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TechnoratiA Movement Rises in Arizona
Three months ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the notorious SB 1070, a bill that put her state at the forefront of a movement to intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants.
Since then activists have responded through legal challenges, political lobbying, grassroots organizing and mass mobilizations. More than a hundred thousand people from across Arizona marched on the state capitol on May 29. Today, hundreds more have pledged to risk arrest through nonviolent direct action. These are the public manifestations of an inspiring and widespread struggle happening in this state. The organizations leading this fight offer a vision for people around the US concerned with human rights.
A Rogue State
Yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against sections of Arizona law SB 1070, which is scheduled to go into effect today. The judge put a hold on some of the most outrageous parts of the bill, such as language that mandates racial profiling by officers. However, Judge Bolton left much of the rest of the law intact, including sections that specifically target day laborers.
For Arizona activists, the legal ruling represents - at best - a small respite. "It's not a victory, it's a relief," says Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). "We're putting a band aid on a wound."
Alvarado and the organizers with NDLON are part of a broad network of national organizations and volunteers who have joined with local organizers to fight not just against this unjust law, but also against a general climate of anti-immigrant hatred. "Arizona is a rogue state," says Alvarado. "We're going to use every single means that we have at our disposal to fight back."
Puente Arizona, a Phoenix-based organization that describes itself as a human rights movement working to "resurrect our humanity," has formed Barrio Defense Committees in neighborhoods across the city. Emulating the structure of groups founded by popular movements in El Salvador, the community-based structure work to both serve basic needs, and also build consciousness and help bring people together. According to Puente activist Diana Perez Ramirez, the committees host regular "know your rights" trainings and ESL classes, and are organizing "Copwatch" projects. "We ask the community to unite and organize themselves," says Ramirez. "And we are just there to support that." More than one thousand people have joined these neighborhood organizations so far, with more joining every day.
Puente has made use of volunteers from across the US, utilizing national support to help with local organizing, and initiating direct action with the support of out of town allies like the Ruckus Society, Catalyst Project, and various chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They have issued calls to action including a Human Rights Summer (modeled after the civil rights movements' Freedom Summer) and "30 Days for Human Rights," a month of actions culminating today, the day SB 1070 will become law.
Just after midnight, as the law took effect, the first protest of the day began, as nearly 80 people blocked the intersection at the entrance to the town of Guadelupe, a small (one square mile) Native American and Hispanic community just outside of Phoenix. The town has a long history of struggle against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been one of the main public faces of SB 1070, and most of the protesters (and all of the organizers) were from the community. Holding signs declaring their opposition to the new law and leading chants against police brutality, activists declared that Arpaio's officers are not welcome in their town. The stand off against police lasted more than an hour, before protest leaders in consultation with the town's mayor decided to open the intersection. Several more actions are planned for today.
Working Proactively
The Repeal Coalition, a Flagstaff- and Phoenix-based grassroots immigrants-rights organization, was formed in 2007. The group came together because they saw a vacuum in the immigrants' rights movement in Arizona. "Some of the left here were not being very audacious," explains Luis Fernandez of the Repeal Coalition. "The positions in the public debate ranged from ‘kick them all out,' to ‘get their labor and then kick them out.'" The Repeal Coalition has staked out a position of calling for the elimination of all anti immigration laws, declaring, "We fight for the right for people to live, love, and work wherever they please." With this call, says Fernandez, "Now we have a real debate."
When the coalition was founded, organizers brought in labor activists to advise them on how to build an organization along similar models to those that have built strong unions, utilizing house calls, neighborhood mapping, and group meetings. Although they are an all-volunteer group with little to no funding, they have developed a structure that has initiated large protests and provided direct service, and they are now strategizing more ways to take direct action in the post SB 1070 era.
