde-haired woman, who greets her in broken Spanish before the two continue down the sidewalk.

One-by-one, the other women follow suit, climbing into cars or walking away with a newfound employer.

The day has begun for Nogales’ day laborers – men who do yard and construction work, and women who clean houses or nanny children. Some are out-of-work Americans, while others are unemployed Mexicans who cross legally into the U.S. as tourists, but try instead to find an informal day’s work.

The architects of SB 1070, Arizona’s tough new immigration law, hope that life for these folks gets a lot tougher on July 29 when the measure comes into effect. Under the law, people who hire day laborers can be charged with a class 1 misdemeanor.

No distinction

Francisco Castillo, who patrols the lot behind the museum for neighboring Bank of America, said it’s typical to see men sitting under the billboard in the lot each weekday morning.

“It’s become a custom,” Castillo said. “The museum is somewhat of a reunion point for people without work.”

And in Santa Cruz County, there are a lot of people without work. According to May figures from the Arizona Department of Commerce, the county jobless rate remains around 18 percent – which hit a decade high in March.

Jesus Gutierrez, a Rio Rico resident who said he was laid off from jobs at Wal-Mart, Zulas Papachoris’ Restaurant, and Jack-In-The-Box because of the recession, now seeks work as a day laborer.

“I hope to find yard work, or whatever I can get,” Gutierrez said, as he sat in the shade of a ramada across the train tracks from the museum.

He said he hasn’t found work in the past few weeks and he said he thinks enforcement of SB 1070 will help him, since people tend to hire day laborers from Mexico who work for less.

However, the law does not distinguish between a person who hires Gutierrez, who lives legally in the U.S., and someone who hires Martin, Hector or Leonel – three day laborers who didn’t want to reveal their last names because they live in Mexico and lack U.S. work visas.

As a blue sedan with a rolled-down window slowed near the museum, Martin held up three fingers and shouted, “How many do you need? We do yard work and tiling.”

But the car sped off and Martin turned to Hector and Leonel and said, “Well, looks like we’re not going to be working today.”

Martin, who crosses in from Nogales, Sonora five days a week, said he finds work about two days a week – usually in Rio Rico.

He said there is less work now than before and he said he thinks it’s because people have less money to pay workers. Or perhaps they’re fearful to hire day laborers because of the new law, he said.

Enforcement

Castillo said he thinks many of the day laborers are undocumented, and he expects to see big declines in their numbers come July 29.

Lt. Octavio Gradillas of the Nogales Police Department disagrees.

“When they’re so visibly out in public like that, I think they’re legal,” Gradillas said. “Especially with so many border agents downtown I don’t think they’d risk being caught.”

Yet even with Border Patrol agents whizzing by on a bike every few minutes, or a Border Patrol helicopter hovering above the museum, Martin, Hector and Leonel say law enforcement officials rarely – if ever – approach them.

Gradillas said it’s only a police matter if NPD receives a complaint, like the time museum staff complained that the congregated laborers were blocking pedestrian access.

When asked about the day laborers near the museum, Mario Escalante, spokesman for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, said he had heard of the group, but that to his knowledge, the agency has not received any requests to verify the workers’ legality.

Gradillas said since a lot is still up in the air regarding the role of the police in enforcing SB1070, he has no idea how – or if – the law will affect NPD’s responsibility for cracking down on day laborers.

Martin, the undocumented laborer, said he’d be under the billboard on July 29 to see how it all shakes out.

“I’m still going to come,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2010/06/25/news/doc4c24caad7d6db972255565.txt

LAPD Wants To Break City’s Arizona Boycott

2010-06-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.racewire.org/archives/2010/06/lapd_wants_10-month_break_from_arizona_boycott.html#more

Los Angeles police are looking for an okay from the city council to extend a contract with an Arizona-based company, in violation of the city’s boycott against the state over its anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. The LAPD’s request is the most significant test yet to the crop of municipal boycotts that have popped up since Arizona passed SB 1070—and the boycott isn’t likely to hold.

The L.A. Times reports that Arizona Travel Solutions supplies cameras at 32 intersections around the L.A. to catch red-light runners. The city council’s public safety committee said the camera contract should be exempt from the boycott because they ensure public safety.

Most cities that have passed boycott resolutions have not been tested this way—or been so open about their business dealings. Los Angeles’ troubles provide a glimpse into how far a city will go to honor its political position; most of the dozen-plus cities who’ve passed boycott resolutions have purposely included lenient language that “recommends” a city consider pulling out of contracts with Arizona-based companies or “cautions against” doing new business. Most city resolutions are also non-binding, symbolic agreements.

When Los Angeles passed its boycott resolution on May 12, it strongly condemned the Arizona law, cautioned against entering into new contracts with the state and forbade city employees to travel there. It remains the largest city to boycott Arizona over SB 1070, which empowers law enforcement officials to detain and investigate the immigration status of anyone they think might be in the state without papers.

Last week the LAPD canceled a training trip for several officers that was scheduled before the boycott took effect. Police Chief Charlie Beck said he pulled his officers out of that training to respect the boycott, though others weren't so happy.

"I think it's a huge mistake," Paul Weber, head of LAPD's professional league told the L.A. Times. "When the department decided a few months ago to send these officers to this training, they obviously saw the value in it. Public safety shouldn't be sacrificed just because Arizona's become a political football."

According to the L.A. Times, the city council is expected to grant LAPD's request today.

Oakland has also violated its own boycott by renewing a $1 mllion contract with the corporate advertising company, Clear Channel, which is based in Arizona. The New York Times reports that both Berkeley and San Francisco continue to do business with the state despite passing their own generously worded boycott resolutions.

Most of the economic pressure on Arizona has come in the form of hotel and conference cancellations in the Phoenix metro area, to the tune of about $10 million so far, according to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. Elsewhere, the economic and locality-based boycotts of Arizona continue on a much quieter scale. But like Lawrence Glickman, a labor historian at the University of South Carolina told ColorLines: Boycotts are very easy to start, but much harder to finish.

Photo: Getty Images/David McNew

Se suma México a demanda contra ley Arizona

2010-06-23T11:57:00.001-07:00

Se suma México a demanda contra ley Arizona

La SRE informó que el gobierno mexicano se adhirió a la denuncia presentada por un grupo de organizaciones civiles. En ella solicitó a una corte federal se declare inconstitucional dicha norma, en pro de los derechos humanos.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2010/06/22/formaliza-mexico-demandas-contra-ley-arizona

La Jornada en línea
Publicado: 22/06/2010 14:26

México, DF. México presentó formalmente ante una Corte Federal en Arizona su solicitud para acompañar una demanda contra la Ley SB1070.

La Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) informó que el gobierno mexicano se sumó formalmente bajo la figura de Amicus Curiae “Amigo de la Corte” a la causa denominada “Frendly House, et al. Vs Michael B. Whiting, et al”.

Bajo tal figura, el gobierno de México apoya la demanda entablada por un grupo de organizaciones civiles, incluyendo el Fondo México-Americano de Defensa Legal y Educativa (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund: MALDEF), el Centro Nacional de Derecho Migratorio (National Immigration Law Center: NILC) y la Unión Americana de Libertades Civiles (American Civil Liberties Union: ACLU) para impugnar dicha ley aprobada recientemente.

A través del escrito, informa la SRE a través de un boletín, México podrá dotar de información al juez de la causa con el propósito de enriquecer su criterio.

En su demanda, México solicitó a la Corte Federal se declare la inconstitucionalidad de la Ley SB1070 y se impida su entrada en vigor, ya que "es fundamental e imperativo que a sus ciudadanos se les reconozcan sus derechos humanos y civiles cuando se encuentren presentes en Arizona o en cualquier otra entidad de Estados Unidos".

Costa Mesa action against the "Rule of Law"

2010-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

June 15, 2010 — The City of Costa Mesa passed a resolution labeling itself a "Rule of Law City" against the undocumented immigrants! Costa Mesa has declared war on our community! The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has provided the city an ICE agent in their local jail to deport anyone without the "proper documentation". How can we help the police if we don't trust them? Our families will be torn apart and we cannot let that happen! The city has no jurisdiction on laws related to immigration, but yet the City Council has made of its city a smaller version of Arizona with the same harmful consequences on the people of Costa Mesa! *** This protest was organized by the people of Costa Mesa

Phoenix: La Comunidad Resiste Contra SB 1070

2010-06-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Gathering + Demonstration

Games+Music (Haymarket Squares and Others to be announced!)+Speakers+Rally

Food Not Bombs will be providing things to fill your bellies!

Bring: Games, Beverages, Blankets, Chairs, Chairs, Instruments, Crafts, Art Supplies, Friends, Literature, Things for Shade, and anything else you might like!!

Date:	Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Time:	7:00pm - 11:30pm
Location:	Civic Space Park

Chuck D calls Jan Brewer 'a Hitler'

2010-06-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

Public Enemy's Chuck D has released another song condemning Arizona nearly 20 years after the incendiary "By the Time I Get to Arizona," in which he blasted Gov. Evan Mecham as a racist "cracker" over his refusal to recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a holiday.

The track, which starts off sampling "By the Time," as you may have guessed, is more concerned with the relative merits of SB 1070.

The track is called "Tear Down That Wall," and the rapper told Billboard he wrote it because "the governor is a Hitler," adding that "Tear Down That Wall" is "something that has its own life. It's not that you're doing anything to be opportunistic. I talked about the wall not only just dividing the U.S. and Mexico but the states of California, New Mexico and Texas. But Arizona, it's like, come on. Now they're going to enforce a law that talks about basically racial profiling."

SB 1070 makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

Chuck D has also issued a statement that reads, in part, "Jan Brewer's decision to sign the Arizona immigration bill into law is racist, deceitful, and reflects some of the most mean-spirited politics against immigrants that the country has ever seen. The power that this law gives to police, to detain people that they suspect to be undocumented, brings racial profiling to a new low. Brewer's actions and those of Joe Arpaio, Russell Pearce, the Arizona State Senate are despicable, inexcusable, and endorse the all-out hate campaign that Joe Arpaio, Russell Pearce, and others have perpetrated upon immigrants for years. The people of Arizona who voted for this bill, as well as those who crafted it, demonstrate no regard for the humanity or contributions of Latino people. And for all of those who have chosen not to speak up, shame on you for silently endorsing this legislated hate."

The track is currently available at slamjamz.com and will appear on his Chuck D solo effort at a later date.

Los Lobos, Hall and Oates, Conjunto Primavera, Cypress Hill and Pitbull are among the artists that have canceled Arizona shows in protest. Artists speaking out against the law include Shakira, Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana and members of Rage Against the Machine, who formed the Sound Strike, a coalition of musical artists opposed to the bill, including Kanye West, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Sonic Youth, Tenacious D., Joe Satriani, Cypress Hill, the Coup and Rise Against.

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2010/06/21/20100621chuckd-arizona-immigration-law-hitler.html

Raúl: A Call to Dream; a Call to Action and Rebellion

2010-06-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

By Raúl Alcaraz (on Tohono O’odham lands)
www.antifronteras.com

Currently the DREAM Act Movement is being trashed by both the conservative and leftist tendencies within the Migrant Rights Movement. Reform Immigration for America (RIFA), a right-wing tendency within the movement supportive of an enforcement and militarization approach to Immigration Reform, has reportedly asked that the Senate not move forward with the DREAM Act. While on the other side, radical/revolutionary-minded folks are also critiquing the DREAM Act Movement for not being radical at all and for supporting legislation that feeds into the military industrial complex and the academic industrial complex.

So where does this leave the Dreamers?

To share a little bit about myself, I myself was an arrestee in the sit-in that took place in Senator John McCain’s office on May 17th in Tucson, Arizona to push for the passage of the DREAM Act. I chose to participate despite my own critiques of the DREAM Act. After meeting with the Dreamers and hearing their powerful life stories and listening to their plans of getting arrested despite the risk of deportation, I was deeply moved and compelled to participate. Their conviction, passion and willingness to sacrifice and push the envelope is admirable. It’s good to have constructive critiques, definitely. However, we have to check our privilege and recognize that this is undocumented youth determining their fight and making themselves the subjects not the objects of debate; they are putting themselves at the forefront of a struggle essentially for equal access to education. (It is important to point out the demographics of the DREAM Act 5: None us were U.S. citizens, 3 were womyn and most of us queer.) Yes, the DREAM Act is reformist. And yes, the DREAM Act is problematic for feeding into the military industrial complex. But regardless of our feelings on the DREAM Act, it is undeniable that the DREAM Movement has emerged as the most organized, “radical”, concrete and viable alternative defying the enforcement approach proposed by right-wing pro-Immigration Reform organizations like RIFA. As a recent article’s title suggests, the most visible forces within our movement can be simplified to “RIFA versus the DREAM Movement”.

So where does this leave the radical/revolutionary tendency of our movement?

