07/13/10 Today is the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Anaheim, yet Arizona's new immigration law is sending tremors through America's favorite past-time. Two months after a coalition of major organizations, bloggers, and civil rights groups sent a formal letter to MLB commissioner Bud Selig, telling him it's time to move the game out of Phoenix to protect the sport's Latino players and fans who would be targeted under the Draconian new law, baseball fans from coast to coast have joined together in protest.
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07/06/10 Today -- in part because of concerned Americans like you -- Obama's Department of Justice announced that they are taking a stand. They will challenge Arizona's new "show me your papers" immigration law and sue the state for usurping federal authority. We know that those who support Sheriff Joe Arpaio's extreme tactics and oppose real reform will be bombarding the White House with criticism of the lawsuit. It's crucial that the Administration also hear from people like you who believe that the Justice Department is doing the right thing in standing up to this misguided law.
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07/06/10 He stressed that the speech was an important moment to reassert federal leadership on immigration, and he encouraged reform supporters to sign the petition to the White House and Congress to pass the DREAM Act -- as a down payment on full, comprehensive reform. The New York Times ran a compelling editorial on immigration last week, following the President's speech, entitled, "Mr. Obama's Immigration Promise:"
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07/02/10 Governor Jan Brewers claim last week that immigrants in Arizona are cutting peoples heads off could cost the people of Arizona $250,000 in lost tourism. A report released Wednesday by the Governor's Tourism and Economic Development Task Force found that public funding was needed to convince tourists and convention-goers that, despite Governor Jan Brewer claims, it is safe to come to Arizona.
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06/30/10 News is spreading that the Obama Administration is considering a legal challenge to Arizona's radical new immigration law, SB1070. For those of us interested in civil rights, community safety, and the rule of law, let us hope so. If and when the Department of Justice announces a decision to sue the state of Arizona, most Republicans will explode with outrage, some Democrats will cower in fear, and the punditry will quickly declare the Obama Administration's action as bad short-term politics.
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06/28/10 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 sung a hard-line tune on the topic, disagrees with Brewer on her latest assertion.
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06/24/10 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.
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06/18/10 Despite all the criticism for passing SB1070, Governor Jan Brewer continues to defend it adamantly. Ramping up her rhetoric, Brewer has cited security issues and increasing violence as motives for the law's enactment. Recently she claimed it necessary to protect Arizona from the "murder, terror, and mayhem" carried out by, "some of the most vicious and dangerous narco-terror organizations the world has seen." "The horrendous violence," she says, "is uncontrolled."
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06/17/10 Rep. King also made the absurd statement Monday that law enforcement could spot those here illegally by either noting indicators such as, "What kind of clothes people wear…what kind of shoes people wear, what kind of accent they have, the type of grooming that they might have…" or: "…just a sixth sense..." We decided to have some fun envisioning King's worldview as a horror flick. Watch it!
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06/16/10 Via MTV Tr3s' arts and culture blog, Blogamole, Salma Hayek is the latest celebrity to speak out against Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070: "What surprises me is the lack of humanity with which they are treating the immigrants," she said. "What I can't understand is how the United States, which is considered a hero around the world that helps other countries, doesn't help the foreigners who enter their country. It's a contradiction."
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06/14/10 "The immigration law creates a difficult situation for both legal and illegal residents," said Jay Butler, director of realty studies at Arizona State University. "Some illegal residents may have planned on leaving the Valley anyway because they can't find jobs. But I have talked to young Hispanics who are residents and so are their parents and grandparents. And those Hispanics plan on moving to other states because they don't want to be perceived as second-class citizens."
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06/11/10 While SB 1070 won't go into effect in Arizona until July 29th, Dr. Sylvia Herrera, a researcher with human-rights organization Puente, explained at the hearing that its effects are already being felt at all levels: families separated, women who don't dare report the domestic violence they suffer to the authorities or social services, or who go to California to seek help...
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06/07/10 Among the 10,000 or so protesters who gathered in front of the state Capitol here last weekend under a scorching sun, one group stood out. Despite the heat, they wore graduation caps and gowns in shiny royal blue and sunburst yellow. They were graduates of American colleges, young people who mostly grew up in the United States, accidental Americans who just happen to be living here illegally.
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06/07/10 It continues to amaze me how much TV coverage a couple hundred to a few thousand tea party or anti-immigration reform supporters garner any time they so much as sneeze in a public space. When compared to mainstream coverage of events with tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands-- of immigration reform supporters, it's absurd to say the least. As AZ Central reports, last weekend's rally with former Representative Tom Tancredo, in support of Arizona's controversial new immigration law, drew about 1/5 of the expected crowd--a paltry 2,000 people.
