tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-22T01:20:15Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11472 2013-05-21T23:00:00Z 2013-05-22T01:20:15Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX – Daniel Rodriguez has been a part of the immigrant rights movement for as long as he can remember. He is gay, 27 and a law school student who hopes to become an immigration attorney one day.

Rodriguez has no doubt that LGBT rights should be part of comprehensive immigration reform. But these days he finds himself in an uncomfortable position.

“This is one of those times in which our community has to sacrifice something to have a win,” said Rodriguez.

In the coming days, the Senate could consider an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would allow U.S. citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners to get a green card.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said on Tuesday that he would not introduce the amendment in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and intends to present it on the floor of the Senate instead.

LGBT rights advocates expressed disappointment that the amendment was withheld Tuesday, the last day of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

“We are disappointed that Senator Schumer and his ‘Gang of 8’ colleagues accepted a false choice between LGBT families and immigration reform,” said Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality Action Fund, “when the truth is that including LGBT families from the outset would have strengthened the bill.”

When Leahy announced the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), the controversial amendment was criticized nationally. Some Republicans and Democrats said that adding protections for same-sex couples could kill the immigration reform bill.

But those who identify as both queer and undocumented, or “undocuqueer” as they call themselves, beg to differ.

“I agree that it could hurt immigration reform but I don’t think that it would kill it,” said Rodriguez, who is the chair of Somos America, a broad coalition of pro-immigrant groups in Arizona. “I think it’s important to discuss it.”

Still, Rodriguez says that if he knew that an amendment like this would kill immigration reform and he had the power to stop it, he wouldn’t support it.

“It’s hard to the point that it verges on being hypocritical,” he said. “We have built this idea of the American dream for equality, for us to be included. It’s really difficult being that we’ve done it for so long, that in order to get there it may be that we have to put somebody down.”

Dago Bailon, the Arizona chair of the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP), said the chances that the amendment might pass the committee or the Senate floor are slim.

“At the end of the day, I have to ask if I’m willing to sacrifice my family for this issue, at the end of the day if we can have immigration reform without this. We’ll still be OK,” said Bailon, 26.

Both Bailon and Rodriguez, who have work permits under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, have family members who are undocumented.

The argument against UAFA

President Obama has voiced his support for LGBT rights to be included in any comprehensive immigration bill. But Leahy's amendment has been sharply criticized by members of the Gang of Eight, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida.

“It will virtually guarantee that it won’t pass,” Rubio told Politico in an interview.

Two other Republican members of the group – John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- also made clear their opposition to the amendment, saying it would “kill the bill.”

Democrats like Chuck Schumer found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Schumer had voiced his support for gay rights in the past, but was unwilling to support the amendment, saying he believed that voting for it would cause the Republicans to walk away from the bill.

Opponents of UAFA argue that under the current immigration proposal, all undocumented people regardless of sexual orientation would be able to apply for a provisional status.

But immigration attorney and LGBT advocate Regina Jefferies explained there is a big difference between getting a temporary work permit and having a chance at a green card through marriage to a U.S. citizen. This last option is not open to same-sex couples, even if they are legally married in one of the 12 states that allows same-sex marriage.

“People are not aware of the special impact that being in a same-sex married couple has when one of the members is from another country,” she said. “We have too many U.S. citizens living in exile because they can’t sponsor their spouse.”

Bailon and other advocates believe that an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) could make a difference in allowing same-sex partners a chance at immigration equality like any other couple.

DOMA prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples for various benefits including the right to sponsor a spouse for a green card.

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns it this year, immigration attorneys argue that it will open the door for same-sex couples who were married in states where same-sex marriage is legal to have a chance to apply for a green card through marriage.

Yet, that could be an administrative nightmare, according to Jefferies.

“It will be an unbalanced treatment of LGBT couples,” she said. “You’ll have situations in which people from one state or another won’t be able to petition for a same-sex spouse but they’ll be able to do it in another place.”

Paying lip service to LGBT rights

Youth advocates for immigration and LGBT rights like Mohammad Abdollahi, a member of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance and founder of DreamActivist.org, say there’s a split within the movement when it comes to Leahy’s amendment.

While some national organizations support the amendment publicly, he said, behind closed doors there’s pushback against it.

“Their support is not real,” he said.

Furthermore, the argument that repealing DOMA would address the needs of gay couples nationally doesn’t work, according to Abdollahi.

Under UAFA, petitioners would have to prove that they are in a committed relationship as “permanent partners.”

“Marriage law is state by state; we still have to fight every single state,” he said. “If it passes in immigration reform, it’s a federal change, regardless of laws on marriage.”


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11359 2013-05-02T16:00:00Z 2013-05-02T16:16:30Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX – More than 2,000 people marched Wednesday from the Arizona State Capitol to the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Phoenix, calling for fair immigration reform that would extend protections for immigrants not only to live freely in the United States but also to the workplace.

“People are beat up at home and they are beat up at work here. They get threatened by the cops at home and they get threatened by their bosses at work,” said Brendan Walsh, executive director of the organization Central Arizona for a Sustainable Economy.

Arizona has been ground zero for one of the most divisive immigration debates in the country with the passage of SB 1070 in 2010, a law that requires police officers to ask for documentation when they suspect a person is in the country illegally.

The state also has an employer sanctions law that has resulted in the arrest of workers in sweeps and the mandatory use of a federal database known as E-Verify.

The number of protesters did not compare to the massive marches in 2006 that drew crowds of more than 100,000 here to protest the punitive immigration reform bill introduced in the House by Wisconsin Republican Jim Sensenbrenner.

But activists working together with 22 organizations in the Arizona Immigration Reform Coalition underscored the significance of this year’s march for workers’ and immigrant rights that converged in a global boycott against the Hyatt.

Members of the Unite Here hotel workers union denounced working conditions and alleged discriminatory practices in the wages of the hotel’s Latino workers; Hyatt denied the allegations in a statement.

“For several years, Hyatt has been trying to increase wages and benefits for our associates who are represented by Unite Here in certain cities. Instead, Unite Here leadership has focused on a campaign to pressure Hyatt into forcing associates at Hyatt Regency Phoenix and other Hyatt properties to join the union whether they want to or not,” they wrote in a statement.

Margarita Hernández, a 60-year-old U.S citizen who joined the march Wednesday, said she has worked at the Hyatt for 12 years. She claims she recently started getting complaints about her lack of proficiency in English, which she said made her feel discriminated against.

“Immigration reform should be to rescue the economy of this country, but also to respect human rights and equality,” Hernández said.

With immigration reform reigniting in Congress and a Senate bill that would create a long pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers, Walsh and other advocates believe immigrant workers would be able to exert their rights without fear of facing deportation or getting fired.

“We’re here for the workers and to let it be known that we can’t sustain the economy we have without the labor of immigrants,” said Petra Falcón, director of Promesa Arizona, an organization involved in voter registration and mobilization.

Several groups present at the event reiterated the message to put an end to all deportations as Congress discusses immigration reform.

Community activists also helped people register to vote at the event and members of a campaign to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio collected signatures from opponents of his tactics of immigration enforcement that have resulted in claims of racial profiling.

Tonatierra, a group lead by human rights activist Salvador Reza, is planning another march for May 5 to protest Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Among those present will be Father Alejandro Solalinde, a human rights advocate who works in migrant shelters in Mexico and has denounced both U.S. and Mexican border policies.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11308 2013-04-23T08:40:00Z 2013-04-23T16:23:22Z

Valeria Fernandez ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Luz Ruiz Rascón is a determined woman, the kind who can hold back her tears while she talks about one of the most difficult choices she’s had to make: to stay in jail and fight for her innocence.

Her son’s leukemia diagnosis was one of the biggest challenges for her entire family, up until she was arrested eight months ago at her workplace and incarcerated.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office accused her of several counts of identity theft and forgery for allegedly working with false documents. But Rascón, an undocumented immigrant, claims she’s never provided false paperwork.

Her case exposes the situation of hundreds of undocumented workers in Arizona who could face charges that would deny them a path to citizenship under immigration reform.

Proposed Reforms and the ‘Gang of Eight’

Proposed reforms would force the deportation of those with a record showing a felony or three misdemeanors. Immigrant advocates believe authorities are inflating minor charges for otherwise law-abiding immigrants to unfairly drive them out of the United States.

In Washington, D.C., a bipartisan group of senators called the “Gang of Eight” introduced an immigration reform package that has renewed hope for many but according to immigration experts will leave people like Luz outside. Conservative members of the bipartisan group are now calling for even tougher restrictions in the wake of last week’s Boston bombing.

The proposed “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” would grant a work permit to undocumented immigrants provided that they don’t have a criminal record.

In most of these cases, undocumented immigrants such as Rascón, age 38, take a guilty plea for the felony identity theft charge so they can be released from jail. Many don’t know the dire consequences that decision will have for them.