Fernandez says that this struggle is ultimately about overcoming fear and moving from reaction to proactive action. "We've been in a crisis in Arizona for a long time," he explains. "Even if SB 1070 weren't implemented, it wouldn't matter. The political crisis would continue." To address this crisis, Fernandez believes organizations must build unity across race and class. "Traditionally in America, when the working class starts suffering, instead of connecting together and looking upwards at the cause of the problem, they look sideways or downwards for who to blame." Most importantly, he believes activists must take action to seize the initiative.
In this vision, he has been inspired by young organizers working on the federal DREAM ACT, a federal law that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented youth. "They came to Arizona and said, ‘we're undocumented and we're going to commit acts of civil disobedience.'" At first, Repeal Coalition members tried to talk them out of this action, but the youth explained, "We are going to lose our fear because it is the fear of being arrested or the fear of being deported that fuels the inability of political action." The bravery and vision of these youth has inspired Fernandez to continue to search for new and bold ways to take action, rather than just continually respond to right wing attacks. "We need to set the agenda," explains Fernandez. "We have to say, ‘No, you're going to react to us.'"
Despite a range of tactics and philosophies, one thing organizers here have in common is a dedication to exporting the lessons of their struggle. While Arizona's law is the first and most draconian, similar laws are pending across the country. And during this current national economic crisis, more and more politicians have found that they can score political points by demonizing immigrants. "The last two months we've had a lot of people calling us asking what they can do to help Arizona," says Fernandez. "We say, organize in your own town. You don't have to come to Arizona because Arizona is coming to you."
49 Comments so far
Show AllIf the USA federal government would spend the money to enforce the law, Arizona would not have to pass any laws to enforce immigration law.
The ten amendment, that quaint piece of the bill of rights, gives the states supremacy over the federal government, at least it used to.
Look what has happened with the USA: it has outsourced production, and in-sourced undocumented labor. The effect has been cost cutting for business and reduction of the middle class.
Principle is fine, when you can afford it. Stop distracting from the real issue, loss of the citizens income therefore power.
Well put. But this is far from over. This judge will be reversed or we have no judges left that can read the Constitution.
Aren't you guys at the wrong site? Faux News is on another channel. I have to wonder what constitution you might be reading, but the one that I've believed in supports the rights of minorities, or have you forgotten the civil rights movement. States rights was always the rallying cry of the white supremacists and the Klan as well.
I especially like the "Principle is fine, when you can afford it."statement. I'll bet you think you're a Christian as well.
Here we go again, lets pull out that racism card. It is not racist to express an opinion. Unfortunately, the media and these fake so called organizing groups are confusing the issues. This is not a civil rights issue it is an economic issue. Suddenly group wants to compare itself to the civil rights movement? I am confused here. I was under the impression that African Americans were forced to come here at the barrel of the gun and then when freed they were denied human rights. Illegal workers in the US is great for small businesses and big corporations that want to make more profits but not for the Illegal workers that are exploited. Please stop confusing yourself and others.
I love how people keep using the "racism card"-card in order to try and make this seem anything but xenophobic. This is certainly a civil rights issue, whether you want it to be or not.
Even if your own personal, subjective stance on it isn't rooted in any culturally-suggested political predisposition (if you AREN'T a braindead Right-Winger who simply passes along Fox News talking points)... right now, that is where the issue stems from. They don't want Mexican/Latino/minority/"foreign" influence in politics, because common sense and decency tends to steer those people away from traditional "American"/conservative values and ideals, and towards bottom-up philosophy (if they can be bothered/motivated into researching and understanding American politics) which naturally aligns itself with Leftist ideals (usually). So it's an extremely appealing strategy to the Right to polarize it's poor. Conservative politicians capitalizing on good old American prejudice and self-interest.
