It is very interesting to check out the media coverage, especially video, of the sweeps that took place thursday and friday (likely not continuing today, but we'll see), if only to see how pissed off arpaio is. It is also interesting to hear the discussion of the reasoning behind mesa pd's chief gascon talking about why he responded the way he did to arpaio's sweeps. I plan to comment on that in the future. Also check out the coverage of the people who copwatched.
(Sorry for not posting in a while. Hopefully that'll change soon.)
There have been a series of protests against Sheriff Arpaio since his immigration sweeps. Arpaio's last sweep was in Fountain Hills on May 6th. In the month and a half before that, the MCSO hit Guadalupe, Bell Road, starting with the area around 25th St. and Thomas (these events were "crime suppression operations" in specific places which seemed to be arranged for media attention. MCSO has also been making arrests of "smugglers" as well). MCSO also recently did a raid on a waterpark.
Many people have come out to protest the sweeps. Since the MCSO took a break from the sweeps, people have become a bit more proactive, going after him at his personal events. The first protest of this sort was on May 12 at an event where he spoke to an anti-immigrant audience. With less than a day's notice, close to 100 people showed up to the protest outside the building. The book-signings have involved questions being asked on film that the mainstream media don't ask, a request to have a book signed for Scott Norberg, a man who was killed by officers in Arpaio's jail, and disruptions at a speech portion of the book-signing event, in addition to a visible group of protesters outside the store holding signs. Over 300 people showed up to protest Arpaio at the County Board of Supervisor's meeting.
For the second evening in a row, the sheriff's office is saturating an area of phoenix in order to pull over and arrest as many undocumented immigrants as they can. Last night and tonight, the sheriff's set up a large area in the parking lot of big lots on thomas with a command unit, stadium lights, and other large vehicles. Although they will say that they are only pulling over people committing crimes such as traffic violations, it can't be more blatant that they are going after specific people. For one, just read the press release the sheriff's office put out the other day, below.
Last night, one car that was stopped was pulled over for not having adequate lighting on their license plate. The driver was arrested and taken away.
I also heard that rusty childress was deputized as a posse member by sheriff joe. This is not the first anti-immigrant organizer to be part of his posse. Please see the article, MCSO Posse Member 's Hate Speech Against Immigrants. The sheriff allegedly spoke at one of the united for sovereign americans meeting the other day. It is rumored also that rusty childress was also caught prank calling a supporter of the local day laborers.
The press release below mentions written requests for police presence, which i heard that buffalo rick (the one who peed in public and got caught) was behind gathering support for this campaign. The mayor has said that the area the sheriff's office is targetting is not higher in crime than other areas of phoenix. There has also been another published study that shows undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than citizens.
Written requests for additional police presence and protection were sent to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio this week from business owners in two separate areas of Phoenix. Owners are complaining of increases in crime and other problems largely related to illegal immigrants and day laborers there.
As a result, Sheriff Arpaio is sending hundreds of volunteer armed posse men and women along with several ICE trained deputies to saturate the two areas beginning Friday, March 21, 2008.
“Businesses owners is these two parts of Phoenix have indicated to me that they are extremely frustrated with the growing problems associated with illegal immigration,†Arpaio says. “They say they feel that only this Sheriff’s Office will provide the kind of law enforcement help they want and need to reduce the problems.â€
Arpaio says nearly 200 Sheriff’s posse men and deputies will patrol the areas looking for any and all criminal activity there. It is a repeat of the Thomas Road operations that occurred late last year when owners of the Pruitt’s Furniture Store appealed to the Sheriff for help with their day laborer related problems. Over the duration of that operation, Arpaio says, over 134 of people were arrested and booked into jail, 94 of whom were determined to be illegal aliens.
“Any illegal immigrant whom we come across in the course of our crime suppression program in these two valley areas will be arrested and taken directly to jail,†Arpaio says. (Source).
More than 600 undocumented immigrants were arrested across Arizona in recent days, about double the average for this time of year, according to officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Roughly 110 undocumented immigrants also were discovered Monday at separate suspected drophouses in the west Valley, capping nearly a week of large busts of human-smuggling loads throughout metro Phoenix.
Katrina S. Kane is director of ICE detention and removal operations in Arizona. She said that cooperation between ICE and local law-enforcement agencies is "making it much more difficult for human smugglers to avoid detection in the Phoenix area."