Since SB 1070 blew up nationally, there have been a series of nonviolent civil disobedience actions across the country which have tended to be more militant in analysis and demands than the DREAM Movement. Beginning with the Capitol 9 in Phoenix and subsequent actions in Los Angeles, Tucson, New York City, Santa Ana and other places, there’s huge revolutionary potential here yet low capacity for long-term massive coordination and sustainability of direct action mobilizing. These actions seem to be sporadic and disconnected with no clear strategy in sight.

This is at a time when our community is the most radicalized and militant it has ever been, yet the most visible/radical element getting all the attention in the mainstream media is the DREAM Movement?! Dang. This begs the question: What’s wrong with the Left? What are we doing wrong? Instead of just critiquing the DREAM, why don’t we ask ourselves why we are allowing this NIGHTMARE called Amerikkka to continue unchallenged? Why are we allowing Border Patrol Pigs to taser, torture, terrorize and assassinate our people? How could it be that we idly sit by continuing our everyday lives uninterrupted as 7 year-old Brisenia Flores and her father are shot to death by White supremacists in Arizona or 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez is shot in the head by an agent in El Paso, Texas??? Why do we allow Arizona to be ground zero for police brutality against Latinos and the site of a quiet GENOCIDE against thousands of our sisters and brothers that have lost their lives crossing the desert—year after year after year??? How could we let this government get away with genocide and terrorism? What’s going on with our movement? Our strategy? Our tactics? Why are we letting this once in a lifetime opportunity to push our revolutionary visions to the forefront of the movement slip through our fingers? Where have our clenched fists gone? Why are we hiding behind our comfort? Where’s our dignity? Where’s our courage? Where is our commitment to our families and our visions of freedom? Whether it’s the DREAM Act or Immigration Reform, WE CANNOT depend or place our hopes on politicians of either party to be persuaded to side with justice or morality. If this is our strategy we will be waiting for a very long time and have lost from the very beginning.

Have we forgotten about the legacies of Harriet Tubman? Ricardo Flores Magon? Reies Lopez Tijerina? Assata Shakur? Robert F. Williams? Malcolm X? The Black Panther Party? Loilta Lebron? Silvia Rivera? Comandanta Ramona? If there was ever a moment to build on their legacies, it is now. Lobbying, voter registration drives, vigils and marches are obviously not gonna get us anywhere except backwards… nonviolent civil disobedience actions must continue, but that ain’t gonna get us much further either; not in violent Nazi-zona, not in violent Amerikkka.

So where does that leave you?

What are you doing as an organizer or activist fighting for the liberation of our people? What are you proposing? What are you doing? How are you taking things to the next level? Are you being creative? Are you pushing the envelope? What are you scared of? Are you being revolutionary to your fullest potential? Are you sacrificing yourself and your lifestyle like the Dreamers did? The Dreamers quit their jobs. They left their families, cities and communities. They came to Arizona and not just for a day or for a march. They got one-way tickets to support movement-building in Arizona and got arrested and are now facing possible deportation. If you were born with the privilege of having U.S. citizenship and claim to be radical or revolutionary or supportive of that in any way, I ask “how are you challenging your comfort and privilege to achieve visions of social justice?” Furthermore, I ask all people: “what are you doing to build upon the militant/revolutionary herstory of our ancestors whom resisted colonization by any and all means necessary?” Only by reflecting on these questions will we get to formulating concrete next steps that will truly cause an impact on this decadent political, economic, social system we live in. It is not acceptable to be racially-profiled. It is not acceptable to get separated from our families. It is not acceptable for massacres to take place because of U.S. border policies. It is not acceptable for us to get raided, deported and assassinated. So why are we living like it is okay for these things to happen daily? Ethnic cleansing and genocide are at our doorstep. How do we plan to adequately respond to this grim reality?

Beyond a call to DREAM, this is a call for all of us to step it up, to walk the walk, to seize the moment, resist and struggle for the LIBERATION of all people.

Beyond a call to DREAM, this is a call for ACTION, REBELLION and REVOLUTION.

It’s now or never.

For our dreams to become reality it’s up to you, it’s up to us to make it happen.

The Calm Before the Storm….An Anarchist Perspective on Challenging the Violence of SB 1070.

2010-06-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

by survivalsolidarity

The Calm Before the Storm….An Anarchist Perspective on Challenging the Violence of SB 1070.

A flock of racists slowly approach us on the wing of Arizona’s future. They are prepared to land on occupied Akimel O’odham Pi-Posh land (Phoenix). Like vultures they circle above us waiting for SB 1070 to go into effect. Spectators throughout the world wait eyes to the sky, ear to the ground for them to land. Unfortunately no one has stepped up to shoot them outta the sky just yet.

However a few warning shots have been fired in the air by radicals, some of them being, the march of black flags that busted through the seams of Phoenix’s business district hurling news-boxes in the street, the lock-down inside the Tucson Border Patrol Headquarters and the revolutionizing of everyday day life in Tempe through door-to-door organizing and demanding that the city council take a stance on racism in the form of SB 1070. We do recognize that for outsiders looking in it may appear as though things are much quieter than they are. The silence has only been due to the amount of much needed attention, intention and passion being poured into our vision for long-term resistance within the places we love and fight for. We promise you that without a doubt, a storm of insurrection approaches.

For radicals within the many occupied territories of Arizona our past months have consisted of day-to-day pondering on how to respond to the casualties of the US/Mexico border (reported deaths usually surpass 200 and often sit just beneath 300). Our nights are filled with starlit walks that spill into chatters of resistance welcomed by the sunrise of another day we fight together. These talks are the culmination of years of planning for so many of us. We pick up where the anti-minutemen meetings in San Diego left off. We are the reawakening of the energy within the 2007 No Borders Camp and expanding it to be as large as the international No Borders Movement erupting in one place. The student walkouts and riots within the mid-2000’s in response to HR4437. Are you getting the idea yet? Regardless of how the state feeds it’s vultures with SB 1070 we plan to unfurl our attack and make them pay! Regardless.

The Recent Bills and State Lead Attacks Within Arizona

Many of us have witnessed SB1070 transforming into the heaviest of rains in a continuous downpour of state sponsored racism. It trickles down the same path of other oppressive laws such as HB 2008 (a bill limiting the benefits undocumented families can receive from the government) and HB 2281 (A bill that explicitly prohibits classes that “advocate ethnic solidarity”). The introduction of each of these laws continues the institutionalized attack on the safety and mental well being of families and communities throughout Arizona.

As anarchists we unabashedly oppose all laws. The reality of the interconnectedness of these laws to the further exploitation of people through institutionalized capitalism is a grim truth Anarchists have always known. We also hear the call for solidarity from those that are indigenous to this land. We answer it with urgency and vigor.

