It is not Arpaio this time who is conducting an immigration sweep, but the Phoenix PD. I've been told that this has been confirmed for today from 12-4 in Maryvale (west phoenix), and that they will be harassing corn vendors checking for compliance with the laws involved in that. But of course they're checking for undocumented migrants, and since it's the Phoenix PD, they are not going to make a big circus out of it like Arpaio does.
It is important to see that although I don't know if they've done sweeps quite like this before, the Phoenix PD does engage in such harassment and arrests of migrants. They've been known to mess with day laborers, and they also did nothing about day laborers getting threatened with a gun by one of the minuteman-types several weeks back. They also orchestrated an attack and arrests at the recent anti-Arpaio march. In addition, as I've been pointing out, they arrest many more migrants that the MCSO. And all this is not to mention the police brutality and murders that they inflict on the community, as well as their racist treatment of participants of the Martin Luther King Jr events each year after the event ends.
So I ask again, why is Arpaio the bad guy, while Phoenix PD liaisons are welcomed at immigrants' rights meetings? Can we not see that this is a systemic problem? If anything, Arpaio's antics make the other police departments seem more reasonable, yet we should not be fooled!
Update: I'm hearing that the word got out adequately and no corn vendors were out for the police to harass (or worse), but apparently the police were going to people's houses.
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