But they need the right circumstances in order to navigate around the cries of racism and xenophobia and try this kind of thing out in the open... 'cause it's pretty risky. The economic crisis seems to be working well in this respect, but their endgame has little concern for restoring America to "greatness" and uniting it's people in transparent democracy, and more so to do with shooing away and silencing as many of those demographic-mutating minorities and "radical Left-Wing lunatics" who support any "un-American" or anti-Capitalist ideas that could pose a threat to the status quo (a status quo which has shown it's dysfunctional and irrational nature in vivid color in recent years). Really, this bill benefits no one but rich white politicians who see scared old white citizens as a valuable fuel for their pursuits of political power and authority. After all, there are lots of adult minorities who've been systematically purged from the pool of public influence (say through stifled education and slanted drug policies that cripple them at a young age with felonies)... so these old folks really DO have a lot at stake, but.. who cares? They're ruining this country and ruining this planet. They had their shot, they've failed everyone miserably. Let's just fucking try something else already.
I almost feel like we shouldn't even be this worried about immigration right now because our country has been hijacked by these rich criminal pricks in such obvious ways, it's only common sense to first get the reins into the hands of regular people before we start enthusiastically handing over such unquestionable authority to political figures (who are only making decisions here based on what will help their careers and affiliations) and their police cronies to draw up social boundaries and dictate who belongs and who doesn't.
To stoke old emotional, racial issues is a very odd (in this day and age) but still effective way of drawing hard boundaries within your "lower" classes. I can't believe they're actually attempting it (and it's working on people!).. and yeah, it's not exactly Neo-Nazi or Klan rallies down busy streets, but it comes from a similar state of mind. Witch-hunting, scapegoating, whatever. It's all wrong... and it's still racist. Don't any of you remember the recent stories of how "Ethnic Studies" and teachers with accents were both nixed in AZ earlier this year? Or the mural with the "whitened" children in Prescott? THIS IS ALL ABOUT RACE, FOR THEM. Jan Brewer actually said she'll continue to keep working to "protect our citizens"... From.. I guess, poor Mexican people? They never bother me! Does she mean drug and gang violence? Sure, that makes me a little nervous.. But those problems wouldn't be alleviated with mass deportation and new forms of politically-correct apartheid. That's a whole 'nother issue (Hint: drug reform).
So our priorities are all mixed up. This is dangerous shit to play with. I'm not accusing all SB1070 supporters of being racist or having a racial motivation, but just saying they ARE supporting a bill that was conceived and implemented mostly by people that DO... Like it or not.
We need to realize the social implications of polarizing policies like these, reject them, and work for reform that isn't based in hard-headed, nonsensical prejudice favoring certain (outdated) ideals... But out-in-the-open, honest discussion and debate. With logical arguments on why what we're doing is right or wrong, not ideologically-slanted broad sweeps of legislative change that send citizens into shock and ..uh.. awe. Haha.
Anyway, if it's all about economics, then how exactly will this help anyway? Explain how this will be enough to fight the momentum of money pouring out into the Middle East and into Wall St and big, elite-owned industries. It's not entirely a political move from the Left to keep immigrants around to have children who'll vote for their party in the future, as much as it is a move from the Right to get them out and attempt to salvage a relationship or connection with SOME part of the American people, after decades of Conservative-minded policies that have propagated these sorts of devil-may-care attitudes about production and consumption over the last 3 or 4 decades. We don't have high unemployment because Mexicans flooded the country with cheap labor and drove all the good American folks out into the cold. We simply got ahead of ourselves and built too much stupid, useless shit. Then we got accustomed to the lifestyle. Then 'they' outsourced in order to keep producing. So we spent more than we had and fell in with creditors and lenders in order to sustain said unsustainable lifestyle. We placed all of our priorities in short-term economic prosperity and basically blew the whole system out. We might've inherited a disaster, but we don't have to pass it on... We're all to blame, and we'll all need to put in the effort to fix it.
...That being said, I never realized SB1070 was around to protect migrant workers from evil small businesses and big corporations. So thanks to Pablito, I'll need to rethink my entire take on this whole thing now.
Right on - that is one of the better responses I read so far.