We aim for our attack to be one that could trump the negativity to follow the instituting of SB 1070. We strive for our messaging to rise into a clear non-rhetorical context; One that provides a way to connect the dots between actions and targets. With that in mind, we also recognize the need for our actions to uncover the exploitative nature of capitalism and colonization. Between the diminishing economy and the blinding spectatorial spotlight covering Arizona’s politics the time to attack has never seemed riper.

Pushing our ability to both critically and creatively develop actions that are inclusive and within an accessible social context is a must. The fear and disruption that Arizona is forcing onto peoples lives is unacceptable. It is also something that would not be hard to recreate and throw back into the states face. This should be a goal of those orchestrating responses to SB 1070.

A common shortcoming within a majority of popular North American anarchist organizing is the inability to connect our actions to larger community experiences. With Arizona attacking it’s people from so many socially disruptive angles we are provided with a monumental context for our actions to play into.

Taking a glance at a few of the recent ripples the state of Arizona have sent into peoples lives provides a little insight into our motives for yearning to disrupt the lives of those in power. In the first weeks of June 2010, in Tempe, AZ The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office raided Arizona Mills Mall. They separated shoppers from employees and according to one employee they were also flashin guns at people. An employee, told a television station,

“They show me the gun and tell me I have to walk to the freakin’ break room.”

Weeks later Arpiao’s sheriffs raided two restaurants that they have been investigating for more than a year. In a statement following the raid Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the following:

“This is another example of a case where desperately needed jobs are being occupied by illegal aliens who have disregarded our laws and our borders,”

These borders and the laws that accompany them establish an almost impossible amount of silent borders in the everyday life of those they target.

In the fields of California’s Central Valley, a wall is placed in the lives of the farm workers that are repeatedly sprayed with pesticides and can’t seek medical help due to the fear of their deportation. Within the maquiladoras of Central and Southern America the health risks that the workers face are literally life threatening. Women working at these factories have been exposed to such high amounts of chemicals at the workplace that they often experience difficulties when going into labor. Many of their children are born with extreme cases of birth defects. The same companies often fire women immediately after discovering women are pregnant. What is mentioned is barely a fraction of the violence these workers face. Due to the amount of loopholes in capitalism no one is ever held accountable for these fucked up conditions. When families are torn apart through raids and deportations they are literally separated and often from there main source of income. While living in a constant fear of deportation a barrier is literally placed on families between them and their communities. A news report from Rio Rico, AZ reported that About 70 parents usually attend monthly parent-teacher meetings at their Pena Blanca Elementary School. In April of 2010, at the last meeting of this school year, only 20 showed up.

Connecting Indigenous Resistance and Addressing Colonization

“One of the central messages of colonization is the assertion that we are not entitled to autonomy over our own bodies—they are simply machines to be used in sweatshops, prisons and farms. Devoid of our own self-determination regarding sexuality and gender, we are as disposable as any other piece of equipment that has lost its use.” —Trishala Deb and Rafael Mutis of the Audre Lorde Project Conquest By Andrea Smith

Addressing the militarization of the O’odham border has become one of Arizona Anarchists main focuses this year. From the forming of the Diné, O’odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian Bloc, to the recent Border Patrol lock-down we refuse to allow the invisibleness of Indigenous issue to continue. As you read this you can know for sure that there is a BP officer on the Tohono O’odham reservation looking for someone or something to target. The Tohono O’odham often have their houses raided by masked BP and homeland security agents. BP harasses elders travelling to sacred ceremonies and school children going to class; they steal the O’odhams horses and have even recently killed an O’odham youth. One of the most appalling facts that cease to see the light of day is how the building of the border literally dug up the bodies of O’odham ancestors. All this recent colonization comes on the back of 500+ years of Indigenous people being under attack. We say fuck that! It’s time to attack.

Reflecting on the Zapatistas struggle to the south of us we see one of the most obvious places to attack; that being any of the larger systems of infrastructure. Everyday, the results of NAFTA and “Free” Trade are felt in the bones of the people affected most by those policies.

“And it is clear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For them there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; colonization and decolonization are simply a question of relative strength.”
— Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth)

Borders are strung together through intricate webs of capitalism. Their purpose, to protect capital. That is why attacking everything that resembles capital to those in power is an obvious target. The racist legislation we are up against is part of the same stranglehold that capitalism strong-arms people with all across the world. The unapologetic rate of Arizona’s—current institutionalized racism is still a bit alarming. Connecting the current state-sponsored abuse, international colonization and flexing of white supremacy based policies and that of similar occurrences within the recent past provides a clearer picture of our enemy rises.

We see the violence of the state suffocating our communities. We prepare today for the fights of years to come!

“The government has failed us you can’t deny that!” “Stop singin and start swingin!”

—Malcom X

Group attacks border fence in protest of border patrol shooting

2010-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

A group of young people demonstrated on the Rio Grande near the Santa Fe bridge Saturday to protest the fatal shooting Monday of a 15-year-old Juárez boy a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The demonstrators appeared to have crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the international fence on the U.S. side of the border. The demonstrators also cut a hole in the fence.

The protest was staged after the shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca, who was killed by a Border Patrol agent trying to make an arrest during a rock-throwing incident near the Paso del Norte Bridge in Downtown El Paso.

Officials said the agent was defending himself when he fired his weapon three times. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation in the case.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15284326?source=most_viewed

Tierra Y Libertad Organization - TYLO FREEDOM SUMMER

2010-06-11T18:08:00.001-07:00

TYLO FREEDOM SUMMER 2010

Come support and learn how to get involved with TYLO in Collaboration with No More Deaths

Rechazamos El Racismo! We Reject Racism! Campaign Launch

When: This Saturday, June 12. 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Where: At the Sustainability Garden at Toltecalli Academy
On the southeast corner of Liberty Ave. and Irvington Rd.

What:
- Come hear from youth about the TYLO Freedom Summer Youth Community Organizer Training
- Join us as Tierra Y Libertad Organization and No More Deaths launch the We Reject Racism / Rechazamos el Racismo Campaign against SB1070
- Learn about TYLO's community organizing work in the Barrio to build grassroots resistance against SB1070 and racism
- Learn about the campaign and sign up to volunteer
- Pick up a yard sign: Show your resistance against SB1070 and racism at your home or business

We will have refreshments, yard signs and Nopal Books will be tabling.

For more information about the launch event, please contact:
imeldac.tylo@gmail.com or (520) 481-2559

-----

WANT TO GET INVOLVED? Join the We Reject Racism! Rechazmos El Racismo Campaign!

