Undocumented and Unafraid: DREAM ACT visits ICE in Phoenix

From Dennis Gilman, stories of courageous youth reminding us of who we could be. Sadly, the only person in this video elected to represent Arizona is Russ Pearce - descended from the most criminal aliens of all, and determined to re-write our Constitution to further privilege his own kind...

Private prison industry exploits greed and fear with SB 1070

Seems I missed posting the excellent NPR report on immigration and private prisons when it came out before the elections, so here's a synopsis and the link.

That's Arizona's favorite son, Russ Pearce again, to the left. He has a lot to do with all this. He's done our state - our nation -more damage than Brewer, I'd say. Follow the link below for part II of the NPR story for more on his role.

-----------from Imagine 2050------------------

Cross-post: Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

October 30, 2010 by Imagine 2050 Editors

NPR broke an incredible story this week that is sure to continue unearthing the shady dealings behind the creation and passage of SB 1070 in Arizona. The following article was published on Oct. 28, 2010 by NPR reporter Laura Sullivan. To listen the podcast of this story click here.

"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..."

Continue reading the NPR article here.

Here's part II of the report:

Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny

Among hundreds of bills drafted by an alliance of business, lawmakers: Arizona's immigration law...

The AZ Tea Party Senate President-elect

First, my apologies for being silent so long - I went on a protest and chalking binge after the Day of Action Against Police Brutality event at the ADC (which I'll post photos of later - it was pretty cool). Also, an Aloha to our comrades in Hawai'i; gracias for the encouraging words. And thanks to my prison-watching compa for posting articles here in my absence.

Tuesday's election results were devastating for most of us across the country, but the implications are especially destructive in Arizona. The white supremacist patriarchy solidified its grip over our state's residents and guests in both the governor's mansion and legislature by exploiting racist and classist fears and resorting to jingoism, an old standard for American politicians. Pearce uses patriotic one-liners a lot because he has nothing of real substance to say (except that he plans to defile and legislate away everything democracy is supposed to be, which you won't catch him explicitly admitting. It's an old sleight of hand magic trick he does. Guess he's better at fooling people than I thought).

The ballot measures passed and the scary people elected to office are bad enough - the voters who elected them are more troubling, though. I imagine they will be the folks who call Joe Arpaio's goons to report that their neighbors or parents aided and abetted a Latino family in trouble without first checking the legitimacy of their documents. That will cost left-leaning altruists five years in the state pen for "human smuggling" or some shit (ten years if you do it for profit). Being criminalized as felons means we lose the right to vote, of course. By the time this legislative session is over, migrant sympathizers will probably lose our citizenship, as well.

This place is far worse than Orwell could have imagined 1984 America to be.

Now, to top it all off, we have a new State Senate President: none other than our beloved Klansman-in-the nude (Tea Partier), Russ Pearce. How disturbing that the majority of our state senators would want him as their leader - I never would have thought he had that much staying power, given how shallow, selfish, and cruel his agenda is. Goodbye any hopes for Liberty and Justice for all for the forseeable future. Hello entrenched, institutionalized fascism.

The director of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), Chuck Ryan (of Iraqi prisons fame), must be thrilled: he can build more prisons here now without any impediments - just a few obnoxious activists will be nipping at his ankles, trying to slow him down. Some of us will be expressing ourselves on his sidewalks as well, just to piss him off (photo: Surrender Ryan - Devil's Night 2010).

Every other state in the country is - was before the elections, anyway - planning to downsize their prison populations, whereas we're planning to throw even more people in prison. In fact, Ryan will probably have to adjust his expectations upwards, now, for the amount of repression that will be necessary to quell lingering resistance to the powers that be. Just remember that they got to where they are by using Jesus, fear, greed and pure hate. Hopefully that will all come back to haunt them at the Second Coming, if not sooner.

The majority's comfort level comes at considerable expense here, since it requires extremely high rates of incarceration. Only the feds seem able to intervene where the worse abuses of power are occurring, and even then it's questionable whether or not they will be effective - so far there's just been a lot of posturing and some suing. That means just about anyone can be thrown into jail or prison for any reason these people can legislate or fabricate. Were not only sticking it to the poor, the Left, and the undocumented among us, but even elementary and secondary school minority studies classes and clubs will be outlawed or whitewashed.