But not Rascón. She decided to take her case all the way to trial, if necessary, and has already spent eight months in jail. Her trial is set to begin on May 3. By a state law, known as Proposition 100, undocumented immigrants with serious charges--in her case six felony counts--don’t have a right to bail.

“I had my moments of frustration, desperation,” said Rascón in an interview in Spanish at Estrella jail, the Maricopa County facility that houses women.

Prosecutors have offered her a guilty plea to a lower-level felony, but this is considered under immigration law a crime of “moral turpitude,” which would make her deportable.

Delia Salvatierra took on Rascón’s case almost eight months ago, and decided to defend her pro bono. She had a stake in her fight too.

In recent years she started getting more and more cases where immigrants had a specific type of identity theft felony charge on their record that would make them deportable in the eyes of an immigration judge.

When she met Rascón she advised her that taking the plea could not only mean her automatic deportation but also hurt her changes to be eligible for immigration reform.

Staying in jail since her arrest last Aug. 9 hasn’t been easy for Rascón. She and four co-workers were caught in an immigration raid of her employer by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In jail, she found, there is no privacy, and there are frequent lock ups that require her to spend the entire day in her bed.

Maricopa County Jails have been scrutinized by the federal government resulting from a recent lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The suit contends that some Latino inmates are discriminated against due to their inability to speak English.

DOJ also alleges that in some instances the Sheriff’s immigration raids have discriminated against Latino workers.

This is one reason Salvatierra believes the federal government could provide an exception to these Arizona workers if immigration reform passes.

‘My Children Are Above Everything’

Rascón has had her moments of doubt. “I say, ‘I’ll leave if they don’t want me in this country, nevermind,’” she admitted. “But at the same time, I say, ‘No, no, no.’ I can’t throw away 20 years of my life here.

She took a job at the GNC vitamin supply company 11 years ago, eventually being put in charge of packaging the product for shipping. She starting her shift at 5 a.m., and usually worked eight to 10 hours at the $14-an-hour job. “It was a heavy job, but I liked it,” she said.

Mainly, she said, “My children are above anything. They are the ones that move me to wait and keep fighting.”

Her children, Irving and Litzzy--both U.S. citizens--visit their mother in jail as much as twice a week.

Irving, 18, drives his younger sister to school every morning, after his dad is long gone to work as a day laborer. Irving goes to a community college in the evening to study computer science.

“I know I’m my mother’s son,” he said, alluding to her care when he was diagnosed with leukemia. He’s proud of her choice to fight the charges in jail.

Rascón is concerned about making sure that Irving takes care of his health.

“Sometimes I don’t want them to come and see me,” she said in Spanish. “It is sad to see them and watch them walk away, and then wait for another visit.”

County Attorney Won’t Change Plea Offers

Since 2008, Arpaio’s office has conducted worksite raids under a state civil law aimed at cracking down on unlawful employers. But the Sheriff focused on arresting workers on felony charges of identity theft.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery asserts this charge is not immigration related but responds to an effort to fight the high volume of identity-theft crimes committed in the state.

Rascón’s attorney, Salvatierra, counters, “I don’t believe they’ve committed the kind of offense that requires nine or 10 months in pretrial incarceration.”

Montgomery said his agency won’t modify the type of pleas he offers to people arrested in the raids. “We’re going to handle these cases the way we handle every other case, and I’m not going to pick out one group of people for special treatment. I’m not supposed to do that. That’s actually unconstitutional,” he stated in an interview.

The county attorney has come under fire by several pro-immigrant groups for claiming to support comprehensive immigration reform while continuing to prosecute undocumented workers on charges of identity theft.

“I feel he’s really after our folks and to me it's not really a criminal act--although the state has made it that,” said Rosie Lopez, founder of the Hispanic Community Forum. “These people are hard working people, they’re honest. They’ve never done anything wrong, and this is simply because they wanted to feed their families.”

Montgomery joined the Real Arizona Coalition, a bipartisan group including businesses, religious leaders and others to craft a platform for immigration reform that was released last December.

The platform, called the Solution to Federal Immigration Reform (SANE), recommends that undocumented immigrants have a path to citizenship provided that they don’t have a criminal record “other than individual identity violations.”

During a public panel at Arizona State University (ASU) last week, civil rights attorney Daniel Ortega recognized people with this type of charge won’t be able to be part of immigration reform unless groups lobby on their behalf.

Montgomery, who was on the panel, said he has “already provided all the support that I can” by contributing ideas for the SANE platform as far as who should qualify.

He said that his stance on the platform was that you “may necessarily have to look at exempting employment-related offenses to encourage enough people to come forward and make it worthwhile.”

Salvatierra, Rascón’s attorney, said she was encouraged that there was more dialogue with the county attorney’s office and that he came out in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

She noted that prosecutors have a choice. For instance, they could offer a plea of solicitation of taking the identity of another, or solicitation to commit forgery.

“The Supreme Court is saying that you can take [immigration consequences] into consideration,” she said, when it comes to offering a plea.

She cited a 2010, U.S. Supreme Court decision, Padilla v. Kentucky, which determined that immigrants facing criminal charges have a right to be told of the immigration consequences if they decide to accept a plea.

The decision also says, “… informed consideration of possible deportation can only benefit both the State and noncitizen defendants during the plea-bargaining process. By bringing deportation consequences into this process, the defense and prosecution may well be able to reach agreements that better satisfy the interests of both parties.”

A Narrow Chance

Nationally groups like the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) have the joined CAMBIO campaign – to lobby for comprehensive immigration reform that would include, among many issues, due process for undocumented immigrants.

They advocate for immigration judges to be allowed to take into consideration different factors before deporting someone who has a crime on his or her record.

But the current proposal from the congressional “Gang of Eight” offers little flexibility when it comes to being inclusive of people who might not have spent a day in jail, said Kamal Essaheb, an immigration attorney at NILC.

“DREAMers” (undocumented youth brought to the U.S. in childhood) would have a faster path to a green card under the current proposal. But they also would be subject to the same type of criminal barriers, Essaheb added.

“We’re going to fight to make sure as many people as possible are included,” he said.

Essaheb said it was true that the eight senators included provisions to exclude barring people with a crime on their record in connection with state immigration laws, such as Arizona’s SB 1070.

But he said it is likely that wouldn’t extend to other enforcement, such as the case of people charged with identity theft.

Essaheb said that the lack of federal immigration reform has led to a proliferation of state laws that would exclude people depending on where they live.

“We don’t want Sheriff Arpaio deciding who should get legalized or who shouldn’t,” he said. “We want to make legalization accessible regardless of where you are or whether you live in a state that heavily criminalizes undocumented immigrants because of discriminatory policies.”



]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11290 2013-04-18T06:45:00Z 2013-04-25T20:44:47Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Español

PHOENIX -- Maria Del Rosario Rodríguez first heard the good news via a text message from her husband. She rushed to tell her co-workers -- there might be a chance for her to reunite with her family on U.S. soil for the first time since she was deported in May 2011.

“My husband told me he heard on the news there’ll be immigration reform for those who are outside (the U.S.),” said the 36-year-old woman, speaking by phone from her current residence in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.

A bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of 8” introduced an immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that includes a long path to citizenship for some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and a chance for those who have already been deported to return, if they have children or spouses who are already U.S. citizens and can meet other requirements.

That means Rodríguez could get a shot at reuniting with her two U.S.-citizen children, whom she now sees every 15 days when they come visit her in Puerto Peñasco, a Mexican tourist town located five hours by car from their home in Phoenix.

The provision of the bill in question, S. 744, would allow the parents of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents to request a waiver from the Secretary of Homeland Security to allow them to apply for legal residency.

Applicants would need to meet all requirements, which include not having a felony conviction. Those who qualify would be classified as Registered Provisional Immigrants (RPI) with a right to travel and work in the United States. After 10 years, they would then be given a chance to apply for a green card.

The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act would also allow DREAMers – undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children -- who have been deported a chance to reenter the United States with RPI status.

While this is apparently the first time an immigration reform bill offers deported immigrants a chance to return to the country legally, the law is still very narrow, explained Claire Bergeron, a research assistant at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) a non-partisan immigration think tank based in Washington, D.C.

“It will be limited to people that were not deported for a criminal reason,” said Bergeron. “What kind of criminal convictions will bar you will depend on regulations issued by DHS (Department of Homeland Security).”

In Arizona, this particular aspect of the proposed bill is of special interest because the state has carried out large numbers of deportations resulting from state laws like SB 1070 and heavy-handed enforcement tactics such as immigration sweeps of neighborhoods and businesses in places like Maricopa County. During 2010, the year SB 1070 became made it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona, more than 92,000 people were deported from Arizona, accounting for about one quarter of deportations nationwide.

“With SB 1070 we’ve seen too many deportations,” said Petra Falcón, president of the organization Promesa Arizona. The activist group has been holding vigils the last few days in expectation of the immigration bill being introduced.

