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SB 1070′s Direct to Prison Pipeline?

6:30 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration · 2 Comments

29 Oct 2010

In August and September of this year, VivirLatino drew your attention to a possible connection between Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signing SB1070 into law and the for profit prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Now a new report from NPR draws a line connecting the author of SB1070, Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, and “a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC”. Members of ALEC include the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil, the National Rifle Association, and Corrections Corporation of America.

According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in “a significant portion of our revenues” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

“There were no ‘no’ votes,” Pearce said. “I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation.”

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona’s immigration law.

They even named it. They called it the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.”

Con la Vista al Voto : Attacking from all Angle(s)

26 Oct 2010

Con la Vista al Voto : From now until election day 2010, VivirLatino is going to have at least one post a day looking at the midterm elections and issues around the election including policy and the much hyped Latino vote.

Just a week away from the midterm elections an Republicans across the United States are pulling out all the stops, that is appealing to the lowest common denominator by representing all immigrants as Latinos and Latinos as criminals, hellbent on riding in limos and denying little white children access to the English language.

Think I’m exaggerating? Look at Louisiana Senator David Vitter’s ad. Then we have Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, Sharron Angle who can’t tell the difference between Latinos and Asians (and those that may be both) when speaking to Latino youth, but seems to be crystal clear as to who (white) families need to blame and be afraid of.

Quick Link: SB 1070 Florida Style

11:45 am By la Macha · arizona|Florida|Immigration · 2 Comments

20 Oct 2010

Just saw this over at Change.org:

Tim Elfrink at Miami New Times (full disclosure: I work for the paper) reports that the law drafted by Florida state representative William Snyder, and supported by GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, includes a clause that “Even if an officer has ‘reasonable suspicions’ over a person’s immigration status … a person will be ‘presumed to be legally in the United States’ if he or she provides ‘a Canadian passport’ or a passport from any ‘visa waiver country.’” Elfrink points out that aside from four Asian countries, all other visa waiver countries are located in Western Europe.

What the…? Yep, that’s right. The Florida law in a nutshell: If you’re a white non-Hispanic, you’re presumed to be in the country legally and don’t need to show any proof. If you belong in the “all others” category, better carry your papers.

Of course, there’s an explanation for such blatant racism, as Snyder told a radio host: “What we’re doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians. We have an enormous amount of … Canadians wintering here in Florida … That language is comfort language.”

Ah, yes tons of Canadians wintering here in Florida … along with MILLIONS of South Americans. In the biggest tourism destination in the state, Miami, people from South America comprise 52% of the visitors alone. That’s not even counting tourists from Central America and the Caribbean. These are people with plenty of disposable income, and plenty of tourism options. If Florida became a state suspicious of Latinos, they would just take their billions of dollars elsewhere. For a state whose economy relies so heavily on tourism, especially from Latin America, you’d think politicians would be a little bit more worried about making everyone feel comfortable. But that’s what makes it obvious this little clause isn’t about tourism at all. It’s about using every thin veil and pretense possible to try to legalize racial profiling.

Things just get ever better, don’t they?
Read the whole thing here.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Jail

6:38 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Phoenix · 4 Comments

14 Oct 2010

Maricopa Country Sheriff Joe Arpaio (yup he’s still around) was trying to not fix the inhumane conditions inside the jails within his jurisdiction as ordered by a lower court’s ruling. The court ruled that jails in Maricopa County do not meet constitutional minimums when it comes to food quality and housing conditions for inmates on psychotropic drugs. Yesterday, The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s appeal of the 2008 U.S. District Court Judge Neil V. Wake’s decision.

Now Arpaio must end severe overcrowding and ensure all detainees receive necessary medical and mental health care, be given uninterrupted access to all medications prescribed by correctional medical staff, be given access to exercise and to sinks, toilets, toilet paper and soap and be served food that meets or exceeds the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines. Basically, the judge ordered that yes Sheriff Joe, the incarcerated are humans and need to be treated as such.

The ACLU proved at the 2008 trial that the sheriff routinely abused pre-trial detainees at Maricopa County Jail by feeding them moldy bread, rotten fruit and other contaminated food, housing them in cells so hot as to endanger their health, denying them care for serious medical and mental health needs and keeping them packed as tightly as sardines in holding cells for days at a time during intake.

Via / AZ Central and the ACLU

Image Via / SPLC

Monday Musica y Mensaje : Rodrigo y Gabriela for the Sound Strike

8:40 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Music · 1 Comment

4 Oct 2010

Jan Brewer and the Headless Horsemen Coming Home to Roost

3:54 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Media|U.S.-Mexico Border|Violence · 6 Comments

10 Sep 2010

Arizona Governor Janet Brewer is most recently known for 16 seconds of silence and way too much talking shit before those 16 seconds. From America’s Voice:

Brewer had to admit that she wasn’t exactly being accurate when she talked about headless bodies in the Arizona desert. Her false justification for SB1070 isn’t isolated however. Seems the whole country is doing it, it being exaggerating and/or just plain old misleading people when it comes to the situation along the U.S. Mexican border.

