02/11/11 Governor Jan Brewer is relentless. Having squandered many of her State's resources on a pointless, racist immigration bill, she is now countersuing the federal government for their inaction on curbing illegal immigration in the State. Andrea Nill from Think Progress writes yesterday: Today, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) announced that she is filing a countersuit against the federal government on behalf of the state of Arizona
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02/01/11 Brisenia Flores was nine years old when Shawna Forde, the head of the Minutemen American Defence group, and other members of her posse, allegedly shot and killed Brisenia and her parents, point-blank, at their home in Arizona. Mercilessly, Forde and company allegedly ignored Brisenia's sobs to spare her life. Now, pleading "not guilty," Shawna Forde is currently awaiting trial, charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
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01/27/11 Despite the fact that Arizona's SB 1070 is highly controversial, absurdly expensive, and likely unconstitutional, Virginia's immigration hardliners continue to push for their own Arizona-style legislation. Here we go again.
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01/18/11 Pedro Gutierrez, an orphan who grew up in Arizona, was brought here by his grandmother when he was only 7 years old. Though she passed away when Pedro was still a child, Pedro persevered and, with the support of his community, went on to graduate high school. Like so many other talented, young undocumented immigrants, he dreams of joining the Marines; however, despite having full support of a military recruiter, this young dreamer could be deported to Mexico – where he has no family or friends -- today.
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01/12/11 The Immigration Policy Center has released a comprehensive new guide to responding to the controversial Arizona-style immigration laws already popping up in states like Florida and Texas.
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01/10/11 Today at 11 a.m. EST, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will hold a national moment of silence to honor Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of Saturday's morning's shooting in Tucson, Arizona.
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01/03/11 The New York Times reported last week that Republicans at the state and local levels plan to introduce a wave of anti-immigrant measures over the next year.
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12/30/10 After commanding the world's attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening—once again—to dominate national immigration discourse and policy. This week, Arizona state Senator and Senate President-Elect Russell Pearce (R) spoke candidly with CNN's Jessica Yellin about his plans to introduce a birthright citizenship bill in Arizona this coming January—a move likely to be echoed in the impending Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
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11/09/10 Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), the sponsor of SB-1070 who was recently elected state Senate president, has pushed and authored a series of other lesser-known immigration laws in his state. One of those was Proposition 300 — a referendum approved by Arizona voters in November 2006 which forces undocumented Arizonans to pay out-of-state tuition and bars them from receiving financial aid.
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10/29/10 A new investigative journalism report from National Public Radio adds a shocking element to the already-disturbing story of Arizona's controversial "papers please" immigration law. It turns out the only ones truly profiting from SB 1070 are a vast network of prison contracting companies and the politicians they fund, whose concern for their bottom line and political careers trumps the U.S. Constitution as well as the economy and reputation of their state.
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10/28/10 The purpose of our series "March to the Polls 2010" is to capture the attitude of Hispanic voters in key states. Two years ago, they voted at record levels, but in the last two years they have been battered along with the rest of the country by an economy in crisis. They have suffered higher unemployment rates than the rest of the country. And the promise of immigration reform that would help their families and friends—a promise that was central in motivating many of them to vote in 2008—has yet to materialize.
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10/13/10 U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled this week not to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the Constitutionality of the controversial Arizona SB 1070 immigration law. The motion to dismiss was brought forward by Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.
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09/07/10 Welcome back from the Labor Day weekend! Here's what you may have missed while tending to the grill: Straight from the Wild Wild Southwest, Arizona's Gov. finally fesses up to her "headless bodies" fib. See Jan Brewer Admits She Was Wrong About Beheadings (via Think Progress): "Months after initially making the claim say that undocumented immigrants were beheading people in the Arizona desert, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has finally admitted that she was wrong." Ya think?
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09/03/10 Straight from the "Wild Wild Southwest," you won't want to miss this satirical look at the "Worst of Jan Brewer." After getting her head handed to her in a debate this week, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has become prime fodder for late night comedians and political satirists.
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09/02/10 It's unfortunate that the Justice Department has to take this step and force Arpaio to comply with a federal civil rights investigation, but we commend the Department for doing so. If Sheriff Arpaio truly has nothing to hide, he should have no problem turning over the documents in question.
