Thread: Isabel Garcia:Arizona Bill Forces LE to Enforce Immigration

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/16/az

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Legal Defender Isabel Garcia: Arizona Bill Forcing Officers to Determine Immigration Status Marks “All-Out Assaultâ€

Here's Isabel's contact info:

Ph: 520.770.1373
Email: isabel@derechoshumanosaz.net

JUAN GONZALEZ: In Arizona, state lawmakers have approved what’s being described as the harshest anti-immigrant measure in the country. On Tuesday, the Arizona House of Representatives voted to force police officers to determine the immigration status of someone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. The state Senate passed a similar measure earlier this year, and Republican Governor Jan Brewer is expected to sign it into law.

Introduced by State Senator Russell Pearce, the bill would give an unprecedented amount of immigration enforcement power to local police officers. Immigrant rights and civil liberties groups in the state have vowed to challenge the new bill, warning that it will only increase racial profiling.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, federal law enforcement agencies mounted a massive operation across Arizona Thursday targeting van operators allegedly involved in smuggling undocumented migrants from Mexico. Nearly fifty people were arrested, and more than 800 federal agents were involved in the bust, that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is touting as its largest-ever human smuggling case.

For more on what’s happening in Arizona, we’re joined here in New York by Isabel Garcia, the co-chair of the Coalition of Human Rights, a Tucson-based organization. She’s also the legal defender of Pima County, Arizona, and won the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award in 2008 and the 2006 National Human Rights Award from Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

ISABEL GARCIA: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s start with the legislation. Can you explain what legislators have just passed?

ISABEL GARCIA: Yes. This legislature is probably the most extreme legislature in this country. This particular bill is intended to clean up everything they’ve not been able to do in the past few years, obligating police officers to determine immigration status, really giving racial profiling, of course, its largest boost, converting it to its most important law enforcement technique.

This law would also create a new crime in the state. If you’re undocumented in the state, you would be guilty of a trespass. People would have a private right of action, if police and other agencies didn’t determine immigration status. Immigration status would have to be shared by all agencies. It criminalizes day workers, day labor workers, whether you’re trying to hire somebody or whether they’re trying to be hired.

And so, of course, it represents for us an all-out assault on our communities, guaranteeing that Arizona, in fact, is the engine for all of the anti-immigrant legislation and politicians in this country, with apparently eleven states poised to follow suit, if in fact Governor Brewer signs this bill.

JUAN GONZALEZ: When you say criminalizing even day laborers, I was struck by—one part of the law would prohibit people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day labor on the streets. So this would be—allow a license, basically, for the police to really target day laborers across the state.


ISABEL GARCIA: Absolutely. For instance, in New York City here, you wave a cab, and when they pull over, of course, it blocks traffic for a few seconds. That’s exactly what would be criminalized in all of the state of Arizona, guaranteeing, of course, that day laborers could not be out looking for work. We’ve criminalized work in the state of Arizona.

AMY GOODMAN: Who is the engine for this?
ISABEL GARCIA: Well, Russell Pearce is the author, but ultimately—
AMY GOODMAN: He is a state legislator.

ISABEL GARCIA: Yes, he’s a senator in the state legislature. But ultimately, it really is our federal policy. Beginning in 1994, Arizona was pretty much selected to be the place to funnel all immigrants, to create chaos, division, eventually leading to the election of anti-immigrant politicians, from, as you know, the Sheriff Arpaio there, Andrew Thomas, who just recently resigned to run for attorney general. And Arpaio states he’s going to run for governor, too. The superintendent of schools is an anti-immigrant. And, of course, Russell Pearce is joined by an entire gang of extremists in the legislature. So I really put the onus and blame on the federal government, in addition to the state government, for funneling and purposely creating Arizona as the laboratory for all of these anti-immigrant measures.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, those who defend these measures say that Arizona has become the main transit point along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico for undocumented migrants coming over.

ISABEL GARCIA: Absolutely.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What is the situation in southern Arizona in terms of migrants? And is there any—
ISABEL GARCIA: Yes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —legitimacy to the concerns of folks that Arizona has become like the main doorway now to illegal immigration to the country?

ISABEL GARCIA: Yes, Arizona is, in fact, the doorway. Over 50 percent of all crossings occur through Arizona. Again, it was purposeful.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And why is that?

ISABEL GARCIA: It was purposeful. Beginning in 1994, we began with this prevention through deterrence, but really with military-type operations—Operation Gatekeeper in California; Operation Blockade, and then became Hold the Line, in the El Paso area; Rio Grande in the rest of Texas; and unfortunately, in Arizona, Operation Safeguard, that has resulted of course in the deaths of thousands of immigrants along the border.