What Brewer, hasn’t addressed is the role that U.S. policy has on violence in Mexico. For example, a report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns (PDF file of the report here) states that 90 percent of the guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes originate from the U.S. nor has Brewer responded publicly regarding her possible connection with Corrections Corporation of America and how that connection may have played a role in her deciding to sign SB1070 into law. What Brewer has done, well what her campaign for governor has done anyway is stop ads from running on the TV station whose local news has been conducting an investigation on the possible CCA Brewer connection.

U.S. Dept. of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio

1:00 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Women · Comments Off

3 Sep 2010

Yesterday morning, the United States Department of Justice announced the filing of a lawsuit against Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his refusal to cooperate with a federal civil rights investigation by refusing to turn over requested documents for a year and a half.

America’s Voice has done a great job of researching and compiling his numerous civil rights violations and how ineffective they are in the context of “serve and protect”.

INEFFECTIVE TACTICS

* Violent Crime Rates Rise Under Arpaio, Fall in Rest of Arizona
* Under Arpaio, 911 Response Time Increased, Arrest Rates Decreased
* Arpaio Admits He Arrests ”Very Few” Non-Hispanics
* Over 40,000 Un-served Felony Warrants
* Conservative Think Tank Report: Arpaio’s Policies are Ineffective, Harmful, and a Waste of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars
* Mesa Police Chief: Arpaio’s Approach Hurts Community Safety

OPERATING ABOVE THE LAW

* Arpaio Under Investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for Civil Rights Abuses
* Arpaio Under FBI Investigation for Using his Power to Intimidate Political Opponents
* Judge Says Conditions in Arpaio’s Jails “Violate the Constitution”
* 2,700 Lawsuits Filed Against Arpaio
* Federal Officials Take Away Arpaio’s Deputies’ Authority to Make Immigration Arrests, Arpaio Vows to Defy the Restriction
* Arpaio Threatens Attorneys with Criminal Charges for Criticizing Him
* Department of Labor Investigates Arpaio, Finds He Owes Employees $2M in Unpaid Overtime
* Arpaio Suspected of Misspending $50M in Taxpayer Funds, Refuses to Turn Over Records
* Advocates Awarded $475,000 for Civil Rights Violations by Arpaio Deputies
* Arpaio Stages Phony Murder Plot Against Himself, Accused Released for Wrongful Imprisnment, County Pays Over $1 Million to Settle

INSPIRING TERROR IN LATINO COMMUNITIES

* Arpaio Marches Immigrants in Shackles to Tent City Surrounded by Electric Fence
* Arpaio Separates Mother from Kids for Unpaid Traffic Ticket
* Arpaio Conducts “Crime Suppression” Sweeps in Latino Communities
* Arpaio Forces Mother to Give Birth while Handcuffed to Bed
* Arpaio’s Deputies Deploy Heavy Duty Machine Guns

Viernes Video : Arizona’s Jan Brewer Has Done So Much but Can’t Really Explain It

9:12 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Politics · 2 Comments

3 Sep 2010

This is not really something to point and laugh at because really how can you laugh at incompetence veiled in hate. It’s really hard for me as an outsider in Arizona to know if Gov. Brewer’s 16 seconds of pain is a case of nerves or an indication of her inability to effectively govern as indicated by signing laws like SB1070 that hurt the state and it’s people. What do you think?

Gov. Jan Brewer's Opening Statement – 9/1/2010 Debate @ Yahoo! Video

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Lizbeth Mateo

2:29 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|DREAM Act|Immigration · 2 Comments

30 Aug 2010

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Lizbeth Mateo and I am undocumented. On May 17th, on the 56th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, I, along with Mohammad Abdollahi, Yahaira Carrillo and two others, became the first undocumented students to risk deportation by staging a sit-in inside Senator McCain’s office in Tucson, Arizona, to demand the immediate passage of the DREAM Act. As a result of that sit-in we were arrested, turned over to ICE, and we now face deportation.

Read more…

Viernes Videos : Leaving Arizona and Anchor Babies Behind

8:51 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Uncategorized|Videos · 4 Comments

20 Aug 2010

Believe it or not, it’s emotionally and spiritually exhausting to come to the digital page daily and write about the struggles of the community.

So to start off this beautiful day let’s think of ways to escape (or survive in Arizona). Hat tip to Laura Martinez of Mi Blog es Tu Blog for tweeting the hell out of this.

And the latest from News with Nezua on the “Terror Baby” madness and healthier alternatives.

News With Nezua | Terror, Baby! from nezua on Vimeo.

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