Feds to Sue Arpaio, but Carry Out Largest National Round-up Yet

It may seem like great news that the federal Justice Department will finally be suing sheriff joe.  According to "Government plans to sue Arizona sheriff for targeting Latinos",

The administration's Justice Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have been in settlement talks for months over allegations that officers regularly made unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos, used excessive force against them and failed to adequately protect the Hispanic community.
Those negotiations have broken down because of a fight over the Justice Department's demand that an independent monitor be appointed by a federal court to oversee compliance with the settlement...

But can the federal government really take the moral high ground when you contrast the latest round-up, which happens to be the largest yet, with sheriff joe's sweeps?  In Colorlines' "ICE Arrest 3k Immigrants in 6 Days, Largest Roundup Ever", the raids are described:

On Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced 3,168 undocumented immigrants were detained over the course of six-days in a national operation the agency dubbed “Cross Check.” According to ICE, the six-day operation was the largest such effort in the agency’s history.

I find it interesting that I hardly saw any mention in my social media networks about this largest round-up ever.  Arizonans in particular seem to think that the federal government could and would save us from horrible politicians like Arpaio.  The Federal government prefers to think of their work as colorblind, that what sets them apart from Arpaio is that he is actively discriminating which "erodes the public trust," according to Napolitano.  I snarkily commented in last December's post, "Federal Goverment Prefers Their Way Better Than Arpaio's", "because blatant maliciousness and hypocrisy erode the public trust, the status quo doesn't."

The following points really contextualize the federal government's approach:

“The raids are in line with the administration’s record on immigration to date: while claiming to target serious offenders the majority of those detained were in fact people with misdemeanor convictions and people who’ve returned to the United States after having been deported previously. In the case of the later group, many have returned to the United States to be with their families,” [Colorlines.com’s investigative reporter Seth Freed] Wessler went on to point out.

In it’s press release, ICE again claims that the agency “is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that targets serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities.” And the Washington Post reported the news with an inevitable highlights reel, naming a Cameroonian drug distributer with a gun charge and Mexican murderer among the group. “But of course, the vast majority of those in the serious criminal list are not kin-pins and murderers. ICE officials continue to draw on racialized hysteria to naturalize what’s clearly a bald policy of mass deportation,” Wessler said.

Wessler also notes operation Cross Check is the third such national scale enforcement operation in the last year, which together have detained nearly 8,500 people. “These numbers amount to only a fraction of all deportations. Last year nearly 400,000 people were deported.”

Read that last paragraph again.  As I have pointed out in the past, the federal government does not create elaborate press circuses to feed their ego, accompanied by veiled racist rhetoric, quite the way Arpaio does.  But let's be honest here.  The federal government is doing the majority of the detaining and they're doing all of the deporting.  It has been over three years since I wrote, Federal Government will not be Maricopa County's Savior in response to the announcement that the House Judiciary Committee was pushing Eric Holder and Napolitano to investigate Arpaio.  I pointed out that "Much of the activism is focused around getting people from the federal government to pay attention, although others also call on the federal government to stop the raids. The primary voice of immigrants’ rights advocacy in anglo media is Stephen Lemons who recently said, 'The political reality of Cactus Country is this: Without intervention from the Obama administration, we are royally screwed.'"

In further commentary, I wrote,

We cannot expect a government that has been built on racism and continues to practice it in various ways (much higher rates of incarceration of people of color than whites, lack of indigenous rights, wars, just to name some examples) to be a force against white supremacy. The operator of immigration detention centers (or the ones who outsource private detention facilities), the performer of raids, is not the one whose going to save us from the similar actions of the Sheriff. He is doing their work for them. He's just doing it in an extra "look how demeaning i can be to these people" way. If the federal government does anything about it, it will only be to legitimize and continue its own actions and those of other jurisdictions.

The federal government is the reason why stepping across a man-made line or overstaying a visa are illegal in the first place.  They are they ones who have forced programs like Secure Communities onto city and state governments.  Arpaio just pushes the limits to see how far and blatant it can go.

It seems in some ways that Arizonans are still waiting and hoping for some federal intervention.   Considering the actions of the federal government, however, does this not seem rather ridiculous?  Not to mention that treating the lawsuit against Arpaio as a victory distracts from the major problems that continue to occur.

Edit:  See also: Operation Cross Check » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

Federal Goverment Prefers Their Way Better Than Arpaio's

The federal government has finally decided it doesn't exactly like how Arpaio has been enforcing immigration, huh?  Admittedly I can't help but get a little kick out of the blow to Arpaio's ego (and career?) but at the same time, I really can't stand the idea that people would be celebrating the federal government for finally putting their foot down against maltreatment of migrants.  Why?