I do wonder how much longer the voting public will so eagerly house every human being this legislature criminalizes at $21,000/year, though (see ADC Operating Per Capita Report 2009 Revised). Arizona is 2nd in the nation in poverty rates, with 1 in 5 of us living at or below poverty, 50th in our education spending, and 4th in our overall state corrections' spending ($1B/year, or 10% of our total budget, goes to the prison system: see Appropriations Report FY 2010). We have 40,279 people in prison at last count (see Corrections at a Glance September 2010).

Keep in mind, it's pretty bare bones living in prison, here, though. For all too many, it's just the prequel to dying. Chuck Ryan's prisoners, in fact, are killing themselves and each other at about twice the rate of speed they were before Brewer took office. This year the suicide rate is on track to triple what it was under Napolitano and Schriro.

The gang violence and conditions are pretty bad inside right now, and getting worse -no matter how petty your crime, you're really hurting if you're a prisoner with a serious mental illness or medical condition, because you won't be getting the care you need, and your environment certainly isn't conducive to health or sanity. Ask the US Department of Justice if you don't believe me; I mailed them all the evidence I could gather.

I hope the Obama administration still has the courage to send an investigative team out here to check out the ADC. It would help if some of you contact the the DOJ's Civil Rights Division too. Note that they finally have a permanent Chief listed - it's not Judy Preston, but since I've been addressing everything to her thus far, I think I'll keep it up - she's still a Deputy Chief, at least. Be sure to tell them you want to see a CRIPA (Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act) Investigation. It's about the only thing that provides some measure of protection for state prisoners. The contact info for them is as follows:

DOJ - Civil Rights Division,

Special Litigation Section

Mailing Address

Department of Justice
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530

For FEDEX: 601 D Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004

Telephone Number
toll-free at (877) 218-5228

Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0212
(202) 514-6273

---

Chief

Jonathan M. Smith

Principal Deputy Chief

Tammie Gregg

Deputy Chiefs

Julie Abbate (Acting)

Mary Bohan (Acting)

Judy Preston

Luis Saucedo (Acting)



It's getting much worse here before it gets better, folks, needless to say. I hope that means we'll have the Revolution sooner, rather than later. I'm not sure I'll be here for it, myself - I expect a few of Pearce's and the AZ GOP's more obscure critics to be arrested or assassinated any day, now. Today, though, I'll let the Senate President-elect speak for himself about his BS racist agenda: I couldn't have articulated what he has in store for us for better than he does anyway...

"For God, Family, and the Republic...", a load of crap follows me here. We'll see how safe and free I stay. Be careful out there, my friends. AZ just became a more treacherous and less-liberated place for most of us to live, work or play. If you're from out of state, I advise that you stay away - unless you move here to vote these idiots out of power next time around...

- Peg

-----------------------from senatorrussellpearce@russellpearce.com-------------

Friends,

As you know, I have served in the Legislature for 10 years, 8 of those years as Appropriations Chairman, making the tough decisions with our limited dollars and promoting strong fiscal accountability in the process. I served as Chief Deputy for America’s most famous Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, which is the 4th largest Sheriff’s office in the nation. I was the Director of Arizona’s MVD, and I also served as a Judge. In every one of those positions I have been vigilant in service to our citizens, in reducing cost, improving efficiencies, requiring accountability and operating with transparency. I promise to be as committed and vigilant, while serving as the Senate President.

In the past I have chosen not to run for leadership, as I have given priority to our state budget, to stop out of control spending, to enforce the rule of law, secure our borders, stop abuse of private property rights, school choice for Parents, the 2nd Amendment, to stop government discrimination by eliminating Affirmative Action in government hiring, promotions, contracting and education, etc. However, I recognize things have changed with the significant turnover in the Senate, and I was approached by several of our members, to consider this leadership position. Today I am humbled by my fellow Republicans decision to put their trust in me as the Senate President. I promise I will be vigilant in the promotion of the core values that our Founding Fathers so long ago sacrificed and committed their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for this Republic.

Leadership, practiced at its best, is the art and science of calling to the hearts and minds of others. It is engaging others in an enterprise of sound strategic focus, where they can experience a sense of ownership, of making a difference, of being valued and adding value.

