Over the weekend, AZ Governor Jan Brewer drew criticism for comments she made Friday that exposed a frightening ignorance on the topics of immigration and crime.
AP’s Paul Davenport has more in Arizona Governor: Most Illegal Immigrants Are Smuggling Drugs. It turns out that even Senator John McCain, who has enthusiastically backed the state’s new “papers please” immigration law and recently sung a hard-line tune on the topic, disagrees with Brewer on her latest assertion. Crooks and Liars has the video, over at McCain disagrees with Brewer: Most undocumented immigrants are not drug mules.
The level of intelligence in the Arizona immigration debate right now is breathtaking. Then again, this is the same governor who signed the state’s controversial profiling bill, SB 1070, even though she had no idea “what an illegal immigrant looks like.”
Here’s a refresh:
On the “drug mule” topic, Andrea Nill writes at Think Progress:
Brewer’s remarks were in response to Matt Jette, one of the other candidates, who pointed out that most undocumented immigrant come to the U.S. just to work:
JETTE: You act as if the state of Arizona is being terrorized by illegal immigrants. It’s simply not the case. Crime is on the way down. The bottom line with SB-1070 is who can be more extreme with the bill. [...] These people, a lot of them, are just trying to feed their family. They just want to work. Isn’t that a Republican mantra?
Cross-Posted from Standing FIRM:
Today, immigration reform saw a welcome two steps forward. First, a press conference today marked over 100 co-sponsors for the CIR ASAP bill, introduced last fall by Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). At the press conference, members of Congress reaffirmed and intensified their commitment to passing immigration reform.
Much of the message was framed around the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona and the copycat laws that are springing up around the country. Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Barbara Lee spoke out against the racial profiling law:
We must act now. We cant afford to wait any longer. Arizona reminds us of that. We won’t let people divide us anymore. (via ClinicLegal)
Representative Luis Gutierrez, who introduced the legislation, drove home the urgency of the moment:
“The legislative clock is ticking,” stressed Gutierrez. “We know people are getting deported at the highest rate in modern history.”
In today’s top stories in the Spanish-language media, Janet Napolitano reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to comprehensive immigration reform in a speech in Denver, while mayors of U.S. cities and the United Farm Workers both highlight the contributions immigrants make to the economy.
Napolitano on CIR. Speaking at the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) in Denver, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed that the Obama Administration remains committed to comprehensive immigration reform. But she warned that reform would take time and that “it is a bitterly divided Congress right now, bitterly partisan.” Napolitano’s assurances come a day after she announced new programs and government spending for border security. EFE, BBC Mundo, Univision, El Diario (El Paso), the AP, and El Universal have more on the story.
That’s right, the United Farm Workers (UFW) have commenced what they are calling the “Take Our Jobs” campaign, an unprecedented effort to call attention to the importance of immigrant workers to our food supply — and the difficulties agricultural employers have in maintaining a stable, legal workforce. As UFW highlights on their campaign website:
“We are a nation in denial about our food supply.”
Watch a farm worker slideshow from their site:
According to Marisa Treviño at Latina Lista:
The idea behind it all is to highlight the need for a legal workforce which can only be achieved through immigration reforms — without which the domestic agricultural industry could be crippled, leading to more jobs moving off shore.
In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, UFW offers farm workers who are “ready to train citizens and legal residents who wish to replace immigrants in the fields,” and encourages Members of Congress to refer their constituents to vacant farm worker positions.
It’s clear that undocumented farm workers are the backbone of United States agriculture. They make up the majority of workers in this crucial industry, yet many of these workers have no way to normalize their status – they often live in fear of exploitation and deportation. These workers and their advocates have been asking Congress for years to fix what most everyone agrees is an outdated, ineffective, and inhumane immigration system.
by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger:
Hope for a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year has fallen by the wayside, but the Obama administration is rallying for one last hurrah before mid-term elections in November. Late last week, the White House unofficially announced plans to sue the state of Arizona over the now notorious Senate Bill 1070, a state law passed this year to crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
SB 1070 allows Arizona police to check the immigration status of a person if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented, and forces immigrants to carry government papers proving their identify at all times.
Meanwhile, an estimated 15,000 progressives and 1,300 organizations are meeting in Detroit this week to discuss alternative solutions to our broken immigration system at the second U. S. Social Forum (USSF).
US v. Arizona?
As Jessica Pieklo reports at Care2, “After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s nonchalant statement on Ecuadorian television last week that the Department of Justice planned to file suit challenging Arizona immigration law SB 1070, senior administration officials confirmed that such a suit would be forthcoming.”
“Expect a suit to come soon though as the controversial measure is set to take effect in July,” Pieklo writes. “That said, it is only one of many suits already challenging the measure in federal court. Some of those cases have asked a federal judge to issue an injunction which would halt implementation of the measure while the legal issues get sorted out.”
At the Women’s Media Center, Gloria Steinem and Pramila Jayapal argue that “In the wake of Arizona’s SB 1070—the harsh anti-immigrant law that not only condones but promotes racial profiling that endangers entire groups of the innocent—all sides seem to agree that the Federal government has abdicated its responsibility to institute a fair and just immigration system….”
GOP primary politics could potentially doom their chances to retain control of the Governor’s mansions in Texas and California. Governor Jan Brewer’s signature on SB 1070 and the constant anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from GOP Congressmen is downright offensive to Latinos for whom the Republican brand name is increasingly becoming synonymous with being anti-Latino.
Here’s a rundown of the latest from the races for Governor in that nation’s two largest states, California and Texas.
CALIFORNIA
In his column in The Hill, Markos Moulitsas explains why immigration matters in his state:
Between 2000 and 2008, Latino turnout in California has grown 85.41 percent, from 1.6 million to just shy of 3 million — over 21 percent of the total, and growing.
During the GOP primary, Meg Whitman appealed to the hard-core anti-immigrant wing of her party. She’s been trying to scramble back ever since. But, as Markos notes, it won’t be easy:
Whitman is a little more worried about Latino voters, telling The New York Times that she would “move away from immigration to broaden her appeal” after the primary, while running ads on Spanish-language TV during World Cup broadcasts, claiming, implausibly, that “She respects our community.” Democratic groups won’t let that happen. The California Nurses Association paid to re-air a Whitman primary ad on Spanish-language radio:
Meg Whitman: Don’t be fooled by misleading ads; my position on immigration is crystal-clear. Illegal immigrants are just that, illegal. I am 100 percent against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Period. As governor, I will crack down on so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco who thumb their nose at our laws. Illegal immigrants should not expect benefits from the state of California. No driver’s license and no admission to state-funded institutions of higher education. And I’ll create an economic fence to crack down on employers who break the law by using illegal labor.
Pete Wilson: This is former Gov. Pete Wilson. I know how important it is to stop illegal immigration and I know Meg Whitman. Meg will be tough as nails on illegal immigration. She’ll fight to secure our border and go after sanctuary cities.
[GOP Senate nominee Carly] Fiorina has already given up on the Latino vote, and Whitman probably should as well, because the fastest-growing portion of California’s electorate knows exactly what the GOP is selling.
Whitman is going to be running against her own words on immigration until November.