I broke it down almost three years ago in my blog post, Federal Government will not be Maricopa County's Savior, one of the main points being that the federal government is just as bad if not worse in handling the immigration issue.  I think of Arpaio as an extremist clown- he is a spectacle that pushes the limits of what the public will accept.  He makes nearly everyone else who is pro-immigration enforcement (aside from Pearce who was right there with him) look responsible and reasonable.  So the federal government militarizes the border, holds thousands of migrants in detention centers and/or deports them, still conducts huge raids (Obama's raids surpassed previous ones, i.e. here and here), etc,. but they get to decide, to the delight of many, that Arpaio just went to far because he's been using his federal authority to discriminate. 

"The Department of Homeland Security is troubled by the Department of Justice's findings of discriminatory policing practices within the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office," Napolitano said in a statement. "Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust. DHS will not be a party to such practices. Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO's 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office access to the Secure Communities program." (Source).

Apparently the federal government knows how not to erode the public trust. For similar reasons I have a problem with people focusing on the "innocent" victims of racial profiling and such.  Sure, go after the real criminals, we won't question that concept, just as long as all the people caught up in the deportation/detention system are the ones you say you're going after- because blatant maliciousness and hypocrisy erode the public trust, the status quo doesn't.

Yes, I'd like to see Arpaio gone, just as I liked seeing Russell Pearce gone (it'd be better if he was goner) but the illusion of victory distracts from what's really happening.  As I've mentioned numerous times, the Phoenix PD continues to deport more people than MCSO, but they do it without all the media hubbub, and therefore without comment from Stephen Lemons and migrant rights groups.  Arpaio is the face that can be pasted to a piñata, but he's not the only one we should be hitting with the metaphorical (or not) stick.

Some of what I wrote in early 2009 is pretty out-dated, but the following concluding paragraphs are more timeless.

One problem with appealing to the government is that to do so would require not being a threat. But any real just solution to the “immigration problem”, inevitably involving the dismantling of NAFTA and other neoliberal projects, as well as a serious change in social/political structure, is and always will be a threat to the government.

Another problem is that the government has an interest in appearing to be able and willing to deliver justice. But overall it is not in its interest to truly liberate the people from injustice and in fact its existence is actually antithetical to such an action. It would like to have people ask instead of demand changes, however, and would like us to think of it as a benevolent force in such cases when it’s actually worth the time to make reforms that benefit the people. Therefore, if we ask and they give, they are the heroes. If we demand and they give, they are still the heroes although we still have some sense of having played a part.

Related, the government is not a just one. We cannot expect a government that has been built on racism and continues to practice it in various ways (much higher rates of incarceration of people of color than whites, lack of indigenous rights, wars, just to name some examples) to be a force against white supremacy. The operator of immigration detention centers (or the ones who outsource private detention facilities), the performer of raids, is not the one whose going to save us from the similar actions of the Sheriff. He is doing their work for them. He's just doing it in an extra "look how demeaning i can be to these people" way. If the federal government does anything about it, it will only be to legitimize and continue its own actions and those of other jurisdictions.

Kidnapping and Violence against Undocumented Immigrants

Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the U.S.. Why are those of us in the area barely hearing about it? Because it's happening to undocumented immigrants and drug dealers, not to those considered "us" by the media and the authorities. Can you imagine what things would be like if mexicans were kidnapping white people here in phoenix? It would be quite a different attitude coming from the media and government officials. Of course they're worried that the drug-related violence, which is much worse in Mexico, will touch "us" soon enough, which is partly why they are throwing money into the drug war in Mexico. Notice the statement below about not one involving a "truly innocent victim" in the article called Human smuggling makes Phoenix kidnapping capital of U.S.

In the past year, there were 359 kidnappings in Phoenix, and not one was legitimate involving a truly innocent victim, said Mark Spencer, head of the union which represents more than 2,500 Phoenix police officers. He said all the kidnappings were connected to illegal immigration and the numbers may represent just the tip of the iceberg.

"The investigators up at the violent crimes bureau are estimating that this 359 represents just one-third of the reported kidnappings that take place in Phoenix," Spencer said.

Also view Napolitano's recent statements on putting more agents on the border.

"Every American has a stake in this," Janet Napolitano said in a phone interview with USA Today. "Violence on the border easily seeps into our communities. It also creates a fear in border communities that the rule of law doesn't apply anymore, and that's just unacceptable." (Source).

The kidnapping and associated violence are part and parcel of the underground economies which have resulted from the criminalization of drugs and unauthorized movement into the U.S.. Yet the police, such as sheriff Arpaio, use the kidnapping and violence as pretext to further terrorize undocumented immigrants. The police and homeland security are doing almost exactly what the kidnappers are doing: holding people against their will and profiting from it.

What do i mean they're profiting from it? Well, i intend to go into more detail in the future, but we can say for sure that someone is directly profiting from detaining immigrants. How about the "GEO Group, the nation's second largest prison company, [who] saw its earnings jump 29% over 2007," and other companies as detailed in How the Jailing of Migrants Drives Prison Profits.