Callout for volunteers:

Join Tierra y Libertad Organization - TYLO and No More Deaths:

WE REJECT RACISM/RECHAZAMOS EL RACISMO Campaign

- Fight SB1070 and Racism

- Support visible resistance and the creation of safe spaces

- Build resources and networks of support for families and individuals affected by SB1070

- Help to build a sustainable grassroots movement for the rights of all people that builds power from the ground up and impacts politics in Arizona.

- Fight militarization of the border and our communities

We Reject Racism! Rechazamos El Racismo! Campaign Volunteers will participate by:

- Distributing yard and business signs that show resistance against SB1070 and racism and promote space spaces for all;

- Working with others in your neighborhood to build relationships with neighbors house-by-house

- Organizing within your own neighborhood or church/synagogue/mosque to host educational events and create a plan for supporting neighbors/church members affected by SB1070

- Help to shape the campaign and the movement against SB1070 and Racism

You can sign up at Saturday's launch to get involved, OR email us at: werejectracism@gmail.com

Two people killed at the border by Border Patrol

2010-06-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.wsj.com/photojournal/2010/06/09/conflicting-reports-over-border-death/

Two people killed at the border:

Anastasio Hernandez was shocked to death by U.S. Border Patrol Agents in San Diego he was 42 yearsl old

Sergio Adrian Hernández, 15 years old, was shot in El Paso Texas by U.S. Border Patrol Agents
...
Death to Amerikkka!!!!

Local couple encourages protest against Arizona's immigration law with $10,000 song contest

2010-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

by Brian New / KENS 5

Posted on June 8, 2010 at 5:41 PM

Tired of what he said is the inexcusable silence of San Antonio leaders, local advocate Paul Ruiz is putting up $10,000 of his own money for those willing to speak-put against Arizona’s new immigration law.

Ruiz and his wife, Margaret Ruiz, called on local artists Tuesday to write and produce an original song protesting Arizona’s law. The San Antonio couple will be awarding $10,000 to the best songs.

Ruiz said he’s been bothered by the silence in San Antonio on this issue.

“Why such silence in San Antonio?" he said. “We had less than 500 show-up in Milam Park (for a protest) in a city of more than a half of a million Chicanos. Explain that to me."

Ruiz said, with the exception of Police Chief William McManus and Mayor Julian Castro, few local leaders have spoken-out publicly against the law.

"We found it incomprehensible that the council hasn't spoken out,” he said. “We found the business community not speaking out. We found the priests and the minister not speaking out."

Ruiz made the announcement about the singing competition Tuesday at the Guadalupe Theater with more than a dozen local and international performing artists on hand, including Tejano star Little Joe.

For more information on the contest contact Ruiz at margaret-ruiz@sbcglobal.net.

No SB 1070 in Tempe!

2010-06-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

Protestors of SB 1070 march through the streets of Tempe

2010-06-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Tempe march against immigration law set for Saturday

2010-06-04T16:16:00.001-07:00

Members of a local community group opposed to Arizona's new immigration law are calling for Tempe city council members to publicly defy the state with a declaration of non-compliance.

The group plans to march along Mill Avenue Saturday in an attempt to pressure city officials to publicly reject the law. A declaration of non-compliance would keep city officials and law enforcement officers from enforcing SB 1070, essentially making Tempe a "1070-free zone," said Alysse Chinnock, a 22-year-old Arizona State University student and community activist.

Organizers say they want to see Tempe follow the cities of Flagstaff and Tucson in publicly condemning the law. Elected officials in both cities voted to pursue legal action against the state last month, citing concerns over potential rights violations and boycotts by other cities and organizations.

Many of the protesters are ASU students who organized themselves on the Facebook group "No to SB 1070 in Tempe," which has 128 members. Group members said they are concerned about the effect of the law on the university, which has many international students and faculty members.

"There is a challenge for a lot of non-English speakers in explaining their immigration status to officers," said Chinnock, who works as an administrative assistant in ASU's ESL office. "It's making ASU a scary place to live."

Nikki Ripley, a spokeswoman for the city of Tempe, said the city plans to comply with the controversial new immigration law.

"It is our job as a city to comply with state laws," Ripley said in an e-mail.

The legislation allows citizens to challenge state, county and local officials who enact any policy "that limit or restrict the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent." The city attorney's office declined to comment on the potential consequences of non-compliance with state law.

The protest is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at Clark Park, on 15th Street between Hardy Drive and Mill Avenue. Participants plan to march from the park to the intersection of University Drive and Mill Avenue.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/tempe/articles/2010/06/04/20100604arizona-immigration-law-tempe-march.html

Protesters chain themselves at Santa Ana federal building to protest Arizona law

2010-06-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

LA Times

Eight people who chained themselves together outside the federal building in Santa Ana were arrested during a noisy noontime protest Thursday.

The protesters, most of whom dispersed after police shut down Santa Ana Boulevard, had gathered to protest Arizona’s recent immigration legislation and to call on Santa Ana to declare itself a sanctuary city.

Eight of the protesters had chained themselves together with lock boxes and stood at the driveway of the federal detention center.

“We want an end to racist anti-migrant laws,” said Anna Vilchis, 22, a recent UC Berkeley graduate who lives in Santa Ana. “Undocumented people are human beings, we’re not criminals.”

Police successfully dispersed dozens of protesters who were standing in the area and at noon had given a final warning to the chained protesters to disperse before beginning arrests, said police spokesman Anthony Bertagna.

Bertagna said those arrested were taken to the city jail and will be cited and released. He said the protesters did not advise police about the protest, making it difficult for them to prepare. "This type of event drains our resources," he said.

The protesters said they were part of a loosely affiliated group calling itself “We are Arizona.”

-- Paloma Esquivel from Santa Ana

UFW Will Challenge Arizona Officers

2010-06-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

KCBA

Salinas, Calif.- United Farm Worker leaders are saying no to SB1070. They say it is racist and it targets Latinos unfairly.

" Here are all my documents. We leave with nothing, "said Efren Barajas the Vice President of UFW. Barajas and board members may return to the Central Coast with a criminal record. " We won't take licenses, citizenship and green cards,"said Barajas.

The group is joining protestors from across California, Texas, Oregon and Washington State on July 29. They're challenging police in Arizona to arrest them when the new immigration law starts next month. " Challenge Arizona police to arrest us for being Latinos, for being suspicious and not having documents,"said Barajas.

If police stop them for any reason and suspect they're in the country illegally,officers can ask about their immigration status. If they can't provide documents, they go to jail. " I'm pretty sure this is going to make an impact. Its one of the first steps in order to get immigration reform,"said Sergio Guzman.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Department said it's training deputies to spot illegal immigrants. And will prove the new law does not encourage racial profiling.

Direct Action at Santa Ana Federal Building

2010-06-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

Students from Santa Ana are locked down in front of Santa Ana federal prison to oppose racist laws in Orange County--Costa Mesa, Yorba Linda, . . . and Arizona. Please come support. They are locked down. They may be there for a long while, which means that they will need our support.

Anarchists attack ICE facility in Loveland, Colorado

2010-06-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

ICE Facility Attacked in Loveland

Over the weekend of the 15th of May, an ICE field office in Loveland, Colorado was attacked. Every window and door was shattered, totaling around twelve panes in all.

The unmarked facility is one of many such hidden ICE buildings in the U.S. that attempt to operate in secrecy. One tactic used by ICE to maintain this secrecy is to take people from their homes in the middle of the night to be "processed" before taken to privately-owned ICE prisons.

By operating in secrecy, ICE is able to maintain this particular sub-station within a shopping and residential district without revealing the repression used to create and sustain borders.

This action was taken in the climate typified by SB1070 in Arizona and local anti-immigrant sentiment. However, the ICE office would have been targeted regardless of legislation.

Resistance and attacks against manifestations of borders, prison and power will continue as long as families are separated and people are imprisoned, deported, and harassed.

As others have said-

NO DEPORTATIONS!!! NO BORDERS!!

Solidarity means attack,
some anarchists

Mexican man dies after being stun-gunned at border

2010-06-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO — A Mexican man who was shot with a Taser stun gun during an altercation with federal border officers has died, authorities said Tuesday.

Anastacio Hernandez Rojas, 32, was declared dead Saturday at a local hospital, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

San Diego police, who are investigating the death, said Hernandez Rojas and his brother were arrested by Border Patrol agents about 7:20 p.m. Friday on suspicion of illegally crossing the border.

The men were going to be turned over to Mexican officials at the San Ysidro border crossing when Hernandez Rojas became “violent” after agents removed his handcuffs, police said.

He and the agents fell to the ground during the struggle, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were called for help. A baton was also used to no effect at some point during the fight, police said. A customs agent shot him in the back with a Taser, and he stopped breathing shortly afterward, police said.

Officers administered CPR before paramedics took him to a hospital.

Authorities are awaiting autopsy results to determine what role, if any, the Taser may have played in the death.

San Diego police Capt. Jim Collins said drugs or mental disorders are frequently contributing factors in Taser death cases. There was no obvious indication at the time of arrest that Hernandez Rojas was under the influence, Collins said.

Police are investigating the incident and documenting the amount of force used by officers before submitting the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for review.

Federal officials have declined to release the names of the officers involved.

In a statement released Tuesday, Mexico’s Department of Exterior Relations condemned the use of the Taser and stated that the Mexican government will press for a full investigation. Alberto Diaz Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, said the consulate was still waiting for a report of the incident from investigators.

Last year, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International amended its user manual to recommend that officers avoid hitting the chest, neck and head area due to a low risk of cardiac arrest — and to prevent lawsuits.

Amnesty International claims that about 350 people died after being shocked by Tasers between 2001 and 2008.

Staff writer Leslie Berestein contributed to this report.

Kristina Davis: (619) 542-4591; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/01/man-who-was-shot-with-taser-at-border-dies/

Anti-SB 1070 Demonstration Rocks Phoenix, Marchers Number in the Tens of Thousands

2010-05-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

El Diablo, Joe Arpaio, and Jan Brewer torture a migrant

Despite threats of disruption from extremist elements, Saturday's anti-SB 1070 demonstration produced a diverse, spirited crowd of anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 that walked some five miles to the Arizona state Capitol without incident.

The Phoenix PD made no arrests, and there was no clash between anarchists and cops, as there was back in January for a large anti-Arpaio march. This demonstration dwarfed that one many times over.

Pretty much says it all...

Phoenix police officers I spoke with estimated the crowd at 25,000 to 30,000 coming out of Steele Indian School Park, where it began. Organizers put the final number at 100,000, and though I usually err on the side of conservative crowd estimates, in this case after looking at aerial shots of the marchers, I'm inclined to think the organizers were closer to the mark.

After zigzagging its way down Third Street and Central Avenue, the crowd made its way west on Washington Street, ending at the Capitol where various speakers and performing acts ascended a massive stage set directly before the old Capitol building, with its copper dome and Winged Victory weather vane.

Attendees were looking for victory of another sort -- victory over Arizona's new "papers please" legislation, signed into law last month by Governor Jan Brewer.

As former state Senate majority leader Alfredo Gutierrez pointed out, the demonstration was more a pep rally than anything for the "Freedom Summer" that groups inside and outside of Arizona are planning -- a campaign aimed at registering new voters and organizing the Hispanic community.

He ain't El Santo, but he'll do

"This is about preaching to the choir," Gutierrez admitted. "We're not protesting anything. People are having one hell of a great time, except for a few people who had a bad upbringing."

Some of those "few" were represented by Mesa neo-Nazi J.T. Ready, who took up a position with a fellow white supremacist across from the crowd, bearing giant Confederate and American flags and sidearms, of course. Ready was protected by a cordon of cops, and was watched over by several observers from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready (right) gets into it with a Native American as a DOJ observer looks on

Ready got into arguments with a few folks while praising Adolf Hitler as a great "white civil rights" leader. But he was unable to provoke anyone, despite one hot moment with a young Native American man, whom he insulted repeatedly and told to go dance around naked, stuff like that. A friend of the man soon came by and pulled him away.

I asked Ready about photos I'd seen recently on the Web site of Maricopa, Arizona neo-Nazi Harry Hughes -- ones of Ready and Hughes in camouflage, on "patrol" in the desert for illegal aliens, armed with assault rifles.

I couldn't help but ask: Had Ready ever shot at or killed anyone while on such a patrol? After all, there's been other footage of him down on the border with heavy firepower.

Also, Ready was court-martialed twice, drummed out of the Marines, and has a criminal record. He once shot at an illegal immigrant in 2006. This, while Ready was running for Mesa City Council. The other guy was armed with a BB gun, Ready with a .38. Neither man was injured, though the illegal immigrant was arrested. Hardly seems fair.

Say it loud, and then get thyself to the voting booth

Ready answered my question cryptically, saying, "I can neither confirm or deny the statement." When I pressed him, telling him that was an odd way of answering such a query, he simply repeated himself.

Interestingly, both Harry Hughes and fellow neo-Nazi Scott Hume attended the pro-SB 1070 rally at Tempe's Diablo Stadium later the same day. (You can read more about Scott Hume, here.) Neo-Nazis at a pro-SB 1070 bash? Man, those nativists are full of surprises.