Falcón and others marched on Wednesday to the Maricopa County Jail on 4th Avenue in Phoenix to protest the arrest of immigrants caught working with false documents – a charge that could result in their deportation.

“Moving forward, we must ensure that individuals are not excluded from participating in this historic reform because of old or minor criminal offenses,” said Alessandra Soller, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Arizona.

The provision S. 744 would also allow people currently in deportation proceedings to apply for RPI status.

Falcón and other activists believe that’s a positive element of the proposed bill, but say President Obama should declare a halt on all deportations, with so many continuing to face harsh penalties in states like Arizona.

Renewed Hope

Jaqueline García, a 16-year-old U.S. citizen, has renewed hope that her grandfather – her legal custodian - will now have a chance to come back home. In May of last year, he was driving to the hospital to visit his wife when local police pulled him over, asked for his papers and subsequently turned him over to immigration authorities.

“He didn’t have anything (crimes) on his record,” said García.

After her grandfather was deported, García dropped out of high school to become the main breadwinner for her family.

“I’m really hoping for this legislation to keep going further,” she said. “I really need my grandfather -- it’s been really hard for me to work two jobs, taking care of my brother and my grandmother.”

Cynthia Gomez, the daughter of Maria Del Rosario Rodríguez who was deported and now lives in Peñasco, is more skeptical.

“I’m obviously excited about it, but I’m doubtful. It sounds too good to be true,” said the 17-year-old.

For the past two years, Rodríguez has had to adjust to life in Mexico after being gone for over a decade.

“There’s lots of people like me here (in Mexico),” she said. “My son doesn’t like to come here (and) the future of my daughter is in the U.S. I do hope they do something, because I’m not the only one.”

According to Bergeron, there are still many questions that need to be answered as to how the waiver for those who were deported will work, and whether it will extend to those who left the United States by choice.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the number of undocumented immigrants in Arizona dropped by 200,000 between 2008 and 2011. Many chose to leave the state to relocate to other, friendlier locations. Others returned to their country of origin due to Arizona’s strict employment laws and the frequent immigration sweeps.

Salvador Reza, a longtime human rights activist in Arizona and a member of the indigenous collective Tonatierra, said that giving a second chance to people who were deported is one of the “only aspects of the bill I like.”

“What I worry about," he said, "is how they’re criminalizing the people that will be left outside of the reform.”


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11282 2013-04-17T08:05:00Z 2013-04-17T07:24:11Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX -- Two immigrant mothers stood outside the downtown Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office holding a sign that read, “They have a Dream.” The women stood in silence -- they shouted no slogans and sang no chants. They didn’t need to. The lyrics to a song being performed live right in front of them told their story and that of so many others like them.

“El Hielo anda suelto por esas calles, nunca se sabe cuando nos va a tocar.” (ICE is on the loose out on the streets, you never know when your number’s up.)

With Congress on the cusp of renewing the conversation about federal immigration reform, local immigrant rights organizations in Arizona have begun using the song, “El Hielo” by the Los Angeles-based band La Santa Cecilia, to underscore their message to stop all deportations.

The song’s popularity among immigration reform activists here shot up after the band performed it at an immigration reform rally on April 10th in Washington D.C. Since then, the music video has gone viral in social media, with the official video garnering over 315,000 views on Youtube at the time of this article.

Directed by Alex Rivera and produced by the National Day Laborers Network (NDLON), the music video tells the story of an undocumented mother who is arrested at her workplace during a raid by ICE agents.



Part of the video’s appeal lies in the fact that the actors are not your usual Hollywood stars -- they are in fact real protagonists of a narrative all too familiar to the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants and their families living in this country.

Erika Andiola, 25, who plays the role of the mother, is recognized nationally for her work as a Dream Act activist. In real life, ICE agents arrested her mother and brother last January at their home.

Cry, children cry when they leave / They cry when mom’s not coming to pick them up / Some of us stay here / Others stay there / It happens just going out to find work

Those particular song lyrics touch Andiola’s heart because they remind her of her own story, but specifically that of Katherine Figueroa, whose Mexican parents were arrested at work by deputies of the Maricopa County Sheriff.

“It hurts, and Kathy had to go through that,” said Andiola. “She’s worried now about her parents. I know too many of these kids going through that.”

Figueroa’s parents are scheduled to appear at immigration court next July and could face deportation.

“If this happened four years ago, I don’t think we would have been able to have an ‘undocumented’ video (like El Hielo),” she said.

But it’s not only the actors in the video that are undocumented or have experienced family separation -- some members of the band, La Santa Cecilia, are undocumented as well.

“We live this every day in the band, every day when we travel to one state or another, we live with the fear that a border patrol or ICE agent can stop us,” said Pepe Carlos, who is an undocumented immigrant and plays the accordion in the band.

“We want people in this country to know that these are real people going through this, it’s not just a statistic. They are not second class citizens, but hard working people,” he added.

Mirroring Real Life

The story weaved in “El Hielo” hit close to home for two immigrant mothers in Arizona who met the band during a protest last week outside of ICE’s Phoenix office.

“My daughter was arrested at work, a day after she got her DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals paperwork) in the mail,” said Ilda Verónica Perez, the mother of Zamira, who had applied for President Obama’s deferral program for immigrants that entered in the country illegally as children.

Zamira was eventually released when she was turned over by the county jail to federal immigration custody. Despite her filed DACA application, she still has a date to see an immigration judge, according to ICE officials.

The other mother, Maria Gomez, is still pleading for her 21-year-old daughter’s release.
Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Noemí Romero Gomez during an immigration raid on a local grocery story where she was working last January.

“She had been there for only three months,” said her mother. “I never let her work before. She wanted to save money for her DACA application.”

In Maricopa County, most people caught working with false documents are charged with numerous counts of identity theft and forgery that make them legally deportable, and are then offered plea deals.

Noemí is being held in immigration custody without bond, and her case is under review by ICE.

Members of PUENTE, an activist organization, are asking ICE to stop the deportation of Noemí, who might otherwise qualify for a work permit through DACA and potentially could benefit from pending federal immigration reform.

“We’re asking ICE to stop these deportations. The charges that County Attorney (Bill) Montgomery gave them are not just,” said Carlos García, director of PUENTE, whose organization has launched an online petition to ask for an end to their removal. “It’s a contradiction that Obama gives these kids a work permit and on the other hand they try to remove them.”

The lead singer of La Santa Cecilia, Marisol Hernández, aka “La Marisoul,” listened to the testimonies of both mothers during the press conference.

“It was emotional and heart wrenching to hear this mother say that her daughter was arrested (and detained) for 90 days,” said Hernández. “It’s sad, but at the same time it is wonderful that they can come out here and tell their story, so people know about it.”

La Santa Cecilia is not the first band to put a pro-immigrant and activist-oriented message in their music, and neither is it the first time that NDLON and PUENTE have collaborated with a musical artist to spread awareness. In 2011, the artist Manu Chao played a free concert in Phoenix, sponsored by those organizations. And in 2010, former Rage Against the Machine lead singer Zack de la Rocha and singer Linda Ronstadt joined a march protesting conditions for immigrant prisoners in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails.

“Right now, what we want is to stop all the deportations. That’s what we want the congressmen and the president to know,” said Miguel Ramirez, La Santa Cecilia’s percussionist. “These people deserve to be here.”


In addition to covering immigration matters in Arizona for New America Media, Valeria Fernández directed and co-produced the documentary film “Two Americans” which tells the story of the arrest of Katherine Figueroa’s parents.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11240 2013-04-10T07:50:00Z 2013-04-10T21:24:32Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX, Ariz.--Teresa Ramirez learned to live with the pain of ovarian cysts after she was diagnosed a year ago. As an undocumented immigrant, she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid, which would cover an operation, and she can’t afford private insurance.

“I’m waiting for immigration reform so I can go to Mexico to have an operation,” said
Ramirez, who is 45.

Undocumented immigrants like Ramirez make up one in seven medically uninsured people in the United States. And they are excluded from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will take effect in 2014, expanding Medicaid and offering tax credits to help people buy insurance.

Although comprehensive immigration reform could create a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, the current framework would keep Ramirez from ACA for 10 to 15 years, until she becomes a legal permanent resident. They would form a new category of residents--authorized to be in the U.S., but denied treatment coverage unless they could pay out of pocket.

Denying Care Could Be Costlier

The political argument to exclude this new category of aspiring citizens from ACA is framed in economic terms, but health care advocates argue that the long-term impact of leaving a segment of the population in health care limbo would be costlier.

A recent report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) says that by keeping this new category of immigrants –in many instances low-income- from accessing affordable healthcare, would shift the costs of their care to localities and states.

States with the largest unauthorized population will face the bigger challenges, once these immigrants gain legal status but are excluded from ACA. MPI’s report, just published in the prestigious journal, Health Affairs, identifies California, Texas, Florida, Arizona and Georgia.