The government is very afraid of the power and violence of the mexican drug cartels, though both profit from the criminalization of people and drugs. The Merida Initiative, also called "Plan Mexico" fits into the continuation of this profit-making, but adds a bit more control over the drug cartels.

"...according to human rights advocates, the plan prioritizes companies over people, lining the pockets of American defense contractors while putting both political dissidents and ordinary Mexican civilians at risk. Government documents leaked to the nonprofit Center for International Policy provide an idea of what the specifics of the plan will look like: more than half the funds would pay for technology and personnel to bolster the Mexican military's counternarcotics operations. The initiative would ignore the US's own involvement in the transport and sale of drugs" (Source).

I have only known of plan mexico for a couple months. Many people, despite criticizing the mexican government for corruption and human rights abuses, as well as criticizing the U.S. government for their unfair attitude towards immigrants, somehow have faith in this plan.

Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, said he believes Congress will assess the program this spring.

"One of the things that we might be looking at is getting them more hardware such as helicopters," he said. "And there's a need for more training to help them stop the weapons that are smuggled south."

There is talk of Obama sending the national guard to the border, which Napolitano did in 2006.

I intend to discuss the drug war further in the future.

Note: There are some who say that the numbers regarding kidnappings in phoenix are inflated. I intend to look into this further.

Arpaio is being Investigated

The big news locally is that Maricopa County sheriff arpaio is being investigated by Dept. of Justice. It is being considered a big achievement, and in some ways it is. But the huge march a couple weeks back was calling to stop arpaio and stop 287(g). An investigation is one thing, but let us wait for the results before we get too excited. I discussed many of my thoughts in Federal Government Will Not be Maricopa County's Savior.

One problem with appealing to the government is that to do so would require not being a threat. But any real just solution to the “immigration problem”, inevitably involving the dismantling of NAFTA and other neoliberal projects, as well as a serious change in social/political structure, is and always will be a threat to the government.

Another problem is that the government has an interest in appearing to be able and willing to deliver justice. But overall it is not in its interest to truly liberate the people from injustice and in fact its existence is actually antithetical to such an action. It would like to have people ask instead of demand changes, however, and would like us to think of it as a benevolent force in such cases when it’s actually worth the time to make reforms that benefit the people. Therefore, if we ask and they give, they are the heroes.

When i was informed of this investigation, i immediately thought of the ways that arpaio had been enforcing the state laws and that there may be more on their way. I had also thought of AZ senator Pearce's bills especially when Arpaio commented that if the 287(g) agreement got to restrictive (the rules are apparently being adjusted to prevent abuse) he might drop out of it.

Happily, i read this blog post that my partner emailed me that addressed the limitations of the investigation of arpaio.

At the forefront of this effort is Sheriff Arpaio and the county’s prosecutor, Andrew Thomas. They have found ways to charge immigrants that use the services of a smuggler with conspiring to their own smuggling. They have used a state law created to go after employers that hire undocumented labor against the workers.

Different courts have upheld their use of these laws. And Arpaio himself has vowed to continue to use them if the feds take away from him the power to enforce immigration laws under an agreement known as 287(g).

There’s also a bill in the works that would charge undocumented immigrants with “trespassing” into the state's land.

The trespassing bills have been attempted in the past. I'm not sure if those are among those former governor napolitano vetoed. While i do not believe napolitano was an advocate for undocumented immigrants, she certainly vetoed a lot of crazy laws. The new governor is not as likely to do so.

Having witnessed the gradual build-up in the war against undocumented immigrants, i have to say that it is important to view each attempt at increasing this war as a piece of a larger puzzle. Each law, each change in ability to enforce, each attitude promoted through the media builds up to a larger picture which becomes more and more overwhelming. Which is why stopping arpaio and 287(g) is important, but also paying attention to what pearce is doing, as well as the increasing threat of violence by the drug cartels/kidnappers, which i intend to write much more about.

Federal Government will not be Maricopa County's Savior

Across the nation, grassroots movements comparable to that in Maricopa County who are focusing on immigrants’ rights are organizing around raids and detention by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, or organizing against the construction of the border wall if geographically relevant, also a project of DHS. Immigration enforcement in the form of raids in particular, as well as the fear and discrimination caused by the laws, are the work of the federal government. Why then are people asking the federal government to solve the problem of our malevolent county sheriff Joe Arpaio?

Arpaio is extreme in his political/publicity stunts. In many ways he legitimizes the actions of the other law enforcement agencies and legislation. Why are the majority of people focusing solely on Arpaio, as though the actions of the Phoenix PD and other police departments do not matter? I have addressed this problem in Cop vs. Cop: Sheriff and Mesa Chief spar over sweeps and Phoenix Mayor Supports Change In Phx PD Immigration Policy. In addition, Arizona Senator Russell Pearce is concocting various methods to hit immigrants any way possible. He's trying to make it law that all undocumented immigrants can be arrested for trespassing anywhere in the state (automatic probable cause for stopping anyone who looks Mexican?), more penalties for not having a driver's license, make schools collect data on undocumented students and provide it to the government, and most significantly make it so all police have to enforce immigration law.

