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Democrats Lead Calls to Boycott Arizona over Immigration Bill
Opposition to policy gathers momentum across US • Critics say law will lead to victimization of Latinos
Democratic members of Congress, religious leaders and leftwing activists urged a boycott of hotels, convention centres and other economic targets in the state. At least one nationwide group has responded by cancelling a convention planned for the autumn. Scores of lorry drivers were reported in the US media to have threatened to stop carrying loads to and from the state.
The Rev Al Sharpton says he will organise 'freedom walkers' in Arizona, just as the civil rights movement had organised freedom riders to board segregated buses in the 1960s. (Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images) The calls are being made spontaneously by individuals and an array of groups, but leftwing activists predict they will soon coalesce into a single campaign.
The bill, signed into law on Friday, gives police the right to stop anyone "if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the US". It has polarised opinion across the US, creating a clear divide between Democrats and Republicans.
In a sign of the passions aroused, cleaning crews were called to the state legislative building this morning to clear swastikas daubed on it overnight.
Opponents of the legislation say it will lead to victimisation of anyone who looks or sounds Latino. Supporters say the legislation is needed because the state can no longer cope with an estimated 450,000 illegal immigrants.
Among those calling for a sweeping boycott was the San Francisco city attorney, Dennis Herrera, who urged city departments to look at contracts with Arizona that could be terminated.
Herrera said: "Arizona has charted an ominous legal course that puts extremist politics before public safety, and betrays our most deeply held American values."
He noted that a similar boycott 20 years ago, which included the National Football League's decision to move the Super Bowl from the state, led to Arizona finally dropping its refusal to recognise to Martin Luther King Day.
A Democratic congressman from Arizona, Raúl Grijalva, is also calling for an economic boycott against what he described as "unjust and racist" legislation that will damage Arizona's prestige and credibility. He was forced to close his office at the weekend after receiving two death threats.
At a rally on Sunday, Grijalva, one of the leading advocates in the US Congress of immigration reform that would offer a route to citizenship for illegal immigrants, called for President Barack Obama to use his executive powers to block the legislation.
Posters were created over the weekend supporting a boycott, including one by the Chicano writer and artist Harry Gamboa headed "Boycott Hate State Arizona".
The sports editor of the leftwing publication the Nation, Dave Zirin, announced he would no longer write about the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. "For me, they do not exist. They will continue to not exist in my mind as long as the horribly named 'Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighbourhoods Act' remains law in Arizona," he wrote.
The board of governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, based in Washington, ordered its executive to move a convention planned for this autumn from Arizona. The association president, Bernie Wolfsdorf, said: "We cannot in good conscience spend association dollars in a state that dehumanises the people we represent and fight for."
The Rev Al Sharpton, an advocate of African-American rights, said in New York yesterday he would organise "freedom walkers", just as the civil rights movement had organised freedom riders to board segregated buses in the 1960s. "We will go to Arizona when this bill goes into effect and walk the streets with people who refuse to give identification and force arrest," Sharpton said.
52 Comments so far
Show AllOOOPPs! Tony
When I wrote the comment above there was a different article than the headline so OOOPPs was appropiate. Tony
Actually, there ARE important connections between the previously linked mismatched titles and article-links - with what happened with reform in Arizona and the current blocking by conservatives of Congressional public debate of financial reform).
What a great "mistake" to make, no less.
Like-minded Congressional elected officials (conservative) - to those conservatives in Arizona (who are clear-cut and draconian, in socially unjust ways, about who's "legal" or not) can't quite get it together, and seem not at all concerned actually, in figuring out the greater matters of "what's legal and what's not" when it comes to banks, their corporations, their deregulated "FREE TRADE" across borders, environmental regulations, their liars loans and phony derivatives, and the greatest financial RIP OFF in history of all U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike (with other countries across the world), our health, and the health of our planet.
And that's putting it mildly, to say the least.
@ and seem not at all concerned actually, in figuring out the greater matters of "what's legal and what's not" when it comes to banks, their corporations, their deregulated "FREE TRADE" across borders, environmental regulations, their liars loans and phony derivatives, and the greatest financial RIP OFF in history of all U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike (with other countries across the world), our health, and the health of our planet.
