Thread: AZ: Hundreds Gather outside Pruitt’s

Hundreds Gather outside Pruitt’s
Jim Cross



Groups from both sides of the heated immigration debate gathered outside of Pruitt’s furniture store Saturday morning for the eighth week in a row.

Rick Galeener with the anti-illegal immigrant group United for a Sovereign America is among hundreds who are spending Saturday in central Phoenix.

“It’s like a high school dance. Until the dance floor is full, a lot of people don’t want to get out and join,â€

Last Pruitt's immigration protest of year rowdy on both sides
Lynh Bui
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 22, 2007 01:41 PM

Christmas carols blaring from one side and the National Anthem playing on another. American flags waving high from one end of a street and posters bashing Sheriff Joe Arpaio less than a hundred feet away.

It was part of the scene near 35th Street and Thomas Road in Phoenix this morning as protesters on both sides of the immigration debate gathered for the last Saturday this year outside of M.D. Pruitt's Home Furnishings.

Every Saturday for almost two months, protesters have demonstrated outside of the furniture store after Pruitt's owner Roger Sensing hired off-duty police to keep day laborers off his property. Laborer advocate Salvador Reza began organizing the weekly protests to boycott the store and rally support for day laborers.

"We accomplished what we wanted to do, which was bring the flashlight into this area and show people nationally what the immigration debate is about," Reza said. "There's hate on one side and workers on the other side."

Reza said the protests would continue into the next year until Pruitt's stops using off-duty officers to keep day laborers from work.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been a target in some of the protests for using his officers to arrest undocumented immigrants in the area. More than 60 have been arrested in the area by Sheriff's deputies in the past several weeks, Arpaio said.

No protesters were arrested Saturday, but three people were arrested after traffic stops in the area. The sheriff’s office said two of the arrested are undocumented immigrants.

Like Reza, Arpaio said he and his deputies plan to be outside of Pruitt's on Saturday mornings in the new year.

"I'm not leaving," Arpaio said. "I presume it will be a long next year."

The protest has grown with every passing week, with more than 250 people on both sides of the debate demonstrating on Saturday morning. Despite it being the weekend before Christmas, the protest drew one of the largest groups in the past few months.

Stacey O'Connell is a member of Patriots' Border Alliance Minutemen and said the group saw about 50 more protestors than they had originally expected.

"I don't think the people in the mood to let the holidays ruin the need to talk about this important issue," O'Connell said. "We are fed up with illegal aliens. We're especially fed up with them demanding citizenship and the right to work."

The next protest is expected to take place after Jan. 1, when a new employer sanctions law that prohibits businesses from knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants goes into effect.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ts-ON.html

Even private property is not off limits to the illegals. If I owned the store I would sue Reza for loss of business.