Activity in illegal immigration typically is at its highest through May, but January and February were "relatively slow," said Vincent Picard, with ICE in Phoenix.
The second article is a very sad one, but it sheds light on the situation created by criminalizing people. In the article, sheriff joe has the nerve to say, "Every life is precious" but there is no doubt in my mind that he is directly contributing to this situation.
A spate of bodies that have turned up recently in the West Valley has Maricopa County sheriff's officials concerned that human smugglers are once again resorting to deadly violence.
The Sheriff's Office is investigating the killings of six people whose bodies have surfaced in locations around the West Valley in the past three weeks.
Sheriff's authorities said some of the tactics used in the murders, including a male victim found on Feb. 26 near an Avondale farm with his hands tied behind his back and a bullet wound to the back of his head, resemble those used by smugglers.
Three of the victims were determined to be in the country illegally; the identity and immigration status of the latest two, whose charred bodies were discovered in a car near Buckeye last week, are not yet known, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.
Wow, the anti-immigrant folks who protest outside of the macehualli day labor center better do some donating to charities or some shit to improve their image, because it's just one thing after another Not only do these folks call a neo-nazi one of their bravest patriots, and hang out with the notorious roy warden, one of their guys was cited for indecent exposure when he peed in a bottle near his vehicle. Full article here: Buffalo wiener: "Buffalo" Rick Galeener cited for indecent exposure at Macehualli Work Center.
An interesting story this weekend was that a restaurant manager made threatening/joking comments to some uniformed maricopa county sheriff's employees. The article, Restaurant manager fired in flap with lawmen says,
someone in the kitchen made loud comments directed at the sheriff's employees that indicated "you are the guys arresting all of my kitchen staff."
The employees took that to be in reference to the well-documented arrests of illegal immigrants throughout the Valley in recent months by the Sheriff's Office.
The manager told the cops that the comments, including that he was going to "cook them something special" were sarcastic. He was fired by the company that owns Pei Wei and PF Changs.
While i don't have much simpathy for managers in general, you can guess whose side i am on. I think it's interesting that people would show such blatant disrespect for cops. The sheriff was quoted in the article.
"A lot of people don't like the sheriff because of this (immigration) crackdown," Arpaio said. "It's going to be a little problem as time goes on."
“It's just crazy here.†This is what I tell people who are not from Phoenix, Arizona, the political climate surrounding immigration is like. It's hard to sum up, but having kept up fairly well with local immigration news for the past couple years, I can reflect on 2007 and the direction that things have gone. We have seen ever-increasing repression against undocumented immigrants. In some ways we saw this coming. In other ways, we have been surprised. Overall, things changed gradually enough that it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as an onslaught, though putting it into perspective by looking back at 2007 as a whole might make it hard to be seen otherwise.
Arizona has seen an increasingly unfriendly environment for undocumented immigrants, with the threat of raids, violence, and repression. Within a short time, a select number of officers from different police departments with jurisdiction in Maricopa County were trained to enforce immigration laws. Some agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were deputized as well, giving dual jurisdiction to an increasing number of officials. Immigration law began to be enforced in the jails and prisons as well. The efficiency gained by these changes to enforce immigration laws is likely part of the plan set forth by the Office of Detention and Removal, part of Homeland Security. This plan, which provides strategies to “remove all removable aliens†by 2012 is called Endgame.
“It's just crazy here.†This is what I tell people who are not from Phoenix, Arizona, the political climate surrounding immigration is like. It's hard to sum up, but having kept up fairly well with local immigration news for the past couple years, I can reflect on 2007 and the direction that things have gone. We have seen ever-increasing repression against undocumented immigrants. In some ways we saw this coming. In other ways, we have been surprised. Overall, things changed gradually enough that it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as an onslaught, though putting it into perspective by looking back at 2007 as a whole might make it hard to be seen otherwise.
Arizona has seen an increasingly unfriendly environment for undocumented immigrants, with the threat of raids, violence, and repression. Within a short time, a select number of officers from different police departments with jurisdiction in Maricopa County were trained to enforce immigration laws. Some agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were deputized as well, giving dual jurisdiction to an increasing number of officials. Immigration law began to be enforced in the jails and prisons as well. The efficiency gained by these changes to enforce immigration laws is likely part of the plan set forth by the Office of Detention and Removal, part of Homeland Security. This plan, which provides strategies to “remove all removable aliens†by 2012 is called Endgame.