“The states and localities will continue to pay a high share of the uninsured cost,” said Randy Capps, senior policy analyst at MPI and one of the authors of the study.

He explained that in this case, a new group of U.S.-approved immigrants would join the ranks of the uninsured in states that already have mandates to provide services to authorized immigrants.

“It will be particularly harder for those states, which in the past have been extending health benefits to immigrants, to look the other way,” Capps said.

Another challenge for localities, Capps said, would be that federal reimbursement for hospitals caring for the uninsured is expected to decrease after ACA is implemented, although health care reforms will increase funds for community health centers and clinics that provide primary health care.

Those changes would not answer the needs of Ramirez and her mixed-status family.
Her husband, for example, has checkups for his diabetes at a local charity clinic that provides free services. But he recently had to be hospitalized for two days, and the family is struggling to pay over $5,000 in bills.

The challenges Ramirez and her family face are no different than what uninsured, low-income U.S. citizens experience, but they are compounded by fear of seeking help.

The state provides Medicaid coverage to two of Ramirez’s grandchildren because they were born in the U.S., but Arizona won’t cover the other children because their father, an undocumented immigrant, makes slightly more than the earnings limit to qualify.

“He makes $40 more than you’re supposed to,” said Leticia Ramirez, whose husband brings home $500 a week. The threshold for a family that size is $1,963. (Amounts differ by state.)

National Advocates for Health Access

“The largest question is why are we keeping people from participating in a system that is fundamental to the American infrastructure in which we ultimately want them to be participating,” said Jen Ng’andu, director of health and civil rights policy for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).

NCLR and other groups are pushing for any immigration reform package to include a way for the aspiring citizens to obtain affordable insurance by at least being able to receive tax credits for purchasing it in the market place, such as the subsidy under ACA.

Currently, not all immigrants-- even permanent legal residents -- have immediate access to all the components of ACA. Green card holders or legal permanent residents get some benefits but have to wait five years to participate of Medicaid.

Creating roadblocks to health care for a segment of the population has an overall impact on everyone’s access, said Sonal Ambegaokar, a health policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC).

“If you don’t give them any options for affordable insurance then they have to wait until they get very sick. We’re not saving any money by excluding them now,” Ambegaokar said. “The question is what is the most efficient way to make sure people don’t get sick and we don’t pay unnecessary expenses.”

Whether the status quo changes or not, some local groups in Arizona are preparing to ramp up their primary health care services to fill the current void for undocumented immigrants, who are often fearful about seek affordable treatment.

Phoenix Allies for Community Health (PACH) has been functioning for two years as a mobile service with volunteer doctors and nurses taking house calls for undocumented families and organizing health fairs.

The group’s vice president, Jason Odhner, who is cofounding a health clinic in the heart of an immigrant neighborhood in Phoenix, has seen the value of offering people preventive care. He has also seen the worse case scenario.

Odhner remembered an undocumented man who couldn’t afford the care for his diabetes and eventually had a leg amputated.

“Regardless of what happens with immigration reform, we need to provide basic care,” said Odhner, who is also a registered nurse.

An advantage to having more immigrants become authorized U.S. residents is that more would be considered for jobs offering health insurance or enabling them to afford coverage. “If we had a better-paying job, you’ll pay for your own insurance,” said Ramirez.

On the other hand, undocumented immigrants who now have insurance may loose it, said Capps. That is because under ACA small employers won’t be mandated to provide health insurance so they might decide to drop it or give people a stipend to help them buy it privately.

Politics vs. Public Opinion

The frameworks of both President Obama’s and Congress’ so-called Gang of Eight (the bipartisan group negotiating a reform plan) exclude this new category of immigrants from ACA. That is consistent with the administration’s directive to exclude deferred action recipients from it as well, although if reform passes this group of young people may get on a fast track towards citizenship.

Although debate in Washington is apt to be contentious in the coming months, the issue might not be as polarized among the public. Opinion polls have shown support from Americans towards including a new category of provisional immigrants into ACA.

In a poll released this February by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 63 percent of respondents said they would support ACA coverage for provisional immigrants whose income is low enough to qualify for Medicaid.

If things don’t change, for immigrants like Ramirez, the choice maybe to continue to rely on the safety net of free clinics, emergency rooms and charities in Arizona, with the advantage of accessing less expensive care on the other side of the border.

“I think that if they’re going to do a legalization they should legalize healthcare too,” Ramirez said.




]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11210 2013-04-02T16:02:12Z 2013-04-02T16:24:58Z

SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers for the state of Arizona today will defend one of the provisions of Arizona's controversial immigration law SB 1070 from a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice. The provision,...

New America Media ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers for the state of Arizona today will defend one of the provisions of Arizona's controversial immigration law SB 1070 from a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice. The provision, which makes it illegal to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants, was enjoined last September by a U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix. The decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Attorneys for the ACLU argue that the provision could criminalize those who work for religious or community-based organizations and those who give a ride to someone who doesn't have legal status.



]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11205 2013-04-02T07:05:00Z 2013-04-02T13:57:12Z

PHOENIX -- In Arizona, more and more immigrants find themselves joining the ranks of a group that could be excluded from immigration reform: undocumented immigrants with criminal records.The local grassroots pro-immigrant group PUENTE is calling on Congress to enact an...

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX -- In Arizona, more and more immigrants find themselves joining the ranks of a group that could be excluded from immigration reform: undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

The local grassroots pro-immigrant group PUENTE is calling on Congress to enact an immigration reform package that includes those whose criminal records are related to the state’s crackdown on undocumented workers.

But the question is a controversial one, and one that some immigrant rights advocacy groups may not be willing to touch. A movement that has long touted the motto, "We are not criminals," may not want to fight for the legalization of those who have any kind of criminal record.

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). “Most immigrant rights organizations are not willing to risk it, and they would give up on people with some sort of criminal background in exchange for the legalization for everybody else. They’re not willing to have that fight.”

A White House draft of an immigration reform bill that was leaked to the media touched on the controversial subject. USA Today reported that the draft stipulated that those who were convicted of a crime and spent a year in jail, or had three crimes on their record and spent 90 days in jail, would be disqualified from legalization under immigration reform.

Alvarado’s perspective is perhaps one of the most inclusive -- he believes most immigrants, regardless of their offense, should be given a second chance. A U.S. citizen who is convicted of a crime does not lose his or her citizenship, he notes, and undocumented immigrants should not be treated any differently.

“A drunk driver is a drunk driver. If you’re stopped as a drunk driver and you’re a citizen, you pay for your crimes. It should be the same for an undocumented driver,” he said.

Where to draw the line

Tamar Jacoby, president of Immigration Works, a Washington, DC-based group that advocates for immigration reform, said that the issue of accepting immigrants with criminal records needs to be looked at strategically.

“I just don’t think it’s realistic to think that very many Republican members of Congress are going to vote for people with serious criminal records to get a path to citizenship,” she said.

Other immigration advocates and legal experts differ on where the line should be drawn -- a result of the complexity of immigration law and the unique circumstances in which undocumented immigrants find themselves in the United States.

Some believe that there should be a distinction between non-immigration related offenses (such as drunk driving) and immigration-related offenses (for example, individuals who were deported and re-entered the country illegally to reunite with their families; or those charged with working with false documents).

Both re-entering the country illegally and working with false documents, depending on how it is charged, could be deportable offenses.

Yet some immigration experts say these kinds of crimes are a consequence of the person being in the country without papers, and should be treated differently from other offenses.

“Those are victims of injustice in the immigration system,” said Alvarado. “Those individuals should not be deported at all.”

Others argue that the line should be drawn based on the seriousness of the offense, and that undocumented immigrants who have been charged with minor, nonviolent offenses should still be able to be eligible for legalization.

“Sometimes very minor conduct can get you deported,” noted Kamal Essaheb, an immigration policy attorney with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC).

Having two convictions for shoplifting, for example, could lead someone to be deported, he said, because, like “any theft crime,” it is considered a crime of “moral turpitude.”

Crimes of moral turpitude – a legal definition of a certain type of crime that is considered a deportable offense – include rape and murder, but the list also includes nonviolent crimes like robbery, forgery, and fraud.

“A lot of people don’t know that, and when they think of immigrants with criminal convictions they think these are serious offenses like drug trafficking; they think murderers; they think rapists,” Essaheb said.

Essaheb believes that undocumented immigrants who have criminal records should be excluded from any possibility of legalization if they have been convicted of a serious offense and have spent more than a year in jail.

That is not how current immigration policy works.

A long list of deportable crimes

Immigration judges have little discretion when it comes to granting an opportunity to stay in the country to someone with a criminal offense in their record, said Essaheb.

“If somebody fits into a certain category, regardless of how sympathetic their case is, there’s nothing judges can do about it, they’re going to deport them,” he said.

Judges’ discretion to make decisions is restricted in part because of the changes that took place under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

Under that law, “the list of what made you be subject to deportation was vastly expanded,” explained Doris Meissner, director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Washington, D.C. think tank Migration Policy Institute.