And by all means eff the machine! Nonparticipation is the only way to go...by supporting this bill you participate on their terms whether you like it or not...
elfmachine
Your comment reminds me of old Chinese proverb:
"Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel"
You're brief and short every time you cut and paste your 'Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel' comment, Badger. Unfortunately, you have posted that same ditto head Right remark close to a billion times now. YOU are so stupid, Badger!
Some opinions are racist: all racism is opinion.
Residents of Latin America have for decades been forced to immigrate to the US because American government and corporations have made large investments stopping economic and social reform by both guile and direct violence in every single Latin American country multiple times.
The law is racist, Pablo, whether you are or not: it commands police officers to discriminate on the basis of racial signs of ethnicity. It is also classist: It commands officers to discriminate against people who look for work.
Finally, let us not pretend we compare these people to "the" civil rights movement: these people ARE the civil rights movement as it exists in 2010. African Americans have not gotten done winning their civil rights. Nor have Asians, women, gays, the elderly, children, or the poor.
We cannot allow part of our number to be singled out and sold over to xenophobic hysteria to be maintained as strikebreakers and scapegoats. Of course, this is not the intention of all of you who support this bill. Nor are all of you racist, though the bill most certainly is.
As usual, as happens so often to so many of us, some of you simply support it by mistake.
"It commands officers to discriminate against people who look for work".
Bardamu, which provision was that?
On the one hand we are to believe that anti-immigrant people are falsely being accused of racism in order to discredit them while we are not to apply the same standards to this law and see the obvious - it opens the door to racial profiling.
The even greater irony is that no one would be so sensitive to being "accused of racism" - as though that were some horrible assault on them - unless they were in fact trying to advance racist ideas.
I'm so tired of this racism card garbage! Tell you what we have 10s of thousands of land mines the UN want's us to get rid of.. We can bury them on our side no need to put any on their soil..
The nice thing about mines is they don't see color. They have no preconcived notions of who or what belongs here. If you step on one you die.
Solve two problems at once I say. Send fliers, post signs, whatever you want but if any insurgent sets one foot over the line, it gets blown off, and they get blown back over the line, maybe a little wiser about entering someones home unwantedly.
The big Corps can send planes to Mexico city to pickup their workers, on arrival they'll be taged, counted and the companies will get a bill. Any who don't want to get back on the plane, will be hunted down and delt with as criminals.
As for in country, all we need to do is have a manditory poll day. everyone gets counted, like the Romans used to do it. all will loged and cataloged retnal blood fingerprints. Those people will be official Americans anyone found mot able to meet ID requirments will be held over for positive ID, if it's found they don't belong they'll be injected with a tag and put on the cheapest buss possible to the border where they'll cross a small foot path back South.
Theres nothing Racist in that now is there?
>^^<
MoronsCatz here has gone from labeling migrant foreign workers 'criminals' to now calling them ''insurgents' and calling for land mines to be placed on the US Southern Border. And yet this dear sensitive soul doesn't want any of the rest of us to call him racist! Go figure?
I did figure it out, too, and I will continue to call him just a plain old fashioned US RACIST MORON. And to think that this clown was telling others to vote Libertarian, Green, or Communist Party instead of the 2 corporate Big Two" in a couple posts back? GOD, there sure seems to be some real buffoons that qualify themselves as being Left- Right-, anti- Latino racist clowns. Catz tops that list! ...for sure.
I was right> You ARE a criminal.
Inciting to murder.
You won't mind if we put a few mines out there in your back yard, now will ya?
Just to be fair--amd not target one color over another.
BARDAMU: Great post. I wonder if you're being ironic in your concluding sentence, however?
"Aren't you guys at the wrong site? Faux News is on another channel".
Irony alert!
Regardless of whatever extreme you have aligned yourself with, the tactic is the same.
Fox likes to spam Lefties with their ugly presence at Left rallies, Left websites, etc. Badger carries on that time dishonored Fox approach. YES, the tactic is definitely the same.