And that's putting it mildly, to say the least.
We caused all that? LOL I don't think so and I believe that you don't have a clue what good people Arizonians are. Your forcing 458,000 people into our state and offer no help with the drug gangs, the murders of ranchery fs and their families. Having your child sent home because there are active tuberculosis infections in your daughters 3rd grade class. We don't have the money to pay for them. The infrastructure cost plenty and these people don't pay taxes.
Why should we suffer because you are driving Thousand and thousands of people into our state with the thought of jobs that don't exist. And if the jobs did exist the pay would be much lower that the person you put out of work.
You are a parasite causing mass migration and then complain because it tears the fabric of our lives apart. We are not racist but I can see you are. You would prefer for the NAVAJO AND THE HOPI to tolerate squatters and poachers on their reservations.
Many hate the Native Americans and don't care what happen to them. We do care. We have the largest Native American constituents in the nation. 22%, and they don't like like their sacred places spray painted and holy ground pissed on.
Take a couple of steps back and realize we are fighting for our lives after you let the banks steal all the money. BOYCOTT US, WE DON'T CARE. WE GET PLENTY OF MEXICAN PRODUCE CHEAPER THAN YOU WILL EVER FIND.
The best thing is to simply take their water. Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California need to open the spigot and irrigate plentifully. Don't leave Arizona a drop.
Maybe they should secede--become part of Mexico or something like that.
Wow. Would THAT ever be poetic justice.
D'be fairly easy to cut off sundry Federal funding to the state of Arizona as well as to various municipal police departments.
screw boycott - we need to impose sanctions! Let's cut off their water supply.
Like put a Coke bottling plant up stream on the Colorado?
I already dumped my Arizona Muni Bonds....
Uh... Who would be hurt most by that? The governor?
Joe
Vere are your papers? Or as the Gestapo agent hanging around Copenhagen's main train station after the occupation of Denmark would ask of the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish travelers or Major Strasser would have asked strangers with Hungarian accents in Rick's Cafe, "Wo sind ihre Papiere"? We have arrived folks.
Is not the name of the act the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighbourhoods and Rabid Fascist and Racist, Supremacist Sheriff - Now Ain't that a Mouthful - Act", the SOLESNARFARSS Act? Is the "Sole Snarfarss" related to the "Snark"?
I'm sure there are people in Arizona who do not deserve to be punished for living in a state that has bigots just as all Californians should not be completely responsible for Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of the eighth largest economy in the world.
Americans should not allow AZ to get away with this because it will spread to other states with other minorities and finally it will get around to the rest of us.
This country is turning into shit because of the village idiots who live in Right-Wing World and spineless Blue Dog Democrats who refuse to challenge idiocy because it might make them look weak (according to village idiot propaganda) when it fact it would make the them look like they're standing up for the rights of Americans.
AZ has to find another way of solving this issue.
""The Rev Al Sharpton, an advocate of 'African-American' rights"
These 'African-Americans'... are Americans? Looking for their 'Rights' AS Americans?
Perhaps we convince "Reverend" Sharpton to take his protest to Mexico City. I've heard tell that the United States of Mexico does NOT give equal civil rights to those not of Mexican birth, and even some of the natives have problems.
All the more reason why we would set a better example.
But it's key too put things in perspective, Mexico has some of the harshest laws in the world regarding illegal immigration. Here I had a student openly state see was a illegal immigrant in one of my college classes.
Did a mob confine her till the cops showed up to deport her, no.
Was she able to continue her education without any of us giving it a second thought, yes.
Then again I live in ultra liberal Los Angeles, here there's such a mix of American, Chinese, Korea, Mexican, Black culture most of us are tolerate to immigration.
Keep in mind this is way different then AZ were it's just us and them. When you just have 2 ethnic groups there's far more potential for tension .
If this law is to stand I have a bad feeling, imagine a law allowing arrest of anyone not working since they were "likely to commit crime ".
