¡Alto Arizona!

Immigration issue returns in school, health-care bills

Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services | Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 | Source: AZStarNet.com

PHOENIX - The legislative testimony, the press conference and the boycotts over SB 1070 are pretty much all history. And its architect is gone, the victim of a recall.

All that remains now is to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court will let Arizona begin enforcing key sections of the tough new immigration law.

But that is not halting efforts in the new session that started Monday to adopt even more laws aimed at the issue.

Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, is pushing two measures in particular. And while neither will directly reduce illegal immigration, he sees both as steps to help reduce the financial burden on Arizona taxpayers.

One would require parents to provide some proof when enrolling a child in public school that the youngster is a citizen or here legally.

Phoenix commission votes 13-0 for Sheriff Joe Arpaio to resign

by Emily Gersema - Jan. 30, 2012 09:50 PM| The Republic | azcentral.com

A Phoenix commission focused on equality issues has voted 13-0 to call for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to step down, and it wants City Council members to take a stand.

The Phoenix Human Relations Commission approved the resolution Monday at a special meeting. Three members were absent. The commission's resolution was supported by about a dozen residents who came to speak at the meeting, while a handful of others argued the commission had no business holding a vote on the future of an official elected by popular vote.

Commission Chairwoman Diane D'Angelo said she wanted the board to vote on the issue because of the U.S. Department of Justice's recent findings that outline several civil-rights violations by the Sheriff's Office, such as racial profiling and neglected sex-crime investigations. Although the commission is an advisory board to the council, its decisions are non-binding. Council members are concerned the vote could affect the city's jail contract.

Arizona Candidate Challenged Over English Skills

By MARC LACEY, Published: January 25, 2012 | Source: New York Times

SAN LUIS, Ariz. — When Alejandrina Cabrera speaks English, her face takes on an expression somewhere between deep discomfort and outright despair. Her tongue, which darts around her mouth in her native Spanish, slows to a crawl.

“I speak little English,” she said in a hesitant and heavily accented interview in her lawyer’s office. “But my English is fine for San Luis.”

Mrs. Cabrera may be able to get her point across in English, but whether she is proficient enough in the language to serve on the governing board of this bilingual border city has deeply divided the 25,000 residents.

Suspensions lifted for Tucson's "Niños Heroes" Wakefield M.S. students (And banned books petition)

Students who were suspended from Wakefield Middle School in Tucson for walking out earlier this week spent the day attending MAS classes at the UA. So did a suspended Pueblo H.S. student. In the second class, they were treated to the words of world=renowned writer poet, Simon Ortiz. No sooner had they finished attending the last class of the day did the Wakefield students receive word that their suspensions had been lifted. They walked out to protest the dismantling of the Mexican American Studies program.

Thanks to all who showed support for these courageous students.

Separate from attending classes, they also presented at the Centro on campus, explaining why they walked out.

Attorney Bruce Boynton Joins the Fight Against Racial Profiling in Maricopa County

Source: http://cdb-tonatierra.blogspot.com

Press Advisory
Date: Tuesday January 24, 2012
Contact: Tupac Enrique Acosta
Email: chantlaca@tonatierra.org

1st Freedom Rider Arrives in Phoenix Today

Attorney Bruce Boynton Joins the Fight Against
Racial Profiling in Maricopa County

Attorney Bruce Boynton

Phoenix, AZ – The battle for Civil Rights in the deep south in the 60’s and the fight in Maricopa County against racial profiling and discriminatory policing will link up this week here in Phoenix when Attorney Bruce Boynton arrives to take part in a series of community events organized by TONATIERRA and Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio.

Atty. Bruce Boynton is considered the 1st Freedom Rider when he was arrested in 1958 for refusing to leave a  "white only" lunch counter while traveling home on a break from law school. His case Boynton v. the Common Wealth of Virginia (1960) desegregated all interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals. This case was the bases of the Freedom Rides of 1961 organized to test the enforcement of the Supreme Court Decision.

DOJ Is Sorry If Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Feelings Were Hurt When They Disclosed His Civil Rights Abuses

Ryan J. Reilly, January 5, 2012 | Source: TalkingPointsMemo.com

You know how when you’re trying to avoid apologizing to someone who’s upset you throw in a qualifier like “sorry you’re upset” or “sorry you feel that way”? That’s the type of classic non-apology that a Justice Department official gave to officials representing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio who were perturbed by the DOJ’s press conference announcing the findings of an investigation into wide-spread civil rights abuses in Arpaio’s office.