The latest news is that the House Judiciary Committee Presses Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano to Investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Previous efforts involved an FBI investigation as well as various lawsuits.

Ever since Obama got elected, voices among local and non-local journalists, bloggers, organizers, and “leaders” interested in immigrants’ rights have been calling for the federal government (or particularly the new head of DHS and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, as well as the new head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Eric Holder, as well as Obama himself, to do something about Arpaio.

A particular portion of a blog entry says a lot…

Frankly, however, the question before us is why this shoddy sheriff is getting away with “law enforcement” run amok. Where are the lawsuits against him? Where are the protests to shut him down? Where are the arrests for civil disobedience? Where are the incensed civic and religious leaders? Where are the civil and human rights advocates? Where is the national immigrant rights movement? Where are the politicians? Where is the federal government? Where?

What I see here is an expectation of one or more of these forces (which this author can’t see because he isn’t involved locally, but much of it does exist or has in some form) should be visible and effective. My sense of things is that the reason many of the more grassroots activities like the protests, civil disobedience, etc. aren’t happening or aren’t big/effective enough is because so many people are waiting for the federal government to swoop down and take care of it. Much of the activism is focused around getting people from the federal government to pay attention, although others also call on the federal government to stop the raids. The primary voice of immigrants’ rights advocacy in anglo media is Stephen Lemons who recently said, “The political reality of Cactus Country is this: Without intervention from the Obama administration, we are royally screwed.”

Napolitano was governor at least six years and didn’t even speak out against Arpaio’s practices. Yes, Eric Holder is the new head of the DOJ, so he can’t quite be held accountable for its previous practices, but likely will not do anything about the institutional racism upheld by his department through the vast prison industrial complex which is intimately tied with immigration enforcement and detention as well as the white supremacy that maintains both. Arpaio was once head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Arizona branch and has friends in the federal government. He is likely playing a part in Operation Endgame created by DHS. We mustn't think of him as unconnected from the federal government.

Yes, i believe that laws have a strong impact on how people think- particularly laws that discriminate tend to shape people's ideas about the people the laws discriminate against. Laws and the government legitimize actions by civilians against people considered inferior. As an example, the actions of sheriff arpaio, county attorney thomas, and az senator russell pearce legitimize the hateful actions of organized white supremacists. As such, there is much value in opposing laws and the actions of officials. However, there are limitations to these efforts- or specifically how the efforts are framed.

One problem with appealing to the government is that to do so would require not being a threat. But any real just solution to the “immigration problem”, inevitably involving the dismantling of NAFTA and other neoliberal projects, as well as a serious change in social/political structure, is and always will be a threat to the government.

Another problem is that the government has an interest in appearing to be able and willing to deliver justice. But overall it is not in its interest to truly liberate the people from injustice and in fact its existence is actually antithetical to such an action. It would like to have people ask instead of demand changes, however, and would like us to think of it as a benevolent force in such cases when it’s actually worth the time to make reforms that benefit the people. Therefore, if we ask and they give, they are the heroes. If we demand and they give, they are still the heroes although we still have some sense of having played a part.

Related, the government is not a just one. We cannot expect a government that has been built on racism and continues to practice it in various ways (much higher rates of incarceration of people of color than whites, lack of indigenous rights, wars, just to name some examples) to be a force against white supremacy. The operator of immigration detention centers (or the ones who outsource private detention facilities), the performer of raids, is not the one whose going to save us from the similar actions of the Sheriff. He is doing their work for them. He's just doing it in an extra "look how demeaning i can be to these people" way. If the federal government does anything about it, it will only be to legitimize and continue its own actions and those of other jurisdictions.

This brings up some questions which are not openly discussed. What does it take to really change things? If people power is necessary, how does that people power make a difference- voting, protest, social revolution, political revolution?

2007 Retrospective: The Local War on the Undocumented

"It's just crazy here." This is what I tell people who are not from Phoenix, Arizona, the political climate surrounding immigration is like. It's hard to sum up, but having kept up fairly well with local immigration news for the past couple years, I can reflect on 2007 and the direction that things have gone. We have seen ever-increasing repression against undocumented immigrants. In some ways we saw this coming. In other ways, we have been surprised. Overall, things changed gradually enough that it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as an onslaught, though putting it into perspective by looking back at 2007 as a whole might make it hard to be seen otherwise.

