Huge Arpaio Protest made possible by various factors

According to the various sources, it seems there were at least 2000 if not maybe even 5000 people at the Protest against Arpaio and 287(g). Although I knew it would be big (100 people made it out to an Arpaio protest with less than one day's notice on 5/12/08), i didn't realize it would be quite this big. What i was most surprised about, was how much it was similar to the big immigrants' rights marches. It was smaller than those mainly because it was organized differently and i imagine that since this was a protest against a police official, so it was more specific, and there was a little bit more risk involved- at least that could be the perception, fortunately not the reality.

I'd be interested to learn how many people were from out of town, as well as how many people came out because they heard Zach de la Rocha would be there (and he was).

While we can be impressed with the turn-out, we mustn't forget all the efforts that led up to this. I personally don't know to what extent the National Day Labor Organizing group was involved, but i know the idea came out of Puente. Puente has been organizing the protests at the Wells Fargo bank branches, specifically the tower that Arpaio rents a floor in for an exorbitant amount of money. For a while, they were out there for about two hours every weekday. They've also brought out the fact that Wells Fargo has ties to the Geo group, formerly or also known as Wackenhut, which runs and profits from some of the immigrant detention centers, particularly in the northwest, where people have been protesting Wells Fargo as well.

Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability has also been essentially protesting Arpaio through different means, primarily at the County Board of Supervisors meetings, since this board decides Arpaio's funding. They have gotten rather large turn-outs for several of their demonstrations.

Last year there were several protests against Arpaio at his book signings and other public engagements. And either he stopped his public engagements or people stopped keeping track of them. Most of these protests are detailed in this blog post. One of the protests includes the May 12 protest at the Italian American Club where about 100 people showed up in less than 24 hours notice.

The New Times' The Bird has been documenting these events as well as the actions of Arpaio, so there is something to be said for his contribution to the local anti-Arpaio sentiment and participation.

Of course Arpaio himself is the reason people have showed up to these protests. His sweeps and especially the parading of immigrant inmates between tent city camps have really inspired anger in the masses. People showed to protest and/or document these incidents as well.

I'm sure there are some things i'm forgetting. But i think it's important to recognize the work that has been done leading up to an event as large as this.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. I discussed in my last post that i don't expect anything positive out of the federal government. Federal Government will not be Maricopa County's Savior.

Hypocrisy of a law-breaking anti-immigrant legislator

It's good that the Bird (New Times) brought up that Russell Pearce (AZ Representative) had been fired from the Motor Vehicle Department for tampering with someone's record (to remove a DUI as a favor). Not only has Pearce been outed as associating with neo-nazis and forwarding white supremacist literature (OOPS! Racist AZ politician "accidentally" sent out article from National Alliance and see this video), and that he has a violent temper and has abused his wife (see this video, but we are also informed (or reminded if we already had heard) that Pearce had broken the law to help someone who had broken the law.

So, it's okay for him to break the law, and for his friends to break the law, but it's not okay for people to take desperate measures to survive, that just happen to be illegal. This is just blatant hypocrisy and it's just ridiculous that people don't get that.

You might say, well, he wasn't charged with anything. He did get fired, though, but most of us know that people with political connections often get away with committing crimes without punishment.

There is a double standard when it comes to which crimes are acceptable and which are not, and which criminals are acceptable, and which are not.

Another thing that i think is interesting is that anti-immigrant folks regard the law as infallible and not something to be questioned or changed but pretty much only when they're talking about immigration law. People like Pearce obviously think the law in not perfect and should be changed, otherwise he wouldn't be in the legislature making up all sorts of new laws and changing existing ones. How about those people who say that they're okay with legal immigration and legal immigrants, as though access to legal immigration is easy and the people who don't do it legally choose that route when they could do it legally. You and i know (whether you agree with me on these issue or not) that if it really was easy for all these people to be "legal" immigrants, all the anti-immigrant people would be screaming about how easy it is for so many people to get into (and stay in) the country legally!