Nearby Ready, a little street theater ensued, with a quartet decked out as El Diablo, Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer, and a Mexican guy in handcuffs. El Diablo hailed Ready as a comrade.

"I'm with you guys," he told Ready and the other white supremacist."You're my man!"

Then he turned to "Brewer," nearly salivating. "Look at my baby girl right here," he said as she primped herself. They then proceeded to torture the Mexican dude who was on his knees in cuffs.

"What don't you understand about illegal?" wondered El Diablo. "I drew the line in the sand. I'm the one that creates the border. I'm the one that enforces the law."

Crude, but funny, in a Punch and Judy sort of way.

Over on the stage, the bill lacked the big names of previous marches and rallies. There was no Zack de la Rocha this time. No Linda Ronstadt. And Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez didn't show as planned. Nor did any Arizona Congressmen make appearances.

Instead, the big draw was Mexican-American recording artist Jenni Rivera, who was much beloved by the crowd. She pretty much summed up the law and its supporters at one point.

Songstress Jenni Rivera on pro-1070 types: "They're haters, baby."

"What this law is trying to do is not only trying to separate families," she told the audience. "They're trying to discriminate, to single us out. They're haters, baby."

You got that right, Jenni. Big-time haters.

Rivera's show actually concluded the program. But there were a string of others on the mic before she closed things out. Hip-hop artist Olmeca gave a fiery performance. And there were numerous speakers, including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who received one of the friendliest receptions, leading the crowd in chants of "Si, se puede!"

"Let's call out to the [U.S.] Attorney General and the President of the United States," he said, "to please come to and file that lawsuit to stop this law now. Let your voices be heard!"

Nice contrast to state AG Terry Goddard, who on Friday said he would "vigorously defend" the law if the feds seek an injunction to keep the law from going into effect.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on the President to protect the civil rights of all Arizonans, and for Congress to pass immigration reform immediately.

The view from the stage on Saturday...

He also spoke of union solidarity with immigrant workers.

"In the labor movement we only really ask one question of anyone," he said. "That question is not where are your papers, that question is what side are you on?"

Tohono O'odham tribal member Mike Wilson, whom I wrote about earlier this year in my cover story "Blood's Thicker Than Water," had a great line about SB 1070.

"Racial profiling did not start last month," he told everyone. "Racial profiling began in 1492."

Wilson also attacked the O'odham Nation itself for being anti-immigrant.

"I am embarrassed to say that my own Tohono O'odham Nation is not a friend of the immigrant," he intoned, adding, "Forty-two percent of all Latino migrant deaths are on the nation. [Fellow humanitarian and tribal member] David Garcia and I put out water on the nation so that the migrants do not die.

"And yet the Tohono O'odham government removes, destroys or confiscates my water stations."

Not surprisingly, the most invigorating speech came from Pastor Warren Stewart of the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix, who has spoken at previous rallies and has been working tirelessly to unify the African-American and Hispanic communities over this issue.

As if addressing his congregants, he told the marchers, "We will not let our enemies turn back the clock to a day when we were judged by the color of our skin, and not the content of our character."

He received thunderous applause when he informed the crowd that, "God is on our side as we fight for justice, liberty, equality for all people regardless of their color, and regardless of their country, regardless of their language.

"President Obama, hear us from Arizona. God put you in the White House, you are a person of color, stand with us!"

With that kind of oratory, Stewart could almost turn this atheist into a believer. Almost.

Still, even if it isn't a divine presence, there is something on the side of the anti-SB 1070 folks: History. Despite the efforts of the nativists and the haters to divide and Balkanize the country, the trend in America is toward inclusiveness and diversity. That's why the haters are almost all white, and the anti-SB 1070 campaign is a patchwork quilt of colors, ages, faiths, and ethnicities.

In other words, the army of hate is outnumbered and destined to lose. This will not happen without struggle and disappointments. And it will not happen overnight. But the pro-SB 1070 extremists have a date with history's dustbin, just like the segregationists, slave owners, and apartheid-supporters of old.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/05/anti-sb_1070_demonstration_roc.php

9 arrested during Santa Barbara immigration rally

2010-05-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/95057754.html

The Associated Press
Thursday, May 27, 2010; 6:02 PM

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Police say nine people have been arrested during an immigration protest rally in Santa Barbara.

Activist Nayra Pacheco says those arrested Thursday included eight University of California, Santa Barbara, students and one professor.

Police Lt. Doug Kresky says the activists refused to leave an intersection after an unlawful assembly was declared. He says they occupied the intersection for more than 45 minutes.

Kresky also says between 150 and 200 people took part in the rally, which called for repeal of Arizona's immigration law. They want the city council to declare Santa Barbara a sanctuary for immigrants and to stop doing business with Arizona companies.

The Arizona law requires that police ask people about their immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they're in the country illegally. The law also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

Students, families prepare to leave Arizona because of SB 1070

2010-05-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

The teacher had a geology question for sixth-graders at Phoenix Collegiate Academy.

She asked Thursday morning if anybody could explain a "divergent boundary," a principle in plate tectonics.

Noemi raised her hand and answered: "It's when two plates move away from each other."

It seemed a fitting description for what is happening in her life.

In the fall, Noemi's friends and classmates will move in one direction and she will move in another.

Noemi was born in Arizona and is a legal resident, but her parents are not. As pressure on illegal immigrants rises, her parents have decided they can't stay in Arizona.

Sometime before school begins again in August, they will move to New Mexico.

The last day of school is typically one of joy. This year is more complicated.

The passage of Senate Bill 1070, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally, has raised anxiety among immigrant families. And, as the school year ends, more children are realizing they won't be coming back.

Moving to Mexico

Francisco's last day in the Creighton School District was Thursday. His last day in the United States will be sometime in late June. His family is moving to Guadalajara, Mexico.

"It's been a sad day," Francisco said. "Last year, the last day of school was fun. Not this year."

Francisco, 12, his older brother and younger sister were born in Phoenix. His brother is finishing his freshman year at Arcadia High School.

The Arizona Republic is not using their last names to protect their identities.

But now, they are moving to where his parents moved from 15 years ago.

"It's hard to say goodbye to people. These are my best friends," Francisco said. "I'm going to be leaving to Mexico. It's a big change, but it's part of life."

'50 families'

Rosemary Agneessens, principal at Creighton Elementary School, has been writing letters of introduction for students like Francisco who may need them at new schools.

"I've got 50 families with a story like that," she said.

Francisco's parents, Juan and Maria, are confident their son will be able to make the adjustments in school. Juan has been using the Internet to check test scores at different schools in Guadalajara.

But they are worried about him leaving his friends. Francisco is a quiet, shy boy. He has two best friends, his classmates Ricardo and Jose.

"They understand, but they are sort of (quiet) like me," Francisco said. "The three of us have been best friends for as long as I can remember."

Juan and Maria are aware of the irony of their decision. They moved to this country, in part, so their children could have a better life. Now, they are taking them from the only country they have ever known.

"But there are not any other options," Maria, crying, said in Spanish. "We came together as a family and talked. And my sons told me they would not want to see me arrested."

Moving out of state

It's hard for a sixth-grader to be stoic when grown-up events like a new state law seem to be taking away your friends.

"I want to tell her mom not to move," Estephania de la Cruz said while hugging Noemi after science class at their south Phoenix charter school. "She's so kind and nice, she's like an angel."

Noemi, her brother and their parents don't want to move, but Noemi's mother, Luz Maria, said the economy and political climate are forcing her.

Both parents fear arrest and deportation.

When business slowed, Luz Maria lost her job at a bakery where she worked for nine years, and her husband's tow-truck business has been waning.

"It's hard right now, and it's going to get worse," Luz Maria said. "It's hard for me, but it's much harder because it affects my children."

Noemi cries every time she talks about leaving Phoenix. She will miss her friends, she said, and her school and her teachers. But mostly her friends.

Today, the last day of school, will be particularly dramatic. "I love my friends. I've been friends with Jacquelin my whole life."

The two of them sat on the floor in the hallway at Phoenix Collegiate Academy.

Jacquelin's mother used to watch Noemi when the girls were just toddlers.

They said they will miss talking. And playing tag. And fixing each other's hair.

"When we were kids, we used to do each other's hair a lot," Jacquelin said. "Now, I won't have anybody to do my hair."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/28/20100528arizona-immigration-law-families-leaving-arizona.html#ixzz0pDs7ZZAU

Resistance to SB1070: No borders, no state, no papers

Aerial Sheriff

Call for Indigenous Convergence to Resist ALEC!

ALEC thinks they're meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November...

MUSIC VIDEO:Shining Soul: 'Papers' Militarization of Border

NOLA Anarcha- Why Anarchists Should Protest the ALEC Conference

Private Prisons in a Wider Context: Video

Operation Chinga La Migra by LulzSec

http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/chinga_la_migra_1.txt

LulzSec releases ‘classified’ data of ‘racist’ Arizona law enforcement

LGBT immigrants abused while in U.S. custody

Comatose Border Patrol Victim Spared Deportation, Removal from St. Joseph's (For Now)

U.S. Border Patrol agent in Yuma sector indicted on drug charges

UnDeveloping Controls: States of Internment and Humanity at the Crossroads

UnDeveloping Controls: States of Internment and Humanity at the Crossroads

Arizona to countersue feds over immigration issues

Los Angeles gets tough with political protesters

For acts of political protest that his predecessor treated as mere infractions, Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is seeking jail time.

SB 1070's copycats see trouble now

ICE's "Secure Communities" program goes into effect throughout Wisconsin

ICE's "Secure Communities" program goes into effect throughout Wisconsin

Todos Somos Arizona January Update

Letter to the DREAM Movement: My Painful Withdrawal of Support for the DREAM Act

Study: 100,000 Hispanics left Arizona after SB1070

The Fascists Already Have the Keys and the Handcuffs

Arizonans take the streets against fascism, 2 arrested

More video and music from Saturday's confrontation with the NSM

A Sneak Preview: The Inglourious Basterds Bloc returns this November 13!

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

Key Players That Helped Draft Arizona's Immigration Law

Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants

By PETER CERVANTES-GAUTSCHI

Australia: Solidarity actions with the Villawood detainees

Prison Industry Funnels Donations To State Lawmakers Introducing SB1070-Like Bills Around The Country

Tucson Group “Polices” the Police on Immigration

BOAF Art Auction

Border Opposition Action Fund: Call to Artists!

O'odham Ofelia Rivas to National Guard: 'We do not want you on our lands'

33 charged with blocking L.A. city streets during immigration protests

Noise Demonstration at Santa Cruz County Jail

On ICE, Imprisonment, and White Supremacy

Demonstrators use noise to break down barriers; anarchist march held at County Jail in solidarity with prisoners

"UA Against SB1070" asks the Regents to take a stand

Anti-SB1070 graffiti popping up in downtown Phoenix

12 arrested in protest outside Phoenix jail

Phoenix police trained for immigration protests

Arizona's New Immigration Law: Cops vs. CopWatchers

Immigration protesters try to close Tucson freeway with tar, tires, glass

Arizona immigration law protesters arrested after blocking street

Arpaio's crime sweep delayed by protest

Communique: Tucson Interstate Temporarily Blocked!

Joe Arpaio's Deputies Faced Down by Anti-SB 1070 Protesters in Guadalupe

Los Angeles: Banner drops in solidarity with the struggle against SB 1070

"THESE ARE THE FRONT LINES" - Community Discussion and Dialogue

Native American Tribes Say They Won't Enforce Immigration Law

Native American Tribes Say They Won't Enforce Immigration Law

Evan Wyloge, 2010

Action!

SB1070 in Flagstaff: Watching and worrying

Norway: Lier asylum centre in Buskerud burnt to the ground

Denver: Community Members Remember Those Recently Killed on the Border and Fight for Migrant Justice

SB1070: Will Be Stopped, but Worse Will Come from Feds

By The Time I Get to Arizona

THE HARDEST BUTTON TO BUTTON

Tucson: Anti-borders/SB 1070 banners dropped

Chandler: Coalition asks city to oppose implementation of SB 1070

Nogales: Laborers in limbo as SB 1070 nears

LAPD Wants To Break City’s Arizona Boycott

Se suma México a demanda contra ley Arizona

Se suma México a demanda contra ley Arizona

Costa Mesa action against the "Rule of Law"

Phoenix: La Comunidad Resiste Contra SB 1070

Chuck D calls Jan Brewer 'a Hitler'

Raúl: A Call to Dream; a Call to Action and Rebellion

The Calm Before the Storm….An Anarchist Perspective on Challenging the Violence of SB 1070.

The Calm Before the Storm….An Anarchist Perspective on Challenging the Violence of SB 1070.

Group attacks border fence in protest of border patrol shooting

Tierra Y Libertad Organization - TYLO FREEDOM SUMMER

Two people killed at the border by Border Patrol

Local couple encourages protest against Arizona's immigration law with $10,000 song contest