Arpaio’s people evidently didn’t get that the DOJ official was trying to be polite. A press release from Arpaio’s office yesterday in conjunction with their letter responding to DOJ called the press conference “a political sideshow that was both unfortunate and misleading and as such, prompted an apology to the Sheriff’s Office by the second in command of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.” A letter from attorneys for Arpaio’s people said that the DOJ official “specifically apologized to us for not being able to control the timing or manner of the announcement of the investigation’s findings.”

Freedom Riders Community Screening January 26, 2012 at North High School

From Birmingham to Phoenix, from Civil Rights to Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and the Rights of Mother Earth!

Come join us for a presentation of the movie Freedom Riders with special guests who will narrate the story of the fight for Civil Rights in the Deep South during the 1960's.

“We just don’t want a seat on the bus, we want to redesign the whole economic and transportation system from bottom to top, because we’re headed to Self Sustainability and Self Determination - and not back to the big house of the White Man’s corporate plantation.”

Thursday January 26, 2012
North High School Auditorium
1101 E Thomas Rd, Phoenix
6pm-8pm

WWW.TONATIERRA.ORG

For more information: Tel: (602) 254-5230 Email: tonal@tonatierra.org

http://FACEBOOK.COM/TONATIERRA

"Stopping Mexicans to make sure they are legal is not racist.  If you have dark skin, you have dark skin! Unfortunately, that is the look of the Mexican illegal."


Files of Maricopa County Sheriff J. Arpaio,
quoted on page 28 of US District Court Case 2:07-cv-02513-GMS
Document 494 12/23/11

Melendres vs. Arpaio

Obama’s Justice Dept. Finally Cuffs Sheriff Joe, But Not the Policy That Made Him

by Julianne Hing | Thursday, January 5 2012 | Source: ColorLines.com

Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” will cooperate with the federal government’s demands to clean up his department after a three-year investigation found rampant racial profiling and widespread discriminatory policing under his watch. But he’s not doing it without issuing a few demands of his own.

Arpaio was up against a Wednesday deadline set forth by the Department of Justice following the release of its damning report last month. He had to either voluntarily comply with the DOJ’s proposed reforms for Maricopa County, Ariz., or face civil action, the Department of Justice told Arpaio last month. Arpaio responded pointedly, saying he would begin talks with the Department of Justice only when federal government provided “proof” he’d done something wrong.

The lengthy response from Arpaio’s attorneys all but bristles. It includes 106 separate requests for documentation of the Justice Department’s findings and claims a “dearth of facts” in the original report.

“We, too, prefer to resolve this matter without litigation, but will not cower at the threat of litigation, either,” Arpaio’s attorneys wrote to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

It was a classic move from the publicity-obsessed sheriff, who’s made a name for himself as an anti-immigrant hardliner so committed to detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants that he was willing to trample on the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.

Arizona’s Apartheid War Against Mexican American Studies

And on the 7th Day…Arizona’s Apartheid War Against Mexican American Studies

Special length column
Column of the Americas
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Early on the morning of the 7th day, God wrote HB 2281; then he rested.

That’s the way conservative Arizonans view this clearly unconstitutional and immoral anti-Ethnic Studies measure.

The opponents of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) department – who act as though this state measure was also inscribed on the original tablets God handed to Moses – use this circular logic. An administrative law judge, Lewis D. Koval, also weighed in on the embattled MAS department, with a 37-page finding last week with the same twisted logic. He opined that MAS-TUSD is out of compliance and that HB 2281 is legal because it has not been ruled unconstitutional. If affirmed, the finding can cost TUSD 10 percent of its monthly state budget, totaling up to $15 million per year. That HB 2281 has not been found to be unconstitutional is true... only because the measure has yet to be actually implemented and the 2010 Acosta federal lawsuit has not yet reached the trial stage. Not only that, the legal process, as established by the state measure, has not yet fully played out. Within a few days, state schools’ superintendent John Huppenthal, who campaigned with the vow to “stop La Raza,” is expected to affirm Koval’s non-binding ruling. TUSD can now petition the Superior Court to reject Koval’s finding, though TUSD superintendent, John Pedicone, has already indicated he wants the district to comply with the ruling.

On paper, MAS-TUSD detractors oppose the department because it violates HB 2281, seemingly not cognizant that the only reason this state measure exists is because the former state schools’ superintendent, Tom Horne, crafted it to ensure that the department would be deemed out of compliance, with the only remedy being elimination. Horne incidentally, has long-claimed that his effort to eliminate MAS-TUSD was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I have a Dream” speech. Bernard Lafayette Jr., a colleague of MLK Jr. and a freedom rider, along with virtually the entire civil rights community nationwide, begs to differ with Horne. Ironically, along with the racial profiling SB 1070, his animus toward MAS is what has unleashed an unprecedented amount of hate toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans in this state, a clue that Horne has no business invoking MLK’s name for any reason.