So, yes, they’re correct that Arizona has become the gateway. New York Times reported that that area, in fact, was the bottleneck for all of America, North America. But that was purposeful, in fact intended. We believe so, because not only is a very conservative state, but the border is owned basically by the federal government, the state government and the Tohono O’odham Nation, which, for the most part, we ignore as much as we can.

And so, as a result, we have created Arizona to be the place where traffickers come, smugglers come. We have made smuggling an incredibly profitable business. Prior to 1994, people did not require the use of a smuggler. Now most people need a smuggler. But instead of catching smugglers—imagine, 800 agents to—ICE agents descending on Arizona with ski masks and armor like you can’t believe and vehicles and helicopters to arrest forty to fifty people? It’s really absurd justification, when we know that it’s an all-out assault on the public and the community, right at the heels of this legislation passing, and this operation coming forward, when really we’re not interested in the smugglers in Maricopa County. They have convicted hundreds and hundreds of people who have simply crossed and admitted that they were going to pay a smuggler. They’re the ones that are being prosecuted as being smugglers, as co-conspirators to their own smuggling.

And unfortunately, the courts have not been of much help. They have upheld almost every single piece of legislation that we believe is unconstitutional, illegal, a federal grab. And yet, they’ve been okayed by the courts.

AMY GOODMAN: Isabel Garcia, how does the new legislation compare to the 287(g) agreements?

ISABEL GARCIA: Well, 287(g), as you know, is a federal program that has two models. One is the field model that Joe Arpaio became the poster child for. And then the jail model. In spite of his massive violations and, you know, having—

AMY GOODMAN: And for people, just very quickly, who don’t know who Sheriff Arpaio is?

ISABEL GARCIA: He’s the sheriff in Maricopa County who has made it his mission to be the most visible anti-immigrant in the country. He’s authored a book and made profits, and of course has become the poster child for all of them. He was the person who instituted 287(g) with a vengeance, even though he violated so many rights. He was only limited not to do the federal—I mean, the field model, and that permits—that permitted those agents to, in fact, determine citizenship and residency. He states, “I don’t care if I’ve been stripped of 287(g) field model, I have Arizona lawsâ€

How cute and stupid! Does that mean law enforcement does not mean enforcing laws anymore? Just like "immigrants" have taken on the meaning of foreigners here, legally or illegally, getting lumped into one group.
I guess we just are not allowed to pass laws and enforce them without the approval of the rest of the world. How cocky of us that we could act as a sovereign nation and sovereign state!

We should legalize the 12 million people here and begin to address those issues along the border that have caused so much suffering, environmental degradation and devastation by the Border Patrol and ICE and other agencies.

This woman's mind is truly messed up.

[quote]
Legal Defender Isabel Garcia: Arizona Bill Forcing Officers to Determine Immigration Status Marks “All-Out Assaultâ€

But ultimately, it really is our federal policy. Beginning in 1994, Arizona was pretty much selected to be the place to funnel all immigrants, to create chaos, division, eventually leading to the election of anti-immigrant politicians, from, as you know, the Sheriff Arpaio there, Andrew Thomas, who just recently resigned to run for attorney general. And Arpaio states he’s going to run for governor, too. The superintendent of schools is an anti-immigrant. And, of course, Russell Pearce is joined by an entire gang of extremists in the legislature. So I really put the onus and blame on the federal government, in addition to the state government, for funneling and purposely creating Arizona as the laboratory for all of these anti-immigrant measures.

Our government forced people to leave Mexico and sneek into Arizona? So we're forcing people to travel to Arizona so that we can arrest them and deport them. This is truly perverted thinking.

We knew she (Napolitano) became the Department of Homeland Security Secretary precisely because of her war on immigrants

.

BWAAAA HAAAAA. It's been a rough day and I needed a good laugh.

Slow down, Isabel...you are not making any sense.....

She really is a wacko! Doesn't she understand we don't want these people here, that's why we have the laws to begin with, we don't want people just waking or driving or flying into our country without a visa or green card.

And if they do, then the reason we deport them is because we want to deport them, that's why our laws demand deportation.

She's cackling up the wrong tree in the wrong country.

Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, or the Coalition for Human Rights, a Tucson-based organization. She is also the legal defender of Pima County, Arizona and won the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award in 2008 and the 2006 National Human Rights Award from Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights.

Now mexico's giving this wicked extremist awards! Sounds about right since she's a la raza racist and doing everything in her power to further the reconquista.