Arizona has seen an increasingly unfriendly environment for undocumented immigrants, with the threat of raids, violence, and repression. Within a short time, a select number of officers from different police departments with jurisdiction in Maricopa County were trained to enforce immigration laws. Some agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were deputized as well, giving dual jurisdiction to an increasing number of officials. Immigration law began to be enforced in the jails and prisons as well. The efficiency gained by these changes to enforce immigration laws is likely part of the plan set forth by the Office of Detention and Removal, part of Homeland Security. This plan, which provides strategies to "remove all removable aliens" by 2012 is called Endgame.

The year started out on the heels of a raid on workers of meat-packing plants covering six states, the largest of its kind in the U.S. at that time. On January 23, 2007, a southern California raid that nearly matched that, consisted of arrests of 761 people from countries all across the world. At that time, raids were mostly part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "Operation Return to Sender" which purported to target undocumented immigrants who were criminals- those who were known to be involved in specific illegal activities, such as identity theft, or having committed serious crimes, were deported and came back into the states. However, on January 24, a Baltimore raid targeted day laborers, which may not have been the first time ICE targeted people looking for work, but nonetheless, seems to show a general shift in focus from enforcing immigration law for removing serious criminals to enforcement that targets undocumented workers in general. We must also not forget that especially the first few years after 9/11, 2001, immigration enforcement was promoted as a way to deal with terrorists, but has since, like I said, shifted focus.

More than 235 people died crossing the border in 2007. A study came out in the beginning of the year that put the blame on border security for the 20-fold increase in migrant deaths since 1990. The article states that the Binational Migration Institute conducted the study that showed the "funnel effect" of causing immigrants to cross the Arizona desert contributed to a great increase in deaths. According to Arizona Indymedia, "In 2007 the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office had to open a new building in order to cope with the volume of remains being recovered. While the majority of deaths occurred as the result of exposure to the elements, an increasing number resulted from trauma, including gunshot wounds. In spite of this humanitarian crisis, which Arizona human rights groups such as the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths argue is a direct result of the militarization of the U.S./Mexico border, border militarization and internal enforcement continue to grow."

A series of shootings against undocumented immigrants around Arizona started 2007 on a bad foot. Immigrants were shot on January 27 in Eloy, Arizona, by four men in military-style berets and camouflage clothing. Described as three white men and one Hispanic man who spoke limited Spanish, they shot on 12 undocumented immigrants and the driver. One man was injured in the leg and the driver, apparently a citizen, was killed. About a week later, near Sasabe, undocumented immigrants were robbed at gunpoint by masked men. The next day, north west of Tucson, two men and a fifteen year-old girl, in a pick-up truck with 7-8 survivors, were killed by gunfire from another truck. The Tucson Citizen printed an article a few days later about hate crimes in Arizona, saying "Law enforcement officials blame rival immigrant smugglers for last week's violence against illegal immigrants. But others say the anti-illegal immigrant hatred saturating southern Arizona cannot be discounted. At the very least, it enables these crimes to occur." Indeed, undocumented people are being robbed, held for ransom, assaulted, and killed by other undocumented people. All of these issues- even the fact that immigrants die while crossing the desert- are related. They're related because immigrants are seen as exploitable and disposable, and therefore crimes against them can continue. Another attack occurred in Chandler, Arizona on February 22nd. These types of attacks have continued, though perhaps at a lower rate, and they remain mostly unreported by news media.

In February, I read about some efforts to set up a state militia in Arizona. Apparently a number of other states already have similar militias. The idea is that a militia would be able to help the government in emergencies. It's pretty obvious from the article, Security force for state debated, that the focus is on the border. Currently we have the national guard down at the border because governor Napolitano declared a "state of emergency", which the national guard is somehow supposed to fix. Because of the incident where armed people approached the national guard from the Mexico side of the border, forcing the national guard to retreat, some anti-immigrant folks were riled up about some supposed security threat.

Some research into this man, Arizona senator Jack Harper, who's pushing this bill that would create a state militia, shows that he has sponsored a number of bills that would make it harder for undocumented immigrants to live here. The militia bill passed in the legislature, but the governor vetoed it. Of course unofficial militias exist throughout the state (just do an internet search for Arizona militia), and many of these focus on the border. For example, the Cochise Borders Civil Defense Corps is now officially known as Cochise County Militia.

There were several anti-immigrant bills that were introduced in the legislature last year. One would keep immigrants from sending money out of the country if they didn't pay taxes on that money. Another involved allowing the police to enforce immigration laws, obstacles to registering vehicles, and an appeal to the federal government to make it so children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. are not automatically granted citizenship (which is still in the works). An anti-day-laborer bill would make it a trespassing offense if anyone blocks a public right of way to solicit a job or hire a day laborer.

Some legislators tried to change Arizona's official definition of domestic terrorism. Kirsten Sinema attempted to have the definition of domestic terrorism include border vigilante activity, which backfired when it was rejected and replaced by Russell Pearce with a wording change that would make it "illegal for undocumented persons to protest against a US citizen by an act that threatens, intimidates or results in physical injury to the citizen, to commit a crime against a citizen, or belong to a criminal street gang that protests against citizens."