Hey, dancing boy, the Constitution of the US was written for citizens of the US,
not every interloper from south of the Rio Grande who wants to cross the border illegally. What part of that is so difficult to understand?
Bunk!
The Constitution was written for a handful of rich male landowners.
Your folks were interlopers who entered this land mass without the permission of the indigneous folks.
Pack your bags and get out.
These stupid Right Wing folk know nothing about their own history, readbetween. NOTHING.
Well, to be fair, there is not a whole lot WORTH knowing: Just theft, murder, white and black slavery.
LOL! Excellent response!
10-4 mitymite, and that mindlessness extends from Judge Bolton all the way to the "Supremes." How is it that so many can be bought, judges I mean.....is there really that much $$ available to buy them? Are they actually that stupid or, worse yet, do they actually believe they're doing the right thing?
Mite reads The Constitution and a verse from his Bible every night.
'This judge will be reversed or we have no judges left that can read the Constitution.'
He's so very righteous! Gag us!
Been here in the Phoenix area since 1959. My mothers family moved to AZ from D.C. in 1926. There has always been a "problem" here, It wasn't too bad until NAFTA. You think it's bad now wait for the climate to shift even more and we have climate refugee's. The only way to "fix" our problem is to "fix" Mexico. Not with guns either. More people have died there from their drug war than the odd wars we are fighting now over seas. If the law reads that someone is here illegally then send them home. It's Our Right. Should we make Mexico the 51st State? Get rid of the border altogether? It's either that or go into total lock down. What do you want? A true police state or compatibility with other humans in a compassionate manner. I say we incorporate with Mexico.
We could always end the war on drugs and financially cripple the black market...
"I say we incorporate with Mexico".
oneDman, as one who appreciates the art of engineered narrative, an art form you seemingly have a vocation for, kindly intimate specific benifits from such a proposal.
Badger...a sample...the expansion of the arts alone would be amazing, on the main, their use of color is vibrant where ours is lacking...another...dry dirt farming, sooner or later we will all have to do with less water, more than likely sooner...and...as someone said earlier "North American Union", if you include Canada...maybe the best benefit would be a loss of stress on both sides...it's a start, care to add?
Bad ideas, all of them.
Can you say "North American Union"?
Thanks to all those in AZ who are organizing and/or coming up with creative ways to shift immigration attitudes and laws in a more positive direction. This is important work!
Would someone please re-post the requirements to legally enter Mexico and how their law applies to any "illegal" entrants. I'm just saying.
In Mexico legality is pretty damn slippery.
I overstayed my tourist card by almost a year two times in the mid and late 90s. When I applied for a work visa, and submitted the expired tourist visa, they gave me the work permit and did not even fine me (on the books it was a fine of about 130 bucks back then).
When one enters Mexico he or she is automatically given a tourist visa (FMT). If you lose it, it costs a little over 20 bucks to get another one.
Not at all the same as the USA.
The constitution was written by a group of men, the Founding Fathers, who most all belonged to the Freemason Cult, and who believed their way. We the people had no say, especially women or people of color. Do research on the Free masons, and the 33rd. degree mason ritual. The tea party movement believe in this cult. Also watch the History Channel on the true facts of the masons that has inspired people like Palin.---also, the water was poor to drink back in the days so the Founders drank alcohol, grew Hemp to make clothes from and perhaps smoked.
Food For Thought!
So what? if we took over Mexico they'd be citizens, If my grandmother had wheels would she be a trolly? It's not our country and they are not our people. Hell most refuse to even speak out langauge. These Crimonals/Insurgants/Invaders do not deserve our pity but our Contempt!
If a civilised person wants to immigrate they got to the approriate embassy and fill out the papers, submit identification, wait their turn for an invitition, they do not skulk over borders in darkness, refuse to adapt to the ways and language of the country they want to move to.
