Interior Enforcement
McCain Discusses Immigration and Arpaio on CNN
This past Sunday, John McCain appeared on CNN's State of the Union and had an extensive conversation with news anchor John King in which he once again expounded the need for comprehensive immigration reform: Read More
House Judiciary Committee Calls For Federal Investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s Abuses
The House Judiciary Committee released a letter today calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to conduct a federal investigation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s enforcement tactics in Maricopa County (AZ). Arpaio has transformed his police department into an immigration-enforcement agency, gaining international notoriety in the process. Armed with a… Read More
Communities Across the Nation Rethink Hard-Line Immigration Laws
Amidst a deep economic recession and a growing climate of fear and alienation within immigrant communities, many states, cities and counties that "plunged into the immigration debate are having second thoughts," reports USA Today. In states like Texas, Alabama and elsewhere, hard-line immigration legislation has been repealed or modified by lawmakers that have come to terms with the fact that the time and expense associated with implementing such policies has made their anti-immigrant position less popular among their constituents. In Iowa and Utah, legislators are proposing similar reversals. Accusations of racism and a surge in anti-immigrant hate crimes are also cited by USA Today as reasons for the about face. Read More
Prince William County Crusader Hangs Up Anti-Immigration Hat
Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman, Corey Stewart, has been at the forefront of an anti-immigrant crusade, setting the gold standard for local law enforcement "crackdowns" on the immigrant community in the last few years. Recent shifts in the political wind, however, have conveniently blown this Virginia Republican away from his undocumented immigration crusade toward more hot ticket topics, like the economy. Following the example of many GOP leaders who have recently softened their anti-immigration tone, Stewart, who built his ticket by cracking down on illegal immigrants as a social imperative, is now whistling another tune. According to the Washington Post, Stewart is changing his image in response to ‘plummeting home values, statewide Republican electoral defeats and widespread economic instability.' Read More
Separating Fact From Fiction About Immigrants and Crime
The perennially hot, and inflammatory, question of whether or not immigration is related to crime has yielded front-page stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times over the past two days. In different ways, each of these stories highlights the extent to which the myth of a supposed link between crime and immigration has long been based on emotion rather than fact. Although study upon study over the past century has demonstrated that immigration is not associated with more crime, the "myth of immigrant criminality" persists. Read More
Arpaio Only One Smiling in Maricopa County
NOTE: This story first appeared in the Huffington Post. Video by America’s Voice. Smile, You’re Under Arrest”–that’s the name of a new reality TV show starring none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). Yet Maricopa County citizens aren’t smiling as Arpaio’s… Read More
ICE Partners With San Diego County, Seeks Presence in 3,100 Jails
San Diego County recently announced that it would soon be partnering with ICE and dedicating its energy to identifying immigrants in jail for deportation.ICE unveiled its new program – The Secure Communities Program – in March 2008.It gives jails access to ICE and FBI databases so that they can identify inmates who lack legal status or have a criminal history and then turn them over to ICE for deportation. Through this new initiative, ICE plans to eventually have a presence in every one of the 3,100 local jails throughout the U.S. While removing dangerous criminals from the U.S. is an understandable goal, Secure Communities appears to be the latest in ICE’s attempts to get states and localities to do their jobs for them.The best known of these is the 287(g) program, through which local police are trained by ICE, and agree to jointly enforce immigration laws. Read More
NC Sheriff Steve Bizzell Trashes Immigrants
It's no surprise that half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, are saying that their situation in this country is deteriorating when highly-regarded and powerful officials like Sheriff Steve Bizzell of Johnston County in North Carolina say such denegrating things as "Mexicans are trashy" and that "All they do is work and make love." Jennifer Rudinger of the ACLU told the Associated Press: "[Bizzell's comments] go from simply stating opinion to constituting illegal racial profiling if these opinions are reflected in practice...It's one thing to think something and say something. It's another to have that kind of bias carried out and enforced." North Carolina has put into action a federal program known as the ill-fated 287(g) program which gives specially trained police officers to enforce federal immigration law. The program has had a startling price tag--both financial and social--in communities like Maricopa County, Arizona where the The Sheriff’s Office created a $1.3 million deficit in just three months as a result of its 287(g) agreement. Read More
Congress Event Perpetuates Myth that Immigrants are Criminals
This morning, Republican members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration perpetuated the persistent myth of immigrant criminality with their event on “The Toll of Illegal Alien Criminals on American Families.” The event was spearheaded by Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Steve King (R-Iowa) and Howard Coble (R-NC). Tensions ran high as witnesses ranging from bereaved family members to the President of the Houston, Texas, Police Officers’ Union, to the Chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors made the case that the loss of innocent citizens is a direct result of not cracking down on “illegals” in the US. The witnesses demanded policies that would make life so miserable for immigrants, that they would be driven to self-deport. One witness even received enthusiastic applause after suggesting birth-right citizenship be repealed. Read More
Phoenix Mayor Demands Immigration Reform at Police Conference
This week the Police Foundation sponsored a two day conference, “The Role of Local Police: Striking a balance between immigration enforcement and civil liberties." One of the highlights was a speech by Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, a vocal supporter of immigration reform and opponent of the antics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County. Gordon understands firsthand both the impact that undocumented immigration has had on his community and the impact that using the wrong policies to try to fix a very real problem have had. Drop houses, kidnapping operations, smuggling, and trafficking are all issues the Phoenix has to deal with on a daily basis, and they are direct results of the illegality wrought by the current broken immigration system. He also spoke about costs of enforcing immigration law -- the financial costs, the public safety costs, and the human costs. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar up to $75,000
No one should face the immigration system alone