Meissner, who also is a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), said there are a couple of ways the drafters of an immigration reform bill could handle the issue. They could prescribe through Congress who will be eligible based on their record and who will not -- or leave it open to a decision by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The latter might be the more flexible choice, but one that Congress might not be willing to make, said Meissner. Either way, it is possible that waivers could be offered to people based on their individual cases, she added.

“This is a very important area of negotiations. It’s going to be a very big issue in the legislation because everybody knows that a large share of these people have violated the laws because of their [immigration] situation,” said Meissner.

Essaheb doesn’t think the issue of criminal records and where to draw the line is getting as much attention as it should.

“A lot of people are focused on making sure there’s a path to citizenship,” he said. “People need to understand that the path to citizenship only works if it’s inclusive, if it captures as many of the 11 million [undocumented immigrants] as possible.”









]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11198 2013-03-29T08:00:00Z 2013-03-29T17:04:49Z

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Police pulling people over for minor infractions and asking for documents, rape victims too afraid to call the police, children living in fear of having their parents taken away. These were some of the stories shared by...

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Police pulling people over for minor infractions and asking for documents, rape victims too afraid to call the police, children living in fear of having their parents taken away.

These were some of the stories shared by community members and immigrant advocates in Arizona, who testified before a state civil rights board this week on the enforcement of a state immigration law they say has increased racial profiling and police mistrust.

“SB 1070 is being used as a tool to intimidate and hurt communities, “ Lydia Guzman, national chairman of the League of United Latin American Citizens’ (LULAC) Immigration Committee, told the board.

Almost three years after the bill was signed into law making it mandatory for police to contact immigration authorities if they suspect someone was in the country illegally, the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board (ACRAB) heard testimony from undocumented immigrants themselves.

The board is a volunteer group of bipartisan members appointed by the governor that has the power to make recommendations to different state agencies, but doesn’t create policy.

Dan Pochoda, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said that a pronouncement from the board could have a deterrence effect, helping to curb racial profiling by law-enforcement agencies in the state.

For example, in 2008, the board wrote a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) urging an investigation into alleged racial profiling by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. It also asked immigration authorities to rescind a 287(g) agreement that allowed deputies to act as immigration officers.

In both cases, pressure from the board as well as others yielded results, prompting a DOJ investigation and the reversal of the 287 (g) agreement. 

“They can put pressure and make public statements, even if they can’t order a particular sheriff to change practices,” said Pochoda.

Pochoda urged the board to recommend that law enforcement start tracking data and statistics of traffic stops to detect racial profiling, and have policies to prohibit the referral of victims and witnesses of crimes to immigration authorities.

Board chairman Jeff Lavender said he would look into the possibility of making such a recommendation.

Pochoda also addressed the situation of Dreamers, who are in the process of applying for deferred action, and sometimes are subject to detention by police officers who are unclear about their immigration status due to SB 1070 provisions.

Cesar Valdes, was pulled over by Phoenix police over his car’s registration – that turned out not to be expired-- but was held for almost a full day until immigration could confirm he was applying for deferred action.

“There has to be something in place, because I’m not the only one,” said Valdes in his testimony. “There’s been several cases of Dreamers like me [who] have been detained and put in detention for more than 20 hours.”

Dulce Juarez, a coordinator of the immigrant rights project for ACLU, said the group has documented over 500 calls through its hotline since the implementation of SB 1070.

Her agency has identified cases in which police questioned witnesses and victims of crimes about their immigration status, as well as passengers in vehicles with no reasonable suspicion of any crime being committed.

State of Fear

The board heard a wide array of testimony that pointed out how SB 1070 has been used as an excuse to racially profile people, or as an intimidation tactic.

LULAC's Guzman testified about the case of an 11-year-old girl who was raped. The rape went unreported, and her pregnancy carried on as she lived under the threat that her rapist was going to report her family to immigration authorities. The case was finally reported to police when it came to Guzman’s attention.

“This could have been caught earlier,” Guzman said.

Several mothers testified about feeling unsafe.

“I’m scared of taking my child to school, and I’m also afraid to go to the store. I’m worried about my husband when he goes to work, because I don’t know if he’ll return,” said Rosalba Posadas, an undocumented immigrant.

Others like Maria Vargas, are worried about the safety of their children in school.

“We’re afraid of these people [who] are volunteers of the sheriff. We don’t know who they are and they’re patrolling our children’s schools,” said Vargas, referring to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office posse that mobilized in response to school shootings.

The majority of the testimonies detailed encounters with police officers by Latino citizens and immigrants, where the reason for the stop was a minor traffic violation or no violation at all. For those who were undocumented, it triggered a process of deportation.

SB 1070 was enjoined as soon as it took effect on July 29, 2010 by federal judge Susan Bolton in the District Court of Phoenix, blocking several parts of it, including a provision that made it a state crime to be an undocumented immigrant. Another part -- known as section “2b”-- took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the injunction on June 2012, making it mandatory for police to ask for documents.

“It became very clear that the section 2b was really a legalization [of] racial profiling,” said Isabel Garcia, attorney and director of the pro-immigrant coalition, Derechos Humanos in Tucson, Ariz.

Garcia added her voice to those of several other civil and human rights groups like the ACLU that have hotlines to document allegations of racial profiling and other forms of police abuse connected to immigration enforcement.

“The difference between Phoenix and Tucson is that in Tucson you’re deported within two hours,” she said, due to its proximity to Mexico and the presence of a Border Patrol station.

Flores, who was appointed to the board by former Democratic governor and now secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, lauded the courage of those who were willing to speak out.

“We heard some very powerful stories, so many brave people [who came] here and admitted their status to us, “ she said. 

“I didn’t even know that there was a board,” said Viridiana Hernández, a founder of Team Awesome, a Latino vote mobilization group and a Dreamer, adding: “What I hate about this forum is that we come and talk, it happens year [after] year.

"My question is what are you going to do as a Civil Rights Advisory Board?”


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11124 2013-03-14T07:15:00Z 2013-03-14T03:06:41Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: Ivon Matamoros and her baby daughter

PHOENIX--Ivon Matamoros has been packing most of her baby daughter’s clothes and blankets to start a reluctant journey back to Mexico. Matamoros, 24, could be among hundreds of youth who qualify for a deportation reprieve under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But she didn’t apply.

Matamoros didn’t think she would qualify because she has a felony on her record -- for working with false documents as a cashier and buser at a Pei Wei chain restaurant.

An immigration judge told her this was a “crime of moral turpitude” and that she would have to leave. He gave her a date to do so, willingly: March 21.

“The judge said it reflected badly on my character,” said Matamoros. “If I didn’t have that felony, I would have been able to qualify for DACA.”

Groups Denounce Raids, Prosecutions

As discussions ramp up in Congress to come up with a federal comprehensive immigration reform bill, pro-immigrant groups and attorneys in Arizona are denouncing the raids and prosecutions of workers like Matamoros, which could hurt their chances of becoming documented residents.

Most immigration reform proposals exclude people with criminal records; millions of workers currently using false documents to work on the United States could lose out if they get arrested.

Matamoros was among hundreds of unauthorized workers in Maricopa County who ended up in deportation proceedings as a result of business worksite raids carried out by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Workers in her situation are being charged with multiple counts of identity theft, typically a Class 4 felony, and offered plea bargains to a lower charge, such as “taking the identity of another,” a Class 6 violation.

“Maricopa County is the only county that is doing these raids. They don’t have to do these raids--that is immigration’s job,” said Carlos Garcia, director of Puente, a pro-immigrant and human rights organization in Phoenix.

Puente organized a march this week to protest Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery for prosecuting these cases and charging undocumented workers with felonies that can lead to their deportation.

“Immigration reform starts at home,” Garcia stated. “If we don’t stop Arpaio and Bill Montgomery, the people from the 71 raids are never going to be able to obtain citizenship or any other legal status in the country because of the felonies.”

“Criminalizing the Community”

In February, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and a group of immigration attorneys denounced Montgomery, alleging that he engages in discrimination for bringing charges against undocumented immigrants and essentially ensuring their deportation.

“This office will not engage in any sort of systematic effort to ensure people are deported from the U. S.,” said Montgomery in response during a press conference.

The county attorney acknowledged that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided his prosecutors their customary training on the types of charges that could have an immigration-related consequence for people.

Immigrant rights advocates argue that Montgomery could choose whether or not to offer plea deals that won’t have an immigration-related impact, but claim that he is deciding not to do so.

Montgomery, who has expressed support for SANE (Solution to Federal Immigration Reform), a comprehensive platform developed by the Real Arizona Coalition, said he is simply following the law.

But Garcia countered, “Bill Montgomery is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one side he’s supporting the SANE platform and on the other, he is criminalizing the community. If he’s doing this, he is just as bad as Arpaio.”

Recently, Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association asked Montgomery to explain what the group calls “unequal treatment” toward undocumented Latino workers.

