Immigrants-as-Trespassers Law Closer to Passing

Seriously, this could be the most f-ed up thing that happens this year, as far as state legislation goes. A bill that Arizona Senator Russell Pearce wrote (SB1175) would make it so undocumented immigrants' existence in this state would be considered trespassing, and would also prevent any policy that restricts the police or other state agencies from enforcing federal immigration law. This bill just passed in the senate this week.

This means that undocumented immigrants' presence in the state would cause them to be breaking a state law. Although i think it's a stretch and might be unconstitutional, the idea is to override the federal immigration law, as far as enforcement goes. As long as police attempt to enforce federal law, they are on shaky ground, but they can much more easily enforce state law. This is what arpaio has been doing by enforcing the smuggling law, the employer sanctions law, and other such laws to go after undocumented immigrants). Although his actions are controversial and he does say that he is enforcing federal immigration law, his primary means of attacking the immigrant community is by enforcing (though many would say inappropriately) the state laws.

Pearce's bills aim to create more crimes out of the actions (or mere existence) of undocumented immigrants so they can more easily be arrested and removed. He wrote a bill (SB1337) that would make a class I misdemeanor out of not having a state-issued drivers' license (you have to be legal to get a legal one), which is in the legislature at the same time as various state police departments are discussing not recognizing the Matricula Consular, the ID issued by the Mexican government. Additionally, another bill (SB1177) would make it a crime to solicit for work.

The wider picture involves a new ICE program called "Secure Communities" which will target "criminal aliens" by linking up various law enforcement and immigration databases to be accessed when a person is in police custody. The new and existing laws and policies would give the police cause to arrest, detain, and check the databases on the suspect, and since undocumented immigrants would then have charges against them that they wouldn't otherwise have had, they will more likely be face the consequences of being labeled "criminal aliens".

Clearly "criminal alien" will mean nothing different from "illegal alien", or to us, "undocumented immigrant" because anyone without papers could be categorized as a "criminal alien". The criminal alien term will be used to make the general public feel that the right people are being deported. However, just as previous ICE raids have been purported to target dangerous criminals, they have in fact caught in their nets mostly people without criminal records. Now, creating more people with criminal records will justify various actions against the undocumented community.


*This article contains some text from a previous posted blog post. Apologies to anyone who were thinking, "haven't i already read this?".

Russell Pearce is an A-Hole

I was just listening to the senate judiciary committee (AZ) hearing regarding the warrants the mcso hasn't served. This is streaming on the web. Man, i can understand why these senators think they deserve higher salaries. That shit is boring. But i still don't think they should get higher salaries. Overall, i didn't find listening to it at all useful.

I was able to hear Russell Pearce spew some trash from his mouth. One particularly interesting quote that i was able to type right after i heard it was a portion of a sentence, "The sheriff’s the only one doing preventive law enforcement..." referring to Arpaio.

Preventive law enforcement, huh? Doesn't that imply that a crime has not yet been committed?

Check out some of his bills in the senate:

(this text is from an email he put out. excuse his poor spelling and grammar- he's just a government official)

Trespass: I have a bill to make it a state crime to enter or remain in Arizona in violation of federal law. A 2nd violation is a felony and a if one brings drugs or weapons into the country it is a class 2 felony with mandatory prison time.

SB1160 vehicle title; registration; legal presence (requested by law enforcement)
This bill would put the same requirements on titling or registering a vehicle of legal presence as required to get a driver’s license. Will have a tremendous affect on illegal’s driving around illegally. According to law enforcement a large percentage of hit and runs and serious and fatal accidents are involving illegal aliens.

SB1172 schools; data; non citizen students
This is needed to really know how many illegal aliens and non citizens are in our school. It does not prevent them from attending, but the debate continues on how many are really in our K-12 system at a cost of $9700 per student. The taxpayer has an inherent right to know who they are paying for.

SB1173 public housing; legal presence
Requires proof of citizenship to get public housing.

SB1175 illegal aliens; enforcement; trespassing. (remove handcuffs from law enforcement - Supported by Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, Sheriff Joe, County Attorney Thomas, Border Patrol 2544, law enforcement, Republican Party, and others)

SB1177 unauthorized aliens; employment; application; transporting (a good fix to the day labor problem)
This bill makes it a misdemeanor to solicit employment and makes it a state crime to employ them and requires anyone transporting them for purposes of work to have their vehicle impounded for a mandatory 30 days.

SB1243 justification; defensive display of firearm
This is a simple bill supported by the NRA and Citizens for Self Defense. It allows citizens to display a weapon in self defense without being charged with a crime.

SB1334 workers' compensation; unauthorized aliens
No workers compensation for illegal aliens. An employer who illegally employees them must be totally responsible for any injuries. This is needed because of a silly Arizona Supreme Court ruling.

SB1335 unauthorized aliens; licensing ( an enhancement to the Employer Sanctions bill)
This strengthens our Employer Sanctions bill (by the way we just won for the 5th time in court) This puts more teeth in requiring businesses to sign up for E-Verify and gives the County Attorney's civil subpoena authority to look at personal files of a business if the info that gives reasonable cause to believe they have illegal aliens employed (we will get a ton of resistance to leadership to not give this bill a hearing)

SB1337 driver license violations (a law enforcement request and just puts it back to how it use to be)
Makes not having a driver’s license a misdemeanor so they can arrest them. Today they cannot because it is a civil penalty. If they are lying, no ID, speak no English and they know they are a gang member or an illegal alien they must let them go. If you have a driver’s license and just don't have it on you it will not affect you.

SB1242 weapons; peace officers; posse; reserves (a fix on Reserve Officers that was left out accidentally)
Gives the Sheriff's more control over their voluntary Posses, Reserves when it comes to allowing them to carry Concealed.

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.