None of the laws went into effect except the employer sanctions law, HB2779, which prohibits businesses from knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Businesses would risk their business license if they are found to not comply. Obviously the true target of sanctions is the undocumented worker.

In October, the Arizona Republic covered the racial profiling that was happening even a few months before the employer sanctions law was to go into effect. In late November, the Arizona Republic also carried a story on hundreds of people getting fired due to the employer sanctions law that still had not even gone into effect. Amazingly, completely contradictory information was shared with the public about whether the law would even apply to people who were already employed as we brought in the new year. On November 21st, the Arizona Republic put out a story on the new employee sanctions law only applying to new hires. However, on December 13th, an associated press story in the same newspaper stated the exact opposite of that story and doesn't even make any reference to Pearce's past statements.

There remain various unanswered questions even a month after the law went into effect. Despite the ridiculous lack of clarity around the law and the lawsuits brought against it, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) will be enforcing the new law in this county, which is not at all likely to lessen the controversy around it.

At the beginning of 2007, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was working on his department's ability to enforce immigration laws. He had already been arresting undocumented immigrants and charging them with conspiracy to smuggle themselves. Backed by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and using a law that aimed at cracking down on human smuggling, the sheriff's officers began in March of 2006 to arrest folks and put them in the jails to either plead guilty or await trial. This was considered a misinterpretation of the law according to its authors, yet the arrests continue. The last count I heard was over 1000. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is one of few sheriffs with a posse, a group of volunteers who have limited training to help enforce some laws. Joe's posse was involved in many of the patrols to catch undocumented immigrants. Some are armed.

By early February, Sheriff Joe got the go-ahead from the County Board of Supervisors for training one hundred and sixty officers to enforce immigration law.

The Arizona Republic article, Deputies may start arresting migrants stated,

Although the details are still being worked out, Arpaio did not rule out the possibility that deputies could use their expanded authority to question people about their immigration status during traffic stops and infractions as minor as "spitting on the sidewalk."

"Any time we come across an enforcement action and we find there are illegals present, then we will put our federal authority hat on and we will arrest them," Arpaio said. "I will do anything I can to fight this illegal-immigration problem, and this is one more step."

A federal official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though, said the intent of the program is not to use the deputies for routine traffic stops, as Arpaio plans.

I have always found this to be a very significant set of statements. And we shall see how they relate to his actions.

Meanwhile, outside of Maricopa county, in mid-February it was announced that Lake Havasu City Council gave the OK to the police to enforce immigration laws, and the town of Kingman was working on the same thing. Interestingly, around the same time, the East Valley Tribune and other publications printed a story about a study that showed that undocumented folks were less likely to commit crimes than citizens. However, that didn't slow the law enforcement efforts being made. Later, Prescott was also talking about getting a couple officers trained to enforce immigration law as well.
Also in early 2007, Federal immigration enforcement agents started working with Phoenix Police. The Arizona Republic reported:

Ten full-time Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents joined the Phoenix Police Department to work alongside detectives investigating violent and property crimes.

It's the first time a U.S. city has forged a side-by-side partnership with agents to intensify the fight against the criminal activity related to illegal immigration, including human and drug smuggling, kidnapping and murder.

By late march, a number of Maricopa County Sheriff's officers had been trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers. The MCSO officers would be authorized to detain and arrest suspected illegal immigrants both in the jails and on the streets. Later, some Phoenix police officers were trained to enforce immigration laws as well. The news about all these cops getting trained to enforce immigration highly increased concerns about raids. An email about a press conference stated, "Unidos en Arizona, Iglesia Palabra de Vida, Interfaith Worker Justice and the Hispanic Ministry of Faith Lutheran Church, calls on the Bush Administration to order AN IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM on all detentions, deportations, work-raids, employer sanctions, and the use of the 'No Match' letter which result in the separation of families until the passage of just and humane immigration legislation." But we were reassured by the governor, though not about Arpaio.

"The DPS is not going to be engaged in roundups," she said. Napolitano specifically cited the 1997 incident in Chandler where local police, working with federal immigration officers, went after anyone they thought was in this country illegally.

About 400 people were detained - including some U.S. citizens.

"That's not what they're going to do," she said.

In the beginning of March, a workplace raid took place in Tucson by ICE. ABC news reported,

Federal authorities on Friday raided a construction company accused of hiring illegal immigrants, detaining eight undocumented workers and arresting several other employees. Scores of agents fanned out in Douglas, along the Mexico border, and in Sierra Vista, about 50 miles northwest, in the raid on Sun Dry Wall & Stucco Inc.'s offices, a foreman's home, the home of a suspected counterfeiter and eight work sites...

In Arizona, immigration agents had promised stepped-up examinations of construction, agricultural, landscaping and service-industry businesses in hopes of deterring illegal hiring and lessening the economic incentive for immigrants to illegally cross the border.