Last Tuesday’s election we saw America stand up and say “NO. We do not like the direction we are headed and want to change course”. We all know this as the Tea Party movement, that I am proud to be a member of. A movement of like minded, freedom loving “can do” American’s made their voice heard at the polls. It was a tough battle, and we had a lot of great victories, but we are certainly not out of the woods as our recession continues, our businesses and our families are over taxed and over regulated and demands on our tax dollars continues to increase. In 2010 we passed some tremendous legislation that has made Arizona a national leader. We have passed legislation to enforce the laws of the land, improve school choice, protect mothers and their babies, restore our lost 2nd Amendment rights, Healthcare Freedom Act to protect your choice in healthcare, elimination of Affirmative Action and much more. Thanks to my follow colleagues in both the House of Representatives and the Senate we are a national model as to what states can do; we passed SB1070, Freedom to Carry Act SB1108, put on the ballot Healthcare Freedom Act, Proposition 107 to eliminate government discrimination and the Marriage Amendment (Peg's interjection: ugh!). We also made much needed reduction in spending and have begun the long process of restoring fiscal sanity to our great state.

You know where my heart is. You know it is with this great Republic of ours and its citizens. We are the greatest country in the world because of freedom loving people like you, the freedom loving people of America. I will continue to fight everyday to protect your freedoms from government encroachment. It is America’s commitment to that freedom, personal responsibility and moral government that make us strong. Not more government. I want to make sure everyone knows, we, in the Senate, will govern from the bottom up, not from the top down. Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new G uards for their future security ... that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." I consider this to be the Tea Party Senate and we intend to take back America one state at a time.

For God, Family and the Republic, Stay free, stay safe and never surrender ... God Bless America.

In Liberty,

Russell Pearce

Tea Party Senate President-Elect

Making Tempe safe and free...

From my friends in the Resistance - every community needs to be doing this. It's stuff like this that builds community, sometimes, forcing us to stretch together in ways we never dreamed of...all to bring about a world that some say isn't possible.

I know that another world is possible...and already in the making:

------------------------

Rally in Tempe against SB 1070!

Thursday, June 24, 2010
7:00pm - 8:30pm

Tempe City Hall, 31 East Fifth Street (between Mill and College)
lower level below the upside-down pyramid building

31 East Fifth St.
Tempe, AZ

View Map

Come down to Tempe this Thursday and show support for Tempe residents organizing against SB 1070 (the "show me your papers" law)! There will be a rally outside of the Tempe city hall during the city council meeting, this is a protest and opportunity for residents and supporters to speak out against enforcement of this unjust and racist law.

This event is family friendly, so invite your friends, family, and neighbors who also oppose SB 1070. Let's show the city council that Tempe residents, along with supporters from across the valley, want a safe and free Tempe for everyone!

This one is in the evening, but make sure to bring plenty of water as well.

The Constitutional birth-right to US citizenship, and Russ Pearce's legislative agenda

Thanks to Luige del Puerto and the Capitol Times for permission to post this. That this could even be a possibility is staggering...

--------------------------

Born illegal


By Luige del Puerto - luige.delpuerto@azcapitoltimes.com

Published: June 4, 2010 at 10:25 am

Arizona’s new immigration law has yet to take effect, but Sen. Russell Pearce has already moved on to the next step in his quest to rid Arizona of illegal immigrants: deny birth certificates to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.

But that’s not all. Pearce said he also wants to require students who are here illegally to pay tuition to attend public schools.

RELATED: Pearce seeks to deny citizenship to children of illegals

RELATED: Another immigration plan: charge tuition for illegal students

The proposals, which Pearce said he plans to introduce as legislation next year, are part of a coordinated strategy by Pearce and groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to remove all incentives for illegal immigrants to live in the U.S.

“My issue is protecting the taxpayers. You can’t come here illegally and not be a legal resident and expect the taxpayers to pick up your tab,” Pearce said.

Critics, though, said revoking citizenship to people born in the U.S. would undermine the principles on which the nation was founded and redefine citizenship for far more people than Pearce may be envisioning. It may even create a set of people who lack citizenship of any country.

Requiring children to prove citizenship to attend public school, they said, would create a permanent lower class of uneducated residents who would be unable to sustain themselves or contribute to their communities.

“Why penalize the child?” asked Sen. Amanda Aguirre, a Democrat from Yuma. “Why do we want to create this type of society where a certain group of children — we want them to grow up without education?”

Within the last decade, Arizona has passed laws to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants, penalize business owners who hire undocumented workers and arrest people who cannot prove they are U.S. citizens.

