¡Alto Arizona!

SB1070 Senate Hearing, Protest and Arrests.

Published on Apr 30, 2012 by Humanleague002 (Youtube.com)

This video shows excerpts from the Senate Judicial Hearing on April 24, 2012, It also shows testimony from Phoenix as hundreds rallied and marched on April 25, eventually blocking ICE and the streets the same day the Supreme court heard 1070. 9 protesters were arrested. For more info on the music visit:http://artisticreasonaz.bandcamp.com/track/its-bigger-than-hip-hop

To watch whole Senate hearing visit: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Senators-Hear-About-Role-of-State-Immigration-La...

The 'Arizonification' of the US immigration debate

By Sarahi Uribe | Source: Guardian.co.uk | Friday 27 April 2012

However the supreme court rules on Arizona's SB1070, the real racial-profiling problem is President Obama's deportation policy

Maria Leyba, of Phoenix, protests against Arizona's SB1070 illegal immigration law, during the US supreme court hearing on 25 April 2012. Photograph: Matt York/AP

While many focused on the US supreme court's consideration of Arizona's SB1070 on Wednesday, events on the streets of Phoenix and not in the court, foreshadow the future of the country's immigration debate. Within the supreme court, a very narrow legal principle was discussed – as to whether Arizona was infringing on the federal government's right to set immigration policy. In Phoenix, hundreds of demonstrators were clear about what was really at stake in the high court: a negative decision would clearly worsen Arizona's human rights crisis, but even a positive ruling would not solve it.

The simple fact is that SB1070 is merely a symptom of a far greater problem in Arizona where anti-immigrant sentiment has been used as an excuse to codify racism. Despite its repugnant stated intent to wage a war of attrition against immigrants, SB1070 at its core suggests that people who aren't white have a lesser right to be an American. It's a view that is spreading throughout the country, and it's a view that is threatening our proudest tradition as a nation of immigrants.

SB1070 Supreme Court Hearing Actions

The outcry was loud and widespread when Arizona lawmakers enacted SB1070 into law.  Its passage rang an alarm, signaling a renewed threat to the human rights and civil liberties of all.  At its core, SB1070 treats people as suspects for the color of their skin, and mandates harassment and discrimination.  As this malicious model of public policy makes its way to the floors of legislative chambers across the country, it seeks to accomplish two major tenants of the attrition strategy:  to embolden and encourage vigilante immigration enforcement and to drive fear into the hearts of targeted communities.

The next point of debate lands squarely in the chambers of the Supreme Court on April 25th.  As the judges listen to the arguments of each side, communities in resistance to SB1070 pledge to state their own case.  They invite us all to take part, to tell the story of what policies like SB1070 and ICE Access programs that create the same human rights crisis.  It is up to us to raise this legal debate to a moral one.  Do we want to be governed by laws with the malicious intent of SB1070?  Is that how we want to treat each other?

Join the voices of Arizona families on April 25th.  Arizona style immigration policies are the wrong direction for our country.  Programs like Secure Communities don’t make us safer, we must Restore Trust.

Go to http://bit.ly/1070marches for a list of actions across the country, flyers and PSAs to download.

AP Newsbreak: AZ sheriff played probe for laughs

By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press | April 22, 2o12 | Source: Ap.org

PHOENIX (AP) -- An audio recording has surfaced of an Arizona sheriff playing his refusal to cooperate in a racial profiling investigation for laughs at a fundraiser for an anti-illegal immigration group in Texas. He ridicules politicians who sought the probe and displayed contempt toward federal authorities who were - and are still - investigating him on two fronts.

The dismissive comments in 2009 by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio came as the U.S. Justice Department had already launched a civil rights probe of his trademark immigration patrols and the FBI already was examining abuse-of-power allegations for the sheriff's investigations of political foes.

In the September 2009 speech in Houston, Arpaio boasted that he arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants after politicians and federal investigators started to pick apart his patrols. He said he wouldn't cooperate with the inquiry, but said he would tone down the patrols - if he was proven wrong.

"But I'm not. After they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite," the self-proclaimed "America's toughest sheriff" said, pausing for laughter and applause.

Joe Arpaio Is America’s Most Spiteful Sheriff

By Andre Tartar | Source: NYMag.com

Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio has never minced words when it comes to his contempt for the federal government's immigration policy, or its various investigations into civil rights and constitutional abuses by his office. But a recently uncovered 2009 recording of a speech Arpaio gave at a Texans for Immigration Reform meeting in Houston really took things up a notch. To laughs, he spoke of refusing to take part in the federal inquiries and bragged of kicking civil rights investigators out of his office. (In that case, a court order ultimately forced his participation.) Arpaio, who has a fondness for racial profiling as a part of law enforcement, also revealed that "after they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite." 