In a letter to Montgomery, Los Abogados Board President Gaetano Testini wrote, “Over the last year, we have witnessed a marked change in the charges filed, the plea offers made and the negotiations entered into, with respect to this class of noncitizens.” The letter goes on to claim that Montgomery’s office “purposely provides plea offers that guarantee a noncitizen’s deportation from the United States and denies them their day in Immigration Court.”

Targeting Workers, Not Employers

The worksite raids began in 2008, after Arizona passed an employer-sanctions law meant to impose civil penalties on companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers. But Sheriff Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas decided to use the new law to crack down on workers using false documents and charge them with identity theft.

Thomas said at the time that this was a strategy to ensure that a criminal record would keep undocumented immigrants from ever becoming U.S. citizens.

When Thomas –who was eventually disbarred in connection to alleged ethic violations--left office to run for the state’s attorney general, the interim county attorney Rick Romney discontinued the prosecutions.

Montgomery, though, began prosecuting people arrested in Arpaio’s sweeps, as soon as he took office, he said, in order to fight identity theft.

Although hundreds of workers were arrested in the 71 Maricopa County worksite raids, only three employers faced civil sanctions for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

“I have to deal with these cases as I have them,” Montgomery said. “If I started seeking different resolutions just because I wanted to improve relationships with a particular part of the community, that would be the worst example of prosecutorial discretion I can imagine.”

When the raids started five years ago, many immigrant families didn’t know about the legal ramifications of pleading guilty to a Class 6 felony charge.

In some instances, undocumented immigrants who find themselves in deportation proceedings can apply for the cancellation of their removal, if they’ve been in the United States for more than 10 years and have a relative who is a U.S. citizen.

But that isn’t possible if they have a felony charge from working with false documents, explained immigration attorney Dori Zavala.

“When it comes to immigration, they say they don’t qualify because they have this crime of moral turpitude,” said Zavala.

Challenge to Felony Charges

Last year Zavala and her colleague, attorney Delia Salvatierra, decided to take their battle to the criminal justice courts by challenging these felony charges.

Zavala currently represents Miguel Venegas, an embroidery factory worker arrested with a dozen others on Feb. 8. Unlike Matamoros, Venegas now has a chance to fight against the felony charges.

“He is willing to do anything he can, because he’s been living here for 20 years,” said Venegas’ wife, Julia Ojeda, who joined the protest with the Puente group.

Ojeda said her husband was the main breadwinner for her and their three U.S.-born children.

“Sometimes the kids catch me off guard when they ask me when their dad will be released,” she said.

Zavala explained that the conditions in county jails for many of these workers, who have never been in a jail before, and their inability to afford an attorney often deter them from asserting their innocence.

“I took the plea because I couldn’t be in that awful jail anymore,” said Matamoros. “I didn’t know what was going to happen later.”

Several immigration attorneys have told Matamoros that her case is a “lost cause,” she said. She has accepted that she’ll have to go back to Mexico and leave her husband, Luis, behind so that he can support the family.

Matamoros was arrested on March 4, 2011, the day before her wedding was supposed to take place. She was finally able to get married four months later when she was released after paying bail of over $12,000—all of their savings.

Arguing to Stop Deportation

As an attorney, Zavala said immigrants like Matamoros have few options once an immigration judge orders the person’s voluntary removal.

But Zavala argues that ICE should grant people affected by these immigration sweeps a stay of their deportation, considering that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing the sheriff for alleged racial profiling involving traffic stops and worksite raids.

In its December 2011 findings, DOJ said the Criminal Employment Squad (CES) from the sheriff’s office “routinely raid businesses in a manner that harms innocent Latino workers.”

DOJ found, “Specifically, CES's deputies typically detain and investigate the immigration status of all employees at a raided worksite, whether or not the employees are listed in the warrant authorizing the raid.”

Zavala argues, “ICE should say any convictions coming from that should be considered differently.”

Matamoros is worried about returning to a country she hasn’t been in for almost a decade.
She worries about the violence in Mexico and about the type of health care her American daughter will get.

She wishes she’d had a chance to continue her education, rather than having to go to work.

If she’d gone to school instead of working, she wouldn’t have been arrested and charged with using false documents -- a felony that prevents her from being eligible for DACA now or any kind of regularization of her status in the future.

“We were just working to get ahead,” she said. “Families are being separated every day because of this.”

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10947 2013-02-02T05:00:00Z 2013-02-03T18:14:53Z

PHOENIX -- Respect Arizona, a newly formed bi-partisan political committee headed by Republican attorney William James Fisher, announced at a press conference in Phoenix on Thursday that they have until May 30 to gather 335,317 signatures that would trigger a...

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX -- Respect Arizona, a newly formed bi-partisan political committee headed by Republican attorney William James Fisher, announced at a press conference in Phoenix on Thursday that they have until May 30 to gather 335,317 signatures that would trigger a special election to recall controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Fisher argued that the negative publicity surrounding Arpaio’s hard line approach to immigration enforcement has damaged the Republican Party, at a time when some of its politicians, among them Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, are trying to engage in the national immigration reform debate.

“I believe people like Arpaio have hijacked our brand as Republicans,” said Fisher in an interview with New America Media. “He’s a liability to the party because he’s hurting our brand, he’s hurting what our party stands for. It’s the party of Abraham Lincoln. We have to stop this hate.”

It didn’t take long for Arpaio himself to respond to Fisher’s accusation.

“I believe this effort is underway because of my stance on enforcing all the laws of our state, including those pertaining to illegal immigration,” said Arpaio in a prepared statement. He also stated that he had extended “an olive branch, even to those activists who have voiced such hate towards me.”

“Still, if these people insist on a recall drive, I have faith in the people of Maricopa County. They know exactly what and who they want in office, and they won't be fooled by outside special interests,” the statement read.

Arpaio, who fundraised over $8 million for his last election campaign (80 percent of that came from out of state) didn’t wait long to send a letter asking his supporters to donate money again, due to the recall attempt.

“You were such an important part of my victory last year even though we faced insurmountable odds. I certainly did not plan on this recall, but I have to ask you again for your support,” read the letter sent by Arpaio. “The fight starts now. Over the next several months I am going to be bombarded with negative attacks and lies. I must have the necessary resources to defend my record and run a winning campaign.”

Arpaio also claimed that Respect Arizona has already raised over $1 million in funds for the recall, but the group said they have no significant donations at this time.

Chad Willems, Arpaio’s campaign manager, demanded that Respect Arizona reveal how much they have collected in donations and argued, “This group is going to cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County millions of dollars.”

Supporters of the recall, like Lydia Guzman, director of Respect/Respeto, a group that has documented allegations of civil rights violations against Latinos by the sheriff’s office, saw irony in Willems’ statement.

“I think the taxpayers have had enough. They want a recall. It doesn’t cost that much money to launch this recall, compared to what he has cost the county in lawsuits and his frivolous spending,” she said.

Respect Arizona has already begun to collect signatures and gather more volunteers, although Parraz anticipated the effort will require a combination of paid petition gatherers and supporters.

Critics of the effort are skeptical of the campaign’s prospects for success, in part because Arpaio was just recently re-elected to a sixth term. Supporters of the recall have countered that Arpaio won with only 50.7 percent of the vote – his lowest margin in 20 years -- and that the election process was unfair in that the Sheriff never had to answer to his critics during the campaign.

“The real chance wasn’t given, Joe Arpaio didn’t come out like he should have -- he should have come out and debated it. Instead, he spent millions of dollars in a campaign,” said Fisher during a press conference on Thursday.

The recall petition announcement coincides with the two-year anniversary of another recall. Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA) started a successful movement to oust SB 1070 architect, Senator Russell Pearce, in 2011. Chad Snow and Randay Parraz, both founders of CBA, are also supporting Respect Arizona in their effort to oust Arpaio.

The effort to recall Pearce didn’t garner much attention from the media in the early days of the signature gathering process. Neither did it capture the attention of Pearce himself, who had just been elected to his senate seat, in 2010.

Back then, only 7,000 signatures were needed to trigger the recall -- a much smaller portion than what is required in Arpaio’s case, because the Pearce re-election was taking place in a smaller district, in the city of Mesa.

“At the beginning of that effort there were many critics who said you’ll never be able to get the signatures, you’ll never be able to raise the money, we just had an election, you’ll never find a candidate, and even if you find a candidate it will never win in conservative Mesa,” said Snow.

Parraz and Fisher said that if a special election is held, voters would be given the rare opportunity to focus only on the sheriff’s race, without the politics of a presidential or congressional election getting in the way.

“There’s a lot of people in the community that are not aware of the things that Arpaio has done, they are not aware that he spent $8.2 million to win the last election,” said Fisher.  “This is a chance to really have an opportunity to focus on the record of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.”

CBA and Respect Arizona highlighted during a press conference some of the scandals in which Arpiao has been involved from death of prisoners in his jails to civil rights violations and mishandling of investigations.