But Pearce’s most recent ideas go far beyond establishing stricter enforcement of immigration laws and may signal the next steps for Pearce and immigration hawks across the nation: redefining citizenship and targeting the children of illegal immigrants.

“What is markedly different is that Russell Pearce, up to this point in time, has been bootstrapping federal law to justify his state laws,” immigration attorney Matthew White said. “This is a drastic approach that’s saying ‘I am now going to interpret the 14th Amendment. I am now the federal law and you are going to listen to me.’”

Both of Pearce’s proposals would challenge longstanding interpretations of the U.S. Constitution and past rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Constitutional experts said Pearce’s proposals, if passed into law, would ultimately wind up in federal court because one would require overturning a longstanding definition of the 14th Amendment, and the other would rely on the Supreme Court reversing previous decisions that affirmed the rights of all children to receive a free public school education, regardless of citizenship status.

Paul Bender, who teaches constitutional law at Arizona State University, said the odds are stacked against Pearce because federal courts likely will refuse to upend such deep-rooted legal interpretations of the Constitution. What Pearce is trying to do, Bender said, may require a constitutional amendment.

“The fact that he doesn’t like what the Constitution provides is irrelevant,” Bender said. “He would be the first to tell you that liberals who don’t like the Constitution’s language need to get it amended if they want to change it, not rely on an ‘activist’ interpretation.”

What Pearce has on his side, however, is momentum from the successful passage of S1070, polls indicating majority support for the law and a frustration by the public at federal government inaction.

Pearce sees his proposals as the logical next step in a battle to reduce government spending on programs that benefit illegal immigrants and enforce laws that protect the sovereignty of the U.S.

“I no longer can stand by, you know, and watch the destruction of this country,” Pearce said. “I mean, have we not listed all the folks… who have been killed and maimed? Have we not seen the data about the cost to the taxpayers?”

Pearce’s allies said they welcome any efforts to end birth-right citizenship because the policy has been abused by people who enter the U.S. illegally.

“He’s not going after the children. You know, the absence of a benefit is not the same thing as a punishment,” FAIR spokesperson Ira Mehlman said. “I would say that he is systematically going after all the incentives to come to the United States illegally.”

Pearce’s ability to turn his ideas into state law would depend on many factors, including the results of the November election and the composition of next year’s Legislature. This year, Republicans control both chambers of the Arizona Legislature.

The dynamic of the next Legislature will depend on those in leadership positions. Pearce has indicated he will campaign to become the next Senate president if re-elected this fall, which would give him more clout to influence the legislative agenda and to make sure his measures advance.

Pearce’s ideas, if drafted as bills, would ensure Arizona’s continued place at the forefront of the immigration battle, prodding, cajoling and even threatening the federal government to do something about the complex problem of illegal immigration.

But while most Arizonans have supported state laws to crack down on illegal immigration in the absence of federal immigration reform, some lawmakers said Pearce’s new ideas go too far and may turn public opinion against him.

“At some point, the public is going to stop supporting this — they’re going to say enough is enough,” Democratic Sen. Paula Aboud said. “I think after a while Arizonans are going to get tired being the brunt of all the jokes, especially when legislation like this does not stop illegal immigration.”

14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

SB 1070: Still A Bad Law.

Patchwork changes to immigration law came in waning hours of session

By Evan Wyloge - evan.wyloge@azcapitoltimes.com

Published: April 27, 2010 at 7:24 pm

Arizona Capitol Times

One week after Gov. Jan Brewer gave Arizona the toughest immigration law in the U.S., state lawmakers added changes that would limit the scope of the law and protect local governments from lawsuits.

The changes were sought by lawmakers who voted for Arizona’s new immigration law after striking a deal with immigration hawk Sen. Russell Pearce.

Rep. Russ Jones, who was one of three Republican lawmakers to vote against a similar bill in 2009, said he agreed to vote for S1070 this year in exchange for Pearce’s promise to make changes to it in follow-up legislation.

The resulting bill, H2162, was approved on April 29, just hours before the end of the session.

H2162 prescribes a few key changes to the new immigration law, clarifying both the definition of lawful contact and guidelines for municipalities, as well as lowering the minimum — not the maximum — fine that can be assessed to cities that have so-called “sanctuary city” policies. It also restructured some of the punitive actions that a court would apply to those charged under the new law.

Representatives of the law enforcement community say the changes significantly alter the way police would have to enforce the law and the way they would be accountable for doing so.