Since then, workplace raids in Arizona have been minimal or not reported by mainstream media.

Around late March, an off-duty police officer began patrolling a certain area of Chandler to "write tickets enforcing the no-stopping ordinance, an attempt to discourage day laborers from gathering in the area," according to an Arizona Republic article, Merchants differ on off-duty cop to restrict day laborers. Also around the same time, the City of Gilbert was considering a change in policy. KTAR reported, "The deportation of three teenagers caught drag racing in Gilbert has sparked a push for a policy to turn over all illegal immigrants caught violating the law to federal authorities. If Gilbert adopts such a policy, it would be the first city in the East Valley to do so." As far as I can tell, Gilbert did not end up adopting this policy.

At the end of March, it was announced that as part of the new ability of officers to enforce immigration law, the Maricopa County Jails would be checking immigration status on all inmates and possibly have those who are undocumented deported. Around the same time, KVOA Tucson reported that "The federal agency that deports illegal immigrants is scheduled to open its first office inside a [Phoenix] prison later this week in an effort to expedite the deportation process."

In mid-July, Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced a set of efforts to combat the "immigration problem", which included a hotline that people could call to report undocumented immigrants. The hotline is believed to be the first in the country, and is printed on the side of some MCSO vehicles. The intent of the hotline was said to gather hard evidence, to go after undocumented immigrants only after having probable cause. This was only one part of the new plan. According to Arizona Republic:

In another part, about 160 sheriff's deputies, cross-trained to enforce immigration law, will saturate Valley cities and roadways to find and arrest those who are here illegally, the sheriff said. The deputies now have broad powers not only to question people about their immigration status during traffic stops, but also if they commit even a minor infraction, such as littering.

In addition, it was stated in this article that 64 ICE agents would be deputized. The East Valley Tribune reported in August that the Maricopa County Jails now have ICE databases as well, and that the Sheriff banned undocumented immigrants from visiting anyone in jail.

The MCSO stepped up efforts in October, arresting undocumented immigrants across the county in such places as Cave Creek, Queen Creek, Maryvale and Phoenix. The arrests were controversial. According to the Arizona Republic, "Others accuse Arpaio of overstepping the bounds of the agreement with ICE by using federally trained deputies to round up undocumented day laborers and corn vendors. ICE, however, says the sheriff is operating within his rights." Arpaio also announced his officers would be going after convicted criminals on probation who are undocumented, arresting them at their homes and workplaces.

Sheriff Joe began having people arrested in October in one of the main areas that day laborers have stood for work, near the Home Depot at 36th St. and Thomas in Phoenix. The area had been the site of minuteman protests in 2005 and later where area business-owners got together to hire off-duty police to patrol with the power to issue citations for trespassing and blocking traffic. Roger Sensing, owner of Pruitt's Home Furnishings, led the efforts against those standing on sidewalks looking for work in the area. His business was therefore the target of a boycott in late 2006 that resulted a few weeks later in an apparent agreement between Sensing and a leader in the boycott effort, Salvador Reza, in which Sensing agreed to stop hiring the off-duty cops if Reza would work on getting a day labor center in the area. Whatever the reason, a day labor center was not started in the area, and so day laborers remained standing on sidewalks in the area, although to a lesser degree by that time. Sensing and other business owners met with Sheriff Joe Arpaio to get him to do something about it. Sheriff's deputies arrested ten individuals in mid-October 2007. Reza and others started another boycott and began a weekly protest on Saturdays which lasted till the end of the year.

According to news reports, the Sheriff's officers were apparently stopping people for traffic violations in the area, not targeting people standing on the sidewalks, although it seemed clear that this was an effort to intimidate if not arrest undocumented workers in the area. The arrests, many of which resulted in deportations, continued as weeks went by. Quickly the arrests were framed as a response to the boycott demonstrations and tended to especially take place on Saturdays during protests. The situation was soon becoming ground-zero for the national immigration debate. At the beginning of December, an article with the title, Illegal immigrants arrested at furniture store protest, was printed in the Arizona Republic. Other publications printed similar articles. The interesting thing was that those eight were not part of the protest. They were just in the neighborhood during the protest. Yet the the former article says,

The eight people arrested Saturday on suspicion of violating immigration laws were the first illegal immigrants taken into custody during the actual protests.
"I thought it was time to do something more about it," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "The Pruitt's situation is getting out of hand. They are demonstrating every week and destroying this business. I don't think that's fair."

Clearly it was intended to look like Sheriff Joe was arresting participants of the protest even though he wasn't. The language of the articles led back to a press release put out by the Sheriff's office.