Arpaio has also been criticized for his role in misspending $100 million in taxpayer dollars from a jail tax fund that was used to conduct investigations on political enemies and on immigration enforcement, rather than on jails.

Another scandal, one that drove many Republican voters away from Arpaio during the last election, involved the mishandling of investigations of over 400 sexual crimes against children.

Arpaio was also the target of a 5-year-long criminal investigation by the Department of Justice over alleged abuse of power, although that case was closed last year without any charges being filed. He currently remains the subject of two civil right lawsuits alleging racial profiling, one from the Department of Justice and another lead by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10937 2013-01-31T01:45:00Z 2013-02-03T18:19:35Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX -- A citizen’s group called Respect Arizona filed paperwork at the Maricopa County Elections Department on Wednesday to initiate a recall effort against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The group would need to gather 335,317 signatures by May 30 of this year in order for the county to call a special election for the sheriff’s office.

Several Republican figures are at the center of the effort to recall Arpaio, who has been re-elected to his post six times since 1993. Williams James Fisher, the chairman of Respect Arizona and a Republican attorney, is expected to announce the recall effort at press conference Thursday morning.

Arpaio narrowly won re-election last November with 50.7 percent of the vote, after a strong voter registration campaign lead by Latinos took place countywide to oust him from office. His campaign war chest had over $8 million dollars, most of it coming from out of state.

Over the last five years, the self-proclaimed “America’s toughest” sheriff rose to notoriety due to his immigration sweeps in Latino neighborhoods and his raids in businesses that hire undocumented laborers.

Those actions put him at the crosshairs of civil rights lawsuits alleging racial profiling – one brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, and another filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which is awaiting a federal judge ruling.

Arpaio has also been criticized for his role in misspending $100 million in taxpayer dollars from a jail tax fund that was used to conduct investigations on political enemies and on immigration enforcement, rather than on jails.

Another scandal, one that drove many Republican voters away from Arpaio during the last election, involved the mishandling of investigations of over 400 sexual crimes against children.

Arpaio was the target of a 5-year-long criminal investigation by the Department of Justice over alleged abuse of power, although that case was closed last year without any charges being filed.

The effort to recall Arpaio comes on the heels of a successful campaign in 2011 to recall Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, a Republican that sponsored SB 1070 – one of the most stringent state immigration laws in the country. Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA), a bi-partisan group lead by Randy Parraz, a long time critical voice against Arpaio’s office, successfully collected over 7,000 signatures that were needed at the time to get Pearce to face a special election, in which he lost.

“These are citizens who are organizing under the name of Respect Arizona. They came together and they made a decision that they’re going to move forward with the recall of Sheriff Arpaio, and that effort officially was launched today with the filing,” said Parraz, who supports the group.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10928 2013-01-30T03:45:19Z 2013-01-30T23:22:07Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 UPDATE: The author of this report obtained the following update from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson on Wednesday, January 30, at 3:20pm MST:  “After conducting a comprehensive review of Mr. Garcia-Armas’ case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has chosen to release Mr. Garcia-Armas from custody with a one year stay of removal. ICE uses discretion on a case-by-case basis, taking enforcement action based on the merits of an individual’s case and a comprehensive review of specific facts.”

PHOENIX – José Garcia, an 11-year-old U.S. citizen, pleaded on camera Monday for President Barack Obama to stop the imminent deportation of his father, Edi Armas, a Guatemalan national.

“ICE came, they took my dad and put him in the car. When I was trying to say goodbye to him they pushed me away,” Garcia told television reporters.

Now, Garcia’s father could be sent back to Guatemala on a flight as early as Tuesday evening, just hours after the president addressed the nation with his message to fix a broken immigration system and create a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

But as Congress and the Obama Administration engage in a debate over how to reform the nation’s immigration laws, situations like the one confronting the Garcia-Armas family are spurring immigrant rights activists to shift their focus from justice for some, to justice for all -- renewing their calls for Capitol Hill to take immediate action to halt all deportations.

A Guarded Hope

“The words of Obama give us hope that the conversation has started, but the same words that used to give us goose bumps no longer have the same effect, because families continue to be deported,” said Carlos García, director of Puente Movement, a community-based immigrant rights group.

José Garcia’s plea to the president drew tears from a crowd of pro-immigrant groups on Monday who were gathered at the Arizona State Capitol for a press conference, where they reacted to the political roadmap for immigration reform recently proposed by what has been dubbed the “Gang of 8” – a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators that includes Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).

The group’s plan, which includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that is contingent on securing the border, has been lauded by some as a positive first step in starting a dialogue. In his own speech on Tuesday, Obama applauded the principles presented by the Gang of 8 as being “very much in line with the principles I’ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years.”

Lydia Guzman, an immigration activist from the organization Respect/Respeto, said the Obama administration should stop the deportations precisely because there is a meaningful national debate happening.

“We know that every single day (people) are being deported, and they’re probably sitting in the bus listening to the conversations that Obama is having on immigration reform, wondering what would happen if I had a few more days, a few more hours,” she said.

Puente Movement director Garcia echoed the concerns.

“The last thing we want to see is a debate going on for another year, and another 400,000 people being deported,” he said.

Garcia said either Congress or President Obama could take action by making sure his administration follows through with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo from 2011, in which ICE director John Morton wrote that his agency would consider a range of factors before deporting a person, including preference to individuals with family members living in the U.S. who have no criminal record.

“The bad part is we’re not seeing it go into effect,” said Garcia.

Shifting Focus, From Dreamers to Family

Local groups in Arizona are trying to make sure the Obama Administration follows through, by drawing public attention to situations faced by the likes of the Garcia-Arma family.

Meanwhile, young “Dreamers” – young people who were brought to the country illegally as children -- and recipients of the recently enacted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, have taken the resolution set forth during the United We Dream (a network of youth-led immigrant organizations) conference last December -- to fight for families and their parents -- to the streets.

Other groups, like the Arizona Dream Act Coalition (ADAC), have focused their efforts on similar goals. After they managed to stop the deportation of the mother and brother of Dream activist Erika Andiola, ADAC joined forces with the Puente Movement to advocate for other families.

The National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) has also called for an immediate suspension of all removals. Pablo Alvarado, director of NDLON, believes the playing field should be leveled to give all undocumented people the opportunity to have a reprieve from deportation, like the Dreamers were given with DACA.

“Until deportations stop, President Obama and Congress will be in the impossible position of deporting the very people they are ostensibly trying to bring into citizenship,” said Alvarado.

Despite a growing chorus in favor of halting deportations completely, immigration reform advocates have mixed outlooks on whether President Obama has the political capital to pull it off, or even suggest it.

“I don’t expect him to do that, now that there’s movement in the Senate,” said John Loredo, a Democratic political consultant and former minority leader in the Arizona State Legislature. “What he’s going to want to do is force Congress to look at this as a comprehensive package rather than just piecemeal it out.”

Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva ultimately agreed:

“I think he has the executive authority to do it and that is something that is being explored. I think family unification issues are being explored, but I think right now things are being held in advance so we give this legislative process an opportunity to be,” he said. “At this point, the less excuses we give people from bailing out, the better.”

Grijalva as well as immigrant rights activists have lamented the emphasis on border security expressed by the “Gang of 8” Senators and Obama alike, yet they do acknowledge that the bi-partisan framework has opened up possibilities for real reform.

“Our hope is they and other leaders will be on the right side of history and favor a plan that keeps families together and sends a strong signal to the world that Arizona is ready to lead on an issue that’s so vital to our state, our nation and the world,” said Petra Falcon, director of the group Promesa Arizona.

Recent statements by key politicians indicate that Obama will need to make concessions on the security issue, if any path to citizenship stands a chance of happening. For example, under the “Gang of 8” proposed plan, border governors like Arizona Republican Jan Brewer would play an important role in assessing whether or not the border has been secured, before citizenship can be offered to people seeking temporary legal status.

“Our nation cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past by pursuing immigration reform before tangible and effective border security, particularly in the Tucson Sector, is completed,” said Brewer in a statement.

A Family’s Plea

The campaign to stop Edi Armas’ deportation is expected to continue throughout the day, via phone calls to congressmen and ICE, and online petitioning. 

According to statistics obtained by Colorlines magazine, there have been over 200,000 deportations during the last two years that involved parents without criminal records.

Armas first came to the attention of immigration officials in 2009 when local police contacted ICE, suspecting Armas was in the country illegally. He tried to fight his case in immigration court, but the judge order his voluntary removal, according to the court immigration record. His wife, Norma Ramirez, said he decided to stay in the U.S. to support the family and his three children, who have severe asthma and were hospitalized at different times recently.

“If they deport Edi to Guatemala, they’re going to deport three citizens that are sick,” said Viridiana Hernández, one of the Dreamers leading the campaign against his deportation.