Many southern states had this type of shit to fuck with freedmen post 1865 . Since your dealing with a racist state full of ignorant people who replaced the word nigger with beaner in all there bigotry I'm not too surprised this happened.
Minnesotans consider themselves very "Liberal", especially in the cities, but they treat the native Indians like dogs whenever they can, and deny their rights whenever they can, including treaty rights.
Don't lie about Arizonians. There is a strong motif of Latin influence. Racism isn't the problem yet outsiders continue to accuse us being just that.
This is about murder. It is about MS13 taking over towns and destroying what they can. They are setting up shop and ranchers are dying. Hispanic rancher are dying. This is only racism in YOUR mind.
You have forced these people to leave their homes and families to break the law entering our state without a legal application for citizenship.
You are the ones petitioning to allow more to come and leave their native countries with out men to protect the families. Many where I work in Cree, Mexico go for the adventure. We cannot handed the influx that you plan to stick us with. We do not have the infrastructure to handle this many people which a great many of don't pay taxes to build schools, repair streets. To have sanatation and a clean water supply. That is what you want for us.
Stay where you are. We are a good people, country people with ethics and morals.
Get off your high and mighty horse and stop sending people here. We cannot any longer handle the great numbers of emingrants. There are also no jobs. These are hard times.
do you care to send money. That would fix many things.
If there is discrimination it is the Native Americans who are outraged. The largest population of Native Americans in the country and are devastated by the disregard for their sacred objects and desecration of their holy grounds. '
They are invading the reservations and it will come to violence. This is not about racism. It is about respect, safety and love our children.
And if that is how you describe a Nazi racist then we must look just like them as Arizonians are a good people and I think you are not.
IF you mean by setting a better example that we adhere to the rule of law, and enforce the laws we have on the books about illegal immigration, I agree. IF you believe that setting a good example is to just reward those who broke the law, than, NO.
It is wrong that a state should have to resort to creating laws to enforce the federal mandates due to inaction on the federal level. Slimeball agra-businesses and less than reputable manufacturing/warehouse/general contracting businesses use illegal immagrants to work at well below minimum wage, thus hurting the US economy. These SAME people donate to political campaigns, thus buying the votes of legislators at state and federal level willing to look the other way.... in order to support American businesses you understand.... Many times these immigrants are charged for the priveledge of being allowed to work at these low wages and have "taxes" taken out of what they should be earning and the taxes are never forwarded to the tax authorities. (I worked a few day-labor jobs in AZ and TX back in my youth and saw this first hand). To top that off, these hard working, but illegal immigrants are sometimes targeted by local gangs, knowing full well that these people will not report these assults and roberies to the police.
How interesting - regardless of outcomes, the most important aspect of this may well be the successful exercise of majority (people) power, something the MSM will have to cover when the PTB really didn't want us thinking about boycotts and great united numbers of like-minded persons expressing ourselves. Arizona went too far. What might happen next time there's a gross violation of human rights? Things could be stirring across the land...
On the contrary this may well be a deliberately engineered part of the Spectacle as a distraction from the main course, which is war.
Arizona went too far? Really, we have not right to work our ranches and be murdered leaving a widow and children. We have the right to fight the gangs and drug traffickers that you seem so enamored of.
Your children are not exposed to rare diseases like tuberculosis.
A boycott will not work unless it becomes a media darling of Obama who cares little about states rights.
These people are leaving ghost towns and their cultures are destroyed by greedy Americans like you. You have your little agenda and don't give a damn what happens to the people of Arizona who are a good people. A kind people and their kindness is getting them killed.
Permitting the mass migrations are destroying the host countries and their natural homes and culture. It is just like the mass depopulating of native American centers of culture and being moved a thousand miles for progress. You are the government that is moving these good people thousands of miles from their homes.
It is just another trail of tears that Boycotters have created. I hope you are proud of your selves.
"It has polarised opinion across the US, creating a clear divide between Democrats and Republicans."
That divide between Demoks and Repuks is a pure facade. They are actually on the same team. Both support the USA's illegal dumping of petro-corn in Mexico that has cornered the Mexican tortilla market and created the flood of economic refugees north.