When interviewed by the AP, Arpaio defended his remarks by saying that "these are not official, under-oath speeches." But when asked specifically about his "spite" comment, he doubled down. "It was wrong," he replied. "It wasn't 500. It was thousands."

An Invitation to Abuse and Chaos

EDITORIAL: Published: April 21, 2012 | Source: NYTimes.com

Arizona’s cold-blooded immigration statute was enacted in 2010 to bring about “attrition through enforcement” — to make life so harsh for undocumented immigrants that they would be driven out of the state. It invites unfettered racial profiling and the abuse of police power. And, if allowed to stand, it opens the door to states’ writing their own foreign policy, in defiance of the Constitution.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on whether the state can enforce key parts of this law, despite the federal government’s exclusive constitutional authority to regulate foreign affairs, including immigration policy. Any sensible reading of the statute, the Constitution and legal precedents going back to the nation’s founding would say no.

After Attorney’s Disbarment, Latino Groups Want Arpaio Brought Down Next

Reported by Nick Martin | Source: TalkingPointsMemo.com

Latino groups on Tuesday called for authorities to zero in on Sheriff Joe Arpaio after his former right-hand man and longtime political ally was stripped of his license to practice law as part of a wide-ranging investigation that raised questions about whether the two of them had abused their law enforcement powers.

Ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas was disbarred after a lengthy investigation by the State Bar of Arizona. A three-member panel ruled that Thomas misused his power as a prosecutor to target people who were seen as political enemies of him and Arpaio. The investigation showed that Arpaio was heavily involved in the conduct.

“Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Arpaio worked together to intimidate anyone who may have been able to stop the sheriff’s heinous crimes,” said Sandra Castro of Puente Arizona, an immigrant rights group that has long been critical of Arpaio. “Restoring justice in Maricopa County won’t be complete until the sheriff himself is brought to justice.”

Thomas, Aubuchon stripped of their legal licenses - Disciplinary panel disbars former Maricopa County attorney

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Michael Kiefer - Apr. 10, 2012 10:14 AM | Source: The Republic

Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his onetime deputy, Lisa Aubuchon, were stripped of their law licenses today as a disciplinary panel handed down the toughest sanctions possible for ethical violations in a case that attracted national interest.

The panel also suspended Rachel Alexander, another Thomas deputy, from practicing law for six months and one day for her role in filing a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against judges and county officials.

After the verdict, Thomas spoke only briefly.

Arpaio case: Feds respond to 'put up or shut up' demand

by JJ Hensley - Apr. 9, 2012 12:25 PM | Source: The Republic | azcentral.com

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery's demand that the U.S. Justice Department "put up or shut up" when it comes to the civil-rights investigation into the Sheriff's Office fell on confused ears in Washington, D.C., based on a letter federal officials delivered to Montgomery Monday.

The Justice Department remains confused about Montgomery's role in representing the Sheriff's Office, but regardless of the role he wants to play, the federal civil-rights probe should not interfere with Montgomery's efforts to prosecute criminals in Maricopa County, according to the letter Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Roy Austin wrote to Montgomery.

The Justice Department last December released findings from a three-year investigation into the Sheriff's Office that accused it of rampant discrimination against Latinos in its police and jail operations. Negotiations on remedies were expected to begin last week, with the explicit threat of a federal lawsuit if negotiations were unsuccessful.

The federal government's confusion stems, in part, from Montgomery's response to the notice of findings the Justice Department delivered in December to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Arpaio's attorneys and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. On the day those findings were delivered, Montgomery told Justice Department officials that his office was not representing Arpaio and that federal investigators had "noticed the wrong party" in corresponding with the County Attorney's Office.

Why Sheriff Joe Has Wyatt Earp in His Posse: You Like Things By the Book? Then Don’t Be Sheriff in the West

Source: ZocaloPublicSquare.org

by Andrew Isenberg

In November 2010, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, created an armed “immigration posse” to interdict suspects. Its members included Hollywood action-movie figures such as Steven Segal and Lou Ferrigno and a Phoenix man, Wyatt Earp, who was widely reported to be not only the namesake but also the nephew of the iconic Old West gunfighter. This reporting required considerable imagination, since Earp had two nephews, both born in the 1870s, and both long dead. The 21st-century Earp is a retired insurance agent whose strongest connection to the original Earp is that he has portrayed him in a one-man play.

Arpaio’s attempt to link himself to Earp may seem desperate, but it’s not surprising. Arpaio is a master of symbolic politics, manipulating Western iconography to present himself as a lawman who, like Wyatt Earp, would impose his version of justice at all costs. The power of sheriffs, particularly in the parts of the Western United States where they are elected officials, is inextricably tied up in the concept of a popular justice that is not bound by anything so mundane as the law.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Tucson’s Mexican-American Studies Ban

Al Madrigal travels to Arizona, where the powerful evidence of hearsay convinced the Tucson school board to ban Mexican-American studies programs.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart