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Darkness at Noon in Arizona: Delayed, But Not Over
While a federal judge struck down important parts of Arizona's draconian immigration law today, namely the obligatory police check of immigration status, the battle over Arizona's immigration crisis has hardly come to a screeching halt.
Over the past three years, publicity hound Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Massachusetts-raised former DEA bureaucrat, has been leading "crime suppression sweeps" targeted at Mexican and Latin American immigrants. Arpaio's costly sweeps have led to the deportation or forced departure of over 26,000 immigrants--a quarter of the entire US total, according to the AP.
And why, when crime rates on the Arizona-Mexico border are down, and crime rates across Arizona are at their lowest in decades?
"This is a media-created event," says Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. "I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure."
As the Arizona Republic reported, even the borderlands sheriffs disagree with Arpaio and Gov. Jan Brewer's immigrant crime fear-mongering:
Even Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, among the most strident critics of federal enforcement, concedes that notions of cartel mayhem are exaggerated. "We're not seeing the multiple killings, beheadings and shootouts that are going on on the other side," he said.
As Arpaio continues to profit from publicity, the death toll of immigrants in the desert are soaring: 40 in Pima County (Tucson area) in the last few months.
Far from any criminal intent, a new report notes that the collapse of climate and clean energy legislation will add to their already record number of environmental refugees from Mexico and Latin America.
Arizona, like the nation, needs immigration reform, not repression.
Not that this is anything new to anyone from Arizona--or vaguely familiar with its history. As a transplanted kid in the 1970s, I learned that the "Five C's" on Arizona seal--cattle, copper, cotton, citrus and climate--not only defined Arizona's historical economic development, but reminded us as students of history that Mexicans and Mexican Americans--illegal or legal--built our state.
And they still do. Until the economy slumps--like the construction industry now in Arizona--or the copper industry in the past. Then, the fear--and the profiting of it--soars again.
Both out-of-state immigrant interlopers, Sheriff Arpaio and Gov. Jan Brewer are latecomers to the politics of Arizona's immigration porn and prison profits.
In this same burning month of July in 1917, another publicity hound sheriff led his own "crime suppression sweep" and rounded up over 1,000 hard-working immigrant copper miners, who were striking for better living conditions in Bisbee. As Katherine Benton-Cohen notes in her brilliant chronicle, Borderline Americans: racial division and labor war in the Arizona borderlands, Sheriff Harry Wheeler simply roared at the rounded up strikers: "Are you American, or are you not?" Wheeler and his cronies illegally and violently placed the copper miners on cattle cars and deported them across the country line.
Wheeler and his anti-immigrant yahoos went down in infamy for the Bisbee Deportation.
Before this latest immigration debacle ever gets untangled in the courts or Congress, Sheriff Arpaio and Gov. Brewer will be no less infamous.
Nor will Arizona's border and immigration issues be over.
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16 Comments so far
Show AllHurrah for the first clear reporting on what's going down in Arizona and its history. New York Times reporting today is FUZZY. Is the claim of 10.8 million illegals alone in California accurate? Don't think so.
Americans NEVER learn. Arizona has been at this ever since the Gadsden Purchase. It's all over greed, politics, and bigotry. It never has anything to do with THE BORDER. I was raised in Tucson Arizona in the 50s and early 60s. I know all about the type of scum that hates 'Mexicans' and is ever worried about the hoards of roaches that are ready to over-run this pristine state. Now we happen to have a governor and a sheriff who typify this kind of rabble.
While Arizona is going down the tubes economically, these people are bound and determined to have their day and their way. They've found the perfect opportunity and they are going to grab it and hold on for dear life. Meanwhile, Arizonians like me are wondering where the next meal is going to come from.
Like an Arizona citizen said in an interview shown on the local news about the Judge's ruling, "It'll go all the way to the Supreme Court." And we all know what the outcome of that will be.
Arizona; where my father was born, don't know about my Grandma she might have been born in Mexico. He was born in Metcalf, a ghost town now and he worked the mines there too; glad he made it to Santa Fe where I was born and changed careers also to being a waiter. He never talked much about the mines. This had to be in the late 20's, early 30's as I came along in 36. The mines, working on ships after moving to San Francisco during the war is probobly what killed him at 54. Aspestos and copper whatever and so have no reason to have any feelings at all for Arizona. Yet...The whole country is hardly any better at the way the most vulnerable are treated. Give the dirtest job to someone who has but the clothes on his back and when things get bad we can blame him because he was able to buy a new pair of shoes. What compassion. Tony
As a U.S. citizen I have been waiting in line for healthcare along with illegal immigrants. My governor's office confirmed that there are illegal immigrants allowed on the state health care waiting list.
When all citizens of the U.S. have healthcare, THEN I will be more supportive of illegal immigrants. Until then, I cannot in any way support this, when my own people are going without...and the majority of us who don't have healthcare are working. Many of us are ailing with assorted disease and injuries that are going un-treated.
I find the progressives to be as immoral as any conservative in this country. They just do their dirty work behind lies of "compassion" and from their gated communities. But they have agendas too, which are largely based, as are the conservatives, on a "pecking order" and competition.
People feel differently about this issue when they are directly impacted by the millions who are taking advantage of the system.
Not only Mexicans. Particularly, in the 1990's and early 2000's in my area we had a huge influx of Russians that were given free aid of all sorts, while citizens were ignored or put on the bottom of the "waiting lists".
As long as the U.S. continues on with the economic system we have, which is based on usury, Wall Street, and Central Banking (the finance sector is running the government) then people have a right to public utilities and human services for citizens FIRST. It is unfortunate but obviously the wars and parasite finance sector take the majority of our money and leave little for the aid of our people.
When our system changes to a more egalitarian economical system then we can afford to aid others. That is just the way it is.
It is the duty of the U.S. to put its citizens first.
OK ardent, who wrote this for you, it's the same extreme rhetoric but the author, unlike you, has a certain command of the English language.
And how is it possible to post comments on CD 24/7 while being a nurse. Somethings not right nurse Ratchett.
I wonder why we give the Pakistan, and Indian people as soon as they come to this Country, big loans to buy stores, and they don't have to pay taxes for 5 yrs. American citizens do not get the same favor. People come to this Country everyday and are not citizens and get every benifit there is .Whites can't even get these things. Mexicans do get food stamps, and assistance, but we don't give them stores.It seems we pick which immigrants we want at the time. Today it just isn't popular to be Mexican. I feel sorry for them, call me a bleeding heart if you will, but this is America, the land of hope and oppertunity. We hated blacks just 20-40 yrs. ago and now you better not say anything against them, or you are predjudice. We are running all over the world telling people to be Democratic, and to have fair elections, and to give us their oil, we are not very nice people.
>>razormirror wrote: Today it just isn't popular to be Mexican. I feel sorry for them, call me a bleeding heart if you will,...
razormirror, I think you don't need to worry that anyone would accuse you of having a "bleeding heart" if they read your post carefully :)
My post is sarcastic. I am not predjudice at all, I am simply pointing out what goes on, and what people are saying, and doing. Also there is a big difference in the way each group of immigrants are treated.I think the Mexicans are being used as scapegoats and it is very unfair.I do think it is odd how one group gets treated very well, and one is not. This whole Mexican thing really pissess me off. I just can't stand big Christian hairy whitemen doin the Lords work. These same peoples ancestors killed all the Indians, and buffalo, and stripped the land, and hated Blacks it's just that group that are real Americans, and they are ,that is what scares me for the Mexican, he doesn't stand a chance, once the mob mentality starts, we Americans kill everything we come across. Good Christian men. Not one person has mentioned why Mexicans come illigaly instead of the right way. The fact is the waiting list for the test for certain groups, is years, and years long. People are mad that the legal Latino community has grown so much in the last 10-15 yrs. They afraid that the Mexicans are taking over this Country. The field worker and house cleaners are taking all their jobs. I do have a bleeding heart, for the people that are being abused. Some groups don't need anyone to bleed for them.
It appears Jeff Biggers chose to avoid the fact that Mexico is in a drug cartel uproar which has caused a rise of violent crimes in Arizona. Maybe to make his point he thought it would be better to just write whatever the hell he wants. What a dousch.
"And why, when crime rates on the Arizona-Mexico border are down, and crime rates across Arizona are at their lowest in decades?" (2008 snapshot data irrelivant to todays situation)