Demoks/Repuks only pretend to oppose each other, by selecting irrelevant issues to quibble over in public. This is a very effective ploy to herd the people into two pens, to keep the people divided/conquered.
The people should tear down the elite wall built to divide the people, join together and re-take Washing-town, end the illegal USan monopoly on Mexican tortillas, and allow the Mexicans to return to their farms and the local markets that belong to MEXICANS ONLY.
And don't forget the pig factories that have moved to Mexico.
Legend has it that there is a small, non-descript office in Brookline, Massachusetts that pertains.
Exactly. I feel very much for what the Mexican people have endured. Pig factories indeed. There was a video on this site months ago that is heartbreaking, about the origins of the swine flu. Regardless of what the flu hasn't -- thank God -- lives up to the expectations that Pharma hoped it would, the massive suffering in Mexico around these factories is palpable and unforgivable. Every time I see the word "Smithfield" in the supermarket I think about these people.
Between the corrupt government of Mexico and the corrupt government of the U.S. what is a poor Mexican citizen to do? It is amazing the hatred. The hatred should be for the employers. In fact, Law & Order did a "Fast Food Nation" type of story last week surrounding the murder of an activist who was gathering information and video and was going to do an expose on a local meat factory. Ripped from the headlines? No, more like the back page -- but nobody is listening.
Where did all the tough talk go about holding employers accountable? From pig, beef and chicken farms and processing companies to landscape operations it's past time. But I'm not holding my breath that this will happen.
Good idea but less than 50% of these people are Mexicans.
This problem, 450,000 undocumented individuals, if true, is a huge labor pool, it could be addressed with some serious time and fines for THOSE THAT HIRE THEM. So, is it a problem Arizona?
This law will not address undocumented workers because the people-wealthy- want them for cheap labor.
So, it will be abused, administered arbitrarily (most likely in co-hoots with labor contractors, and employers of illegals). It will create more corruption make cheap labor cheaper,and cause random persons great harm.
I hope these pea brains will pay the lawsuits, I see coming.
If it means standing up for your rights then we will pay the damned lawyers.
It isn't your husband being murdered on his ranch. It is not you getting tuberculosis. Your neighborhood is not suddenly overfilling with MS-13 and drugs, guns and kidnapping. The drugs are freely distributed to your schools. Boycott, it will not work. We cannot stand by while the federal government has their master plan. The people of Arizona are cut of a better cloth that you realize.
You stay in your state and we will stay in ours. States have rights and we don't tolerate the type of behavior that you seem to have in your state.
Maybe we should remove a star from our flag.
The best laid plans aft gang awry.
Might one commend playing the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid over and over until it talks to you in your language, whatever that language might be?
And recall--Butch was Mormon.
Yeah that would do it. No more cheating FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, stealing our money and sending our kids of to the middle east to die. Thanks for the great idea.
Too--not to forget the cult classic Cheyenne Autumn, long since detourned by the Navajo.
What does "detourned" mean?
Merely by the way, one cannot recall anyone ever observing that Stepan Fetchit, the professional actor, detourned the roles he was offered, while Muhammad Ali, professional prize fighter, detourned Stepan Fetchit, the role.
Look, there are brutally hot street wars being fought just across the border among drug gangs. To me the people of Arizona want to keep that war from jumping the border. People there are fearful that their city streets are beginning to run with blood. The Federal Government has failed to adequately protect Arizonans. Although I do not agree with their methods, the People of Arizona have every right to pass laws to protect themselves. Democracy does not end just because we disagree with their means. If their law passes Constitutional muster then it is their business.
Corporate aggression in America is our primary overriding issue. Fascism is our primary enemy. Let's not get so exercised and fractious that we lose focus.
Pshaw--who are you kidding--Homeland Security Czar Chertoff paid Boeing $800 million for an impenetrable ERUV.
Then contracted out for an electronic battlefield behind it from an Israeli company.
So are the Blackwater/Xe mercenaries in AZ yet trying to finagle contracts for Border Patrol?
Happy Valentine's Day:
http://www.prairieghosts.com/massacre.jpg
Just when I think Amerikkka has sunk to its lowest depth of fascism and racism, a story like this appears on the scene. Do the leaders of this preposterous and cruel nation have no sense of shame? Is Amerikkka in freefall to a return to Hitler's dream of a 1,000-year reich?
Boycott Arizona : the hateful state of Aparthied
Hardly! Tell that to the families of dead ranchers whom were shot to death working.
Mass migration is killing Mexican society. I see more and more towns that have nothing but old women and men. Culture is ripped away. There is work there too.
This just plays into the hands of the Narcos who Killed 13 members of one family that I know. They said no to the narcos and at one time that would work, however my friends sons went to America for the adventure.
Look it up 13 murdered in Creel, Mexico August 23rd, 2009 The youngest was 2 and Juan was our gopher for little things and helped translate with the Tarahumara. He was a good kid, we paid him well for his college fund at our University. Now he is dead. Thank you very much.
I work in Mexico as see the migration on the freight trains. From Creel, Mexico 5 trains a day and all have hundreds of people riding, hanging on twords their Destination. These are not bad people but mass migration and no health checks is dangerous to the Indigenous population in Arizona.
Your agenda cares nothing about the Latin American countries or their culture and your personal gain is death to whom they used to be.
As a victim of right wing republican Christian community watch vigilante 24/7 gang stalking psychological torture for three years and running, in Tampa Florida, the Arizona stazi law is the tip of the spear .
There are groups in every state that want to follow Arizona's lead to create a nation wide stazi network of spys and police stazi laws that do far worse than just target Mexicans.
First Mexicans , than blacks , than jews, .... once this door is opened, its a free for all,
Remember, private corporations build and manage jails,
Example
AP
updated 8:56 p.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 11, 2009
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.
The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.
In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.
Jails will be filled with people arrested who can not show their papers , or dont have any, and the private contractors will make 150 dollars a day for each arrest. CHA CHiNG,
Rich White capitalists, have been allowing cheap Mexican labor to flood our country for over 30 years, and now they are going to benefit again by jailing Mexicans.
Mexicans, blacks , and other liberal groups outnumber white Christian stazi lunatics two to one, though whites have power,money and control now, they are definitely pissing off people that would be more than happy to take their slice of the pie .
And as a victim of these horrible cruel white Christian torture freaks, I have all the reasons I need to support the Mexicans and minority's that these white supremacists want to abuse and control.
By the Time I get to Arizona: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijeXGv9QLRc
Remember that a boycott of Arizona forced that state to finally recognize Martin Luther King Day back in 1992.
So true. The Democrats don't lead very much at all these days. But this boycott... will happen. There's solid precedent for it. And fact is, their neighbors who might sympathize with them have less need for the products they provide than the left-leaning states which don't happen to have desert and sun, which is where I imagine the boycott movement will be strongest.
The source of the illegal immigration problem is American employers hiring, so called, illegal aliens. We know this put downward pressure on wages, cheats the tax man out of his share of taxes, and keeps the citizen workers threaten with loose of jobs. In other words, it benefits the boss to hire illegals.
Fine the crap out of employers who hire illegals, and make mandatory checks of citizen/immigration status enforced should solve most of the problem.
Congress wants to do nothing on this issue, because they work for business, not the workers.
I bet that 95 % of Congress gets re-elected, however.
Why would there be a "the" source?
Let's remind ourselves (and I will include myself) that cause is always distributed. So we should also mention American military and black ops forces working to stop labor organization in the Americas for the last 150 years or so.
I find this important because so many American workers of various races and ethnicities have failed to recognize the solidarity between people of different cultures and different places, to our very considerable mutual loss.
I suspect incumbents will have a rough year, though less rough than they deserve.
You and many, many others know that employer hiring is the key to solving the immigration problem. Foreigners do not illegally enter this country to sight-see.
No jobs. No illegal immigration.
First time employer is caught. 1000$ per illegal
Second time. 5000$ per illegal
Third time. 5 years prison
It's time to boycott Sharpton.