In an official release, ICE stated: “As a fugitive alien with an outstanding final removal order, Mr. Garcia-Armas was deemed to be an ICE enforcement priority. He is currently in custody at the Eloy Detention Center while the agency determines appropriate next steps in his case.”

Hernández contended that Armas should not be considered a “fugitive” but a worker that is trying to support his family.

“We’re going to continue to do this, because it happens too often in Arizona,” she said.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10916 2013-01-28T08:00:00Z 2013-01-29T00:14:42Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX, Ariz. – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is at a crossroads. At issue is whether to reverse her executive order that banned driver’s licenses for deferred action recipients, now that the federal government has clarified that they are “lawfully present” in the country.

In Arizona, a reversal would not only impact the lives of young people who were brought to the country illegally as children. Political observers say it could also change the immigration debate in the state.

Some Arizona Republicans think it’s time for Brewer to carve out a new position on the matter.

“I think it would be good for Republicans and Arizona’s image as a whole,” says Jaime Molera, a Republican political consultant who believes Brewer has the political capital to modify her stance.

Brewer earned a reputation nationally as a hardliner on immigration enforcement after she signed SB 1070 into law, which made it a state crime to be undocumented in Arizona. She fought to defend the law all the way to the Supreme Court.

“It was very helpful for her image when running for governor,” observes Molera. “It was good for her and her ability to galvanize more Arizonans.”

But the focus of the debate has shifted, Molera says.

“Now people come to the understanding that these ‘get tough only’ policies don’t get at the problem,” he says. “You have to have secure borders but you also have to have a manageable policy for people to get in the country and come back.”

In her Aug. 15 executive order, Brewer argued that recipients of deferred action are not legally in the United States so it would be a violation of Arizona law to give them any type of public benefits, including driver’s licenses.

She has remained silent on her position since Jan. 18, when the federal government published a clarification about recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a two-year deportation reprieve for youth that meet certain criteria.

“An individual who has received deferred action is authorized by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be present in the United States, and is therefore considered by DHS to be lawfully present during the period deferred action is in effect,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services states on its website.

Arizona, Nebraska and Michigan currently deny access to driver’s licenses to DACA recipients who are granted a two-year work permit and social security number by the federal government.

Last Wednesday, the Iowa state government backed away from that position.

The day after Iowa reversed itself, Matt Benson, a spokesperson for Brewer, said, “The governor and her legal team are reviewing the guidelines of the federal government and trying to determine how it impacts our state law, and what’s the path forward for Arizona.”

“What the Obama administration did,” says Mario Diaz, former deputy chief of staff and political consultant for former Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, “is gave her on a silver platter the cover she needed to be able to do a decision.”

Arizona and Michigan are currently facing lawsuits from a coalition of civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for denying driver’s licenses to “Dreamers,” or undocumented youth, who have received a reprieve from deportation.

“The guidance from USCIS confirms the arguments we were making in the lawsuits in Arizona and Michigan,” says Michael Tan, a staff attorney for ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project. “People with deferred action are authorized to be here in the U.S. during the period of the deferred action.”

In the lawsuit they argue the state is violating the supreme clause of the U.S. Constitution that gives the federal government exclusive authority to regulate immigration and make decisions as to who is authorized to be in the country.

They also argue that Arizona is discriminating against DACA recipients by not granting them driver’s licenses, while other people with different types of deferred action have been able to receive them for years.

Tan explained that there are differences in the way the immigration system classifies people who are allowed to be in the country, which has led to some confusion on the part of the states. For example, those who have a green card or a student visa have an immigration status; those with DACA fall into the category of “lawfully present,” or authorized to be here, with no path to a green card.

Changing the tone of the debate from ground zero

After a landslide of Latinos gave 70 percent of their vote to President Barack Obama the tone of the immigration debate shifted among conservatives. Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake have joined a growing chorus of political figures speaking about the need for “comprehensive immigration reform.”

A bipartisan coalition of businesses, politicians, religious leaders and advocates put forth SANE, a platform for immigration reform in Arizona.

Brewer recently gave some signs that she might be moderating her stance on the immigration issue, says political consultant Diaz.

“She needs to moderate herself because the entire Republican Party machinery and system has moved away from the terrible Russell Pearce language,” he says, referring to the now- recalled Republican Senator and sponsor of SB 1070. “Brewer is a smart politician. She needs to come out with the rest of the governors in the country that are becoming more friendly towards immigration reform,” he adds.

During her state of the state speech, the governor, who has been at odds with the Obama administration over a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit against SB 1070, put forth a conciliatory tone – without abandoning her focus on border enforcement.

“Once our border is secure, I pledge to work with all fair-minded people to reform our nation’s immigration system,” she said during her speech.

Dulce Matuz, president of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Arizona, says Brewer’s words have no meaning if she doesn’t put them into action.

“If she decides to say, 'Let’s continue this in court,’ she’s going to do a disservice to the state of Arizona by wasting resources on this issue,” says Matuz. “At one point her party also needs to make a decision about what they’re going to do with a politician that is representing the party like this.”

Matuz sees this as an opportunity for moderate Republicans in Arizona to make their voices heard.

She is hopeful that Brewer might have a change of heart. After all, it has happened before. Brewer reversed her position on the federal healthcare law, announcing that Arizona would participate in the expansion of the Medicaid program as part of the Affordable Care Act.

“The demographics of the state and entire nation are changing,” says Matuz. “You can no longer be a politician in power and continue to discriminate against our community without consequences.”

Political observers say a reversal on driver’s licenses could be an opportunity for Brewer to remain relevant in her party even as the winds are beginning to shift.

Diaz believes Brewer will change her mind because, he says, this is a chance to leave behind the “stigma of her legacy of SB 1070 by moderating her position on the immigration issues.”




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Tonyaa Weathersbee ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 This doesn’t smell right. In fact, it has the downright stench of opportunism.

Joe Arpaio, the anti-illegal immigration hardliner and Obama birther-conspiracy-peddling sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., has found a way to twist the tragedy of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre into an excuse to expand his police powers more than seriously protect children.

According to The Huffington Post, Arpaio now plans to have armed volunteer posses out patrolling areas around the county’s elementary schools. They won’t be posted on the campuses, however.

Unless they’re prepared to stop white guys who are dressed in camouflage or military vests, or black trench coats, I can’t quite see how that will work. Besides, that would be racial profiling, and that’s wrong.

Besides that, Arpaio likes to detain Latinos, not white people.

And because he has been shown to be a guy who ignores facts if they don’t jibe with his prejudices or his attempts at political opportunism – he insists that President Obama’s birth certificate is fake – I don’t trust him to use his posses to protect children as much as I suspect he’ll use them to step up his harassment of people of color.

No matter that they’ve never shot up a school.

Here’s why I’m dubious about Arpaio’s latest move. During a civil trial last summer which was the result of a lawsuit brought by a group of Latinos who said they were being disproportionately targeted in his immigration sweeps, one witness cried as he described being searched under his armpits and in the groin area by deputies inquiring about his wife and his immigration status.The Justice Department has also filed a civil rights lawsuit against him, as well.

With all that hanging over Arpaio, it’s hard to not see him using the posses as another means of getting back at a group of people who he despises, and who a lot of the people who re-elected him despise. Except now, Arpaio can do it under the guise of protecting schools.

Then there’s this thing about the volunteers. Some have criminal pasts. They’re in charge of providing their own weapons and equipment. They’re basically on their own.

Even with training, it’s hard not to see a Trayon Martin – George Zimmerman situation emerging here. Some trigger-happy volunteer suspects someone of acting strange, or dressing strange. A confrontation ensues, and someone winds up dead.

And many times, such confrontations emerge out of cultural misunderstandings – which are probably more likely to happen in Arizona than in most other places.

No doubt, the time is long overdue to find a way to stop mass shootings. But the way to do that is through sensible gun control laws and better access to mental health services. One gun shop, for example, didn’t sell a “long gun” rifle to the Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, because he didn’t want to wait 14 days for a background check.

Perhaps if there was some way of tracking down people who refuse such checks, that might stop some mass murders.

On top of that, Arizona is a state with no laws requiring it to report people who have been determined to be mentally ill to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NCIS – something that would show up in a check by a gun seller.

Arpaio would be better off using his energies to fix that.

Still, the situation in Arizona bears watching – because it could well turn out to be a cautionary tale.

It bears watching because officials who are motivated by politics, prejudice and ideology than by actual school safety could very well come up with ways to use the Newtown school massacre in the same way that the Bush administration used the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – to push an agenda that is more about frightening people into accepting overly-aggressive policing and more, often misguided, retaliatory actions that happen after such tragedies, than in preventing such tragedies by pushing for real answers.

And we all know that for people of color, that never turns out well for us.

Tonyaa Weathersbee is an award-winning columnist who is based in Jacksonville, Fla. Follow her at tonyaajw@twitter. Or visit her webpage and blog, “Tonyaa’s Take,” at www.tonyaajweathersbee.com.

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