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08/25/10 After primaries yesterday in Florida and Arizona, the 2010 general election cycle is in full swing -- and one of the most important questions facing political observers is what the nation's fastest-growing voter bloc will do. We won't know the answer to that question until November, of course, but in America's Voice's updated report on "The Power of the Latino Vote" -- and on a telephonic press conference featuring a panel of experts held today in conjunction with the report's release -- it's clear that the immigration debatecontinues to be a driving factor behind Latino political engagement. . In all, the report examines the role of immigration and the potential influence of Latino voters in 41 key races in 12 states across the country – including potential battleground locations such as Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada. The report – and the analysis featured on today's call – make clear that Latino voters could make a difference in dozens of 2010 races.
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08/18/10 According to the Washington Post: Justice Department officials in Washington have issued a rare threat to sue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio if he does not cooperate with their investigation of whether he discriminates against Hispanics. The civil rights inquiry is one of two that target the man who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff.” A [...]
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08/05/10 Though Arizona's SB 1070 went into effect without its most controversial provisions, the legislation's stated intent—attrition through enforcement—is nevertheless gaining traction among anti-immigrant legislators across the nation. In the wake of the law's enactment, other states are coming out in support of Arizona, some developing policy modeled after SB 1070. Others even hope to alter the U.S. constitution to deny "birthright citizenship" to children of undocumented immigrants.
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08/03/10 According to their Boycott Intolerance website, the major Latino advocacy group NCLR has raised the funds needed to inform "millions of people who pass through Times Square each day about the dangers of Arizona's new immigration law," SB 1070.
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08/02/10 CBS reports Palin's latest headline-grabber in, "Palin: Obama Doesn't Have the 'Cojones' for Immigration Reform". That pretty much sums up the level of the discourse here. See, it comes down to whose "balls" are bigger – Palin's, Brewer's, or Obama's. There's certainly more than enough testosterone in this debate to go around. Not to mention botox.
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07/30/10 Protests in Arizona and through-out America continued today after Arizonan's governor, Jan Brewer asked an appeals court to reconsider the most heinous parts of the state's new immigration law and as the lightning-rod Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, prepared a highly publicized "crime sweep."
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07/29/10 Check out this cartoon, from AZ Daily Star, depicting Arizona's immigration law getting stopped at the border.
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07/28/10 Judge Susan Bolton of the U.S. District Court for Arizona has just issued a injunction preventing key sections of Arizona law SB 1070 from going into effect tomorrow -- including the sections criminalizing all undocumented immigrants under state law and requiring police to ask anyone for papers during traffic stops or housing inspections if they had a "reasonable suspicion" the person was undocumented.
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07/16/10 The "Model Sheriff" for Arizona's SB 1070, Joe Arpaio, has a record of failed crime fighting tactics, civil rights abuses and creating terror in the communities he's supposed to protect. Today, we here at America's Voice Education Fund released a new report detailing the long, disturbing and ineffective record of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ.
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07/15/10 At a time in which the Arizona GOP has made it acceptable for American citizens to go on witch-hunts for undocumented immigrants (i.e. suing police if they don't profile people based on shoes, accents, and skin color), comes this highly disturbing story out of Utah. The New York Times' Kirk Johnson reports, in "'Immigrant' List Sets Off Fears:" A list of 1,300 Utah residents described as illegal immigrants has sown fear among some Hispanics here, and prompted an investigation into its origins and dissemination.
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07/15/10 Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law, is set to go into effect on July 29. With days left to go, Organizers are in a race against the clock to minimize the bill's impact on immigrant communities. Meanwhile, legal experts are examining the strategy behind a federal Department of Justice suit recently lobbed against the Arizona law, and other immigrant rights supporters continue to pressure the state via boycott. All of these acts are contributing to a tumultuous fight that's escalating by the day.
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07/15/10 The implications of the new chart? The first is that, by and large, crime is down across the board. In Arizona as a whole, it has dropped 12 percent in the past seven years. But in major Maricopa County cities with their own police forces -- Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale and Tempe -- the rate has dropped even faster. (The group measured within Maricopa County because it is the epicenter of the immigration debate. But in Tuscon, which is not in the county, there has also been a drop in the crime rate since 2002, according to law enforcement statistics).
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