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06/04/10 Last month, Governor Jan Brewer sparked national controversy by signing Arizona's new "papers please" immigration bill into law. Her justification has been that Arizona's border has supposedly been "overrun" with violent crime. Turns out crime in Arizona is down and border security is way up, so the "secure the border" mantra being parroted by Brewer and her friends at FOX has much more to do with empty election-year rhetoric than reality. Even Arizona cops can tell you that.
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06/03/10 Over Memorial Day weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in Phoenix, AZ to protest SB1070, a law that immigrants to carry papers at all times and makes it possible for any police officer to detain on suspicion of immigration status alone. At RaceWire, Jorge Rivas reports that "an official crowd estimate was not available for Saturday's SB1070 protest," but that "officials overheard on the police scanner estimated the crowd at about 30,000." Marchers also demanded that President Barack Obama nullify SB1070 by means of a legal challenge from the Justice Department.
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06/03/10 The nation's top cops say that making them check the residency status of suspects will set back years of trust-building in communities of color.
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06/03/10 Today Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (who's getting heat in the blogosphere today for wrongly claiming her father was killed fighting Nazi Germany) has secured herself a White House meeting with the President, scheduled for this afternoon. A range of local and national organizations that support federal reform plan to demonstrate in front of the White House, beginning at 1 pm, with a message that the Arizona law must stop in Arizona.
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06/01/10 To welcome you back from the long weekend, immigration blips from across the blogosphere. First, Politico's Jonathan Martin reports that California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman may be facing a new ad campaign en Español as a result of her own English-language TV advertising on immigration: The California Nurses Association is launching an ad this week on Spanish-language radio featuring a clip from the commercial Meg Whitman's campaign is running that touts her tough stance on illegal immigration and support from former Gov. Pete Wilson.
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05/26/10 Ten police chiefs from cities across the country, including three from Arizona, traveled to Washington, DC today to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and reiterate what they've been saying for weeks: Arizona's new immigration enforcement law will make their jobs harder, erode working relationships built on mutual trust and cooperation between law enforcement and immigrants, and make communities less safe. The federal government should step in to prevent more states from following suit.
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05/20/10 Memo to Congress: The gloves are coming off. Three undocumented students were arrested this week after organizing a nonviolent sit-in at Republican Sen. John McCain's congressional office in Tucson, Arizona. The sit-in was part of an effort to pressure lawmakers to support comprehensive immigration reform, and it's only the beginning. Reform Immigration For America, one of the nation's leading immigrant rights coalitions, has just called for a sustained civil disobedience campaign to bolster support for reform.
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05/18/10 Last week, a group of Arizona clergy, including Catholic and Methodist bishops and Evangelical pastors, felt called to mount an "emergency delegation" to Washington to "prod, encourage and advocate" (as Catholic Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson told the Los Angeles Times) for passage of comprehensive immigration reform and a delay in putting Arizona law SB 1070 into effect. During a meeting with their senator John McCain, the faith leaders bore witness to the lessons they've learned ministering to Arizonans: border security is only one part of an effective and humane solution to our broken immigration system that only leaders in Washington will be able to build.
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05/18/10 Lakers star Kobe Bryant's wife, Vanessa, took a jab at Coach Phil Jackson, who has refused to denounce Arizona's paper's-please law, even after "Los Suns" made a strong statement earlier this month. Vanessa, pictured to the right here, is sporting a "Do I look illegal?" tee. Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer, has admitted that she has clue what an "illegal immigrant looks like."
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05/17/10 Violent crime has been steadily decreasing in Arizona, but you wouldn't know it by listening to AZ's Governor, Jan Brewer—or GOP superstar, Sarah Palin, speechify about the need for the state's new papers-please immigration law. Indeed, top Arizona officials, including Governor Jan Brewer, convened an emergency "huddle" late last week, to try to figure out how to cope with the state's $10 million in lost business resulting from the controversial law, SB 1070.
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05/14/10 As events have unfolded in Arizona, transforming its image from boring border state to ground zero in the increasingly volatile debate over illegal immigration, I was reminded of a simple question posed by a journalist who watched another state transform under a wave of conservative populism: "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Thomas Frank turned that question into a bestselling 2004 book about average Kansans who repeatedly voted against their own financial and political interests after ostensibly being co-opted by big moneyed political elites -- in other words, Republicans.
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05/13/10 But Selig is dodging the issue – the question is not about how many Hispanic ball players there are in Major League Baseball (a whole lot), but how much Major League Baseball will do to protect and defend the rights of those minorities who are the backbone one of America's favorite pastime (so far... nada).
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05/13/10 After passing what is arguably the harshest immigration law in the country—SB 1070 forces local police to adhere to detain someone if there is "responsible suspicion" that they are undocumented—Arizona has now passed a law banning ethnic studies courses, as Feministing reports. At The Nation, Jon Wiener writes that the new law "bans classes that 'promote resentment toward a race or class of people,' 'are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group,' or 'advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals.'" Hypocrisy much?
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