SHERIFF'S OFFICE CRACKDOWN CARRIES ON IN MIDST OF PRO-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DEMONSTRATION

EIGHT MORE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARRESTED
DURING PROTEST AT PRUITT'S FURNITURE STORE

The ongoing battle between illegal immigrant day laborers, Pruitt's, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office human smuggling unit resulted in the arrests of eight (8) more illegal aliens today.

The eight illegals were arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies under federal immigration law, now bringing the total made to 32 arrests within the six weeks since Sheriff's deputies began patrolling the vicinity of the central Phoenix store, and are the first series of arrests to occur as protesters, for and against illegal alien day laborers, line Thomas Road near 36th Street...

In less than a week from these arrests, the Sheriff's Office put out another press release prior to the protest. Quoting the sheriff, it said, "This weekend, I will increase the number deputies [sic] to patrol the Pruitt's area, and I promise that my deputies will arrest all violators of the state and federal immigration laws. I will not give up. All the activists must stop their protest before I stop enforcing the law in that area." It was clear from this that the sheriff was intentionally enforcing this law to protect a business against free speech. In addition, he was looking to either intimidate people from attending, or to convince anti-immigrant folks that he was taking care of their concerns like the great presidential candidate they think he should be, or both. Either way, he managed to make it appear that he was targeting participants of the demonstrations while not actually getting entangled in a legal battle that would ensue if he did. Legal observers, copwatch, media, and others tried to observe and document as many stops as they could on Saturdays.

Before the end of the year, at least one racial-profiling lawsuit was brought against the MCSO. They pulled over a vehicle driven by a U.S. citizen allegedly for speeding, although no citation was given. The passenger was asked for his identification and presented his passport and other paperwork, which despite its validity, was not enough to keep the police from detaining him for 8 hours. The lawsuit also includes a Hispanic U.S. citizen who was stopped while walking and was also detained. Another lawsuit was in the works this January.

In the middle of all of this, in mid-November, we got a surprise from Sheriff Joe. Arpaio was on Lou Dobb's "Broken Borders" show saying "Well, you know, they call you KKK. They did me. I think it's an honor, right? It means we're doing something." He didn't express that opinion back when it was discovered that an image of Arpaio as a KKK member holding a noose to a migrant's neck was circulating through email. At this point also, a recall effort started against him again, and also controversial was the arrest of the director of the ACLU for allegedly trespassing on the property of Pruitt's furniture store during one of the protests. Even though the charge against Dan Pochoda was simply trespassing, for which most people simply get a citation, he was arrested and brought to jail for 10 hours, and his car was impounded. He has a history of challenging the Sheriff's authority, and it was apparent that Pochoda would not have been arrested if he had not identified his position with the ACLU. This all came shortly after a complicated and more controversial situation involving the a local free paper, the Phoenix New Times.

Meanwhile, down in Tucson in early November, the Tucson Police Department officially stated they would not call ICE to schools and churches after a group of around 100 students protested outside the police department in response to ICE deporting a man whose son was caught with marijuana on his high school campus. The father was deported and the rest of the family was removed voluntarily after they admitted they were in the country illegally.

An article in the November/December edition of Color Lines newsmagazine came out exposing Phoenix as the city with the highest number of shootings by police. This article, titled "Why So High?" detailed the statistics that showed a disproportionate number of shootings against people of color. "Among the 27 cities with more than 250,000 people that tracked victims' ethnicities during this time, 23 out of 137, or one in six, Hispanic victims of police shootings were killed in Phoenix, although Phoenix had just 6 percent of the total population." Mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, dismissed the data and expressed his solid faith in the police to do their jobs correctly and with no racial bias. He soon also came out supporting a change in police policy regarding asking about immigration status.

The Phoenix PD at this point, and for the past 20 or so years, have a "don't ask" policy, which means they don't ask about anyone's immigration status. Now, due to pressures from the anti-immigration/racist elements, the mayor is saying he supports a change in this policy which would allow the police to notify ICE when a suspected undocumented immigrant commits a crime, which insinuates that police would be asking about immigration status. The mayor not only said he supported this change, but a new policy is in the works by a four-man advisory panel. About the change in policy, the mayor said, "As mayor, I have seen our situation escalate to a perilous point. Rhetoric is replacing reason. There's too much hate. It's ugly, it's dangerous, and good people continue to suffer." The mayor also recently publicly criticized the racism among the anti-immigrant movement. What doesn't make sense is how he imagines the "hate" justifies changing the police policy.

Just before the end of the year, the Scottsdale police also announced they would be asking "for proof of citizenship from every suspect they arrest" as the Arizona Daily Star words it, and calling ICE on those who were suspected of being undocumented. Although this would apparently only affect those who are arrested, it seems problematic that the burden of proof would be on each individual as far as their legal status goes. Conveniently, ICE is better staffed to deal with local calls, according to the same article.

The year 2007 in this region is but a piece of the wider picture of what undocumented immigrants are facing. Things continue to get worse, and we can only expect it to get worse unless more people voice their opposition.