CRIMINALS GO HOME! thats not raceist, thats factual!
>^^<
You can't make up these Right Wing idiot's fool notions. What are they even trying to say?
'So what? if we took over Mexico they'd be citizens, If my grandmother had wheels would she be a trolly?'
YOU have mine for you....
'These Crimonals/Insurgants/Invaders do not deserve our pity but our Contempt!'
Why is Catz trying to parody himself?
"We are going to lose our fear because it is the fear of being arrested or the fear of being deported that fuels the inability of political action."
This is a powerful statement and is in the strong tradition of defying laws that make your very existence illegal.
Shades of Stonewall and Selma.
Down with neo-slavery!
F*ck off Elton John!
Don't you love all those Lilly White Anglo Right Wing talking heads on TV, pretending to be hip while 'discussing' Elton John (Reginald Kenneth Dwight of Middlesex England) coming out against boycotting Arizona? It's a nauseating spectacle.
The guy must now be worth about a couple of billion dollars, too. I'd like to strip him down naked from his gaudy attire and throw him right out in the hot Arizona desert for a day or two. Then he might be more understanding of the questions that face people daily out there...
Unless your a Soverian Government; you'll never get anywhere telling lies. These are not Immigrants Rights Groups, simply as this group does not consist of immigrants,, They are INSURGANTS! sneaking through the border under cover of darkness. Some working, many more just looking for the good life at someone elses expence.
Namely mine. and I don't want to pay! That is my right, or should be. If you want to set up an Insurgants getto out of your own pocket, good for you. Keep them off my Lawn!
So put away your mock civil rights campigain flags, this has nothing to do with Civil Rights, as they don't have any. They have no legal or moral right to be here! So knock off the Sob stories, Their Criminals her nomore noless.
CRIMINALS
>^^<
'They are INSURGANTS!'
Catz, you are a mORAN!
'So put away your mock civil rights campigain flags, this has nothing to do with Civil Rights, as they don't have any. They have no legal or moral right to be here!'
Catz, lecture God all you want now, but it just makes you look so stupid though! You have absolutely no moral right to tell others that they have no rights, Idiot. Who do you think that you are? 'A Soverian Government?' ...lol...
Seems to me that you are the criminal.
Fascism is a crime in my book.
So is claiming the moral high road when your ancestors invaded my land and murdered my people amd put a bounty on their scalps.
Flagrantly fracturing the language of debate (in this case, English) is also a crime in my book.
You should be sitting in an ESL classroom learning English cheek to jowl with the folks you look down on.
Language learning is a great leveler.
They also passed laws banning ethnic studies and disqualifying people with accents from teaching English.
Somebody hasn't been teaching posters like Catz good English.... Hey, I'll just blame it on the 'illegals'!
"We fight for the right for people to live, love, and work wherever they please."
How would we apply this in some sort of orderly way? Like, if you decide to live, love & work in the US, would you need to notify the US? Maybe identify yourself and receive a resident visa? If that connects to a channel for citizenship, then there's a procedure for your sharing in the rights, benefits and responsibilities of citizenship, at least during the time you've decided to be in the US.
I can see how the human rights argument applies to racial profiling among citizens and legal immigrants. But the civil rights, women's rights, gay rights movements in the US were by and for US citizens. How do we shape the idea of a national or regional government that has no authority to deny your right -- and yet that it will embrace its responsibility to protect your right?
Complete word salad.
You are for civil rights for only a few: gringos only.
Some animals are more equal than others?
Seems that these people all want a gated community for themselves that denies rights to those kept outside the gate by the cops, military, and corporate government? Why though? Why do they think that they are all that?
Whether it's called a community, a nation, or a corporate area, what sort of structure ensures people's right to live, love & work anywhere they please?
A nation with a progressive constitution??
A society that is not run top down...
'Whether it's called a community, a nation, or a corporate area, what sort of structure ensures people's right to live, love & work anywhere they please?'