Lyle Mann, who runs the day-to-day operations of the Arizona Peace Officers Safety and Training Board (AZPOST), said the fine points of the trailer bill are vital to the street-level execution of the new law. His group, incidentally, has been tasked by the governor with turning the provisions of the new law into a specific and manageable training rubric for police agencies across the state.

One of the changes to S1070 removes the word “solely” from the description of the new law’s lawful contact, when it comes to race. So, now race, color or ethnicity simply cannot be used as part of reasonable suspicion.

Mann said this is a huge simplification for his organization’s task, and should settle at least some of the fear over racial profiling. Now, his organization will simply be able to tell police agencies to have their officers understand that race is not a reason to initiate contact.

“It should quell the fears that a lot of people have vocalized,” Mann said. “This will make the training and policymaking much clearer and simpler.”

H2162 also narrows what is banned at the county, city and municipality level, changing it from a “policy or practice” to just a “policy” preventing police officers from using the new immigration law to its fullest extent.

With the independence that police officers rely on, Mann said, management of their activities is nearly impossible. So their “practices” are made at the officers’ discretion. The officers are trained, though, to rely on the “policies” their agency set.

“A ‘policy’ is the written instruction that tells officers how a task is to get done. ‘Practice’ is the actual activity carried out in support of that policy,” Mann said. “So the city of Phoenix might have 3,000 officers on the street. It’s much more difficult to control how those officers carry out their practices.”

Removing the words “or practices” from the new law goes a long way in protecting police agencies from lawsuits and fines, Mann said, because AZPOST will give guidelines, cities will turn those guidelines into “policy,” and the cities then would not be at the mercy of litigation coming from any resident who feels like the police agency isn’t enforcing the law to the fullest extent.

In addition, Jones said Pearce agreed to lower the fines assessed to local governments that violate the law. In S1070, a local government or agency initially could have been fined between $1,000 and $5,000 per day if an Arizona resident filed suit against them in Superior Court.

Jones wanted the fines cut in half, because he thought those numbers were arbitrary. Pearce only met him part of the way.

Instead of lowering both the maximum and minimum per-day fines, Pearce kept the $5,000 maximum and changed language in H2162 that would lower the minimum fines to $500 per day from $1,000 per day.

“Pearce says he thinks it’s important to have a sanction,” Mann said. “So you have to say, ‘OK, what’s a reasonable sanction? Do you get a better outcome with a bigger sanction?’ And you have to remember, if the city of Phoenix gets fined $1 million, they can’t open parks, they can’t operate their libraries, they take that money from schools. (Jones) is saying you can get the same compliance with half those numbers.”

Nancy Jo Merritt, who has 32 years of experience as an immigration attorney, said she understands why Jones and the law enforcement agencies would be so concerned over these small changes.

“This law is going to be so hard to comply with, so why make the punishments so harsh?” she said. “It’s like the assumption is the only way to get cities to follow this law is by threatening them with the death sentence.”

The last change outlined in H2162 concerned a phrase that said lawful contact can include an officer’s use of the new immigration law “in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state.”

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Phoenix, harped on this new phrase, saying it will mean that law officers will be able and compelled to check the status of a person, even if the police officer were responding to some sort of civil town ordinance, like an overgrown lawn, a fence in disrepair or a barking dog.

Sinema said police officers could previously only use the new immigration law when they encountered someone during the enforcement of a criminal or civil traffic violation, and that this will expand the way police officers could contact, then detain people while checking their federal immigration status.

Pearce denied that this change means much, and said police would already have been able to use the new law when making contact with a person for such civil ordinances. He said this new language was only added to further clarify the way police are authorized to use the new immigration law.

Mann of AZPOST agreed with Pearce, saying police officers would have the ability to use the new immigration law during any type of contact with any person, regardless of this new language.

“Police officers do this every day. It’s called a ‘Terry Stop,’ after the Terry v. Ohio case,” Mann said. “Let’s say there are some guys playing basketball in a park. The officer walks up and says, ‘Hey guys. How’s it going?’ That’s lawful contact. It’s a standard voluntary stop.”

Pearce said the changes in H2162 were something he agreed to, in order to get the votes he needed, and that he thinks he lived up to his bargain.

“I wasn’t excited about it, but we did it,” Pearce said. “(Jones) ought to be happy with the changes, I kept my word.”