White Woman in the Barrio

An Arizona senator named Russell Pearce wants undocumented immigrants to leave, so he held a Phoenix rally attended by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Minutemen, bikers, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, former congressman JD Hayworth, steelworkers, plasterers and a diverse group of anti-undocumented immigrant folks.  The October 21 rally on the front lawn of the state capitol buildings marked the third high-profile immigration event in less than a week.

The first event was a march on October 16, in which about two hundred immigrant-rights advocates blasted the Obama Administration for not doing enough to fix the immigration crisis.

This is a picture I took during the march. It is of a man dressed up in a Joe Arpaio costume.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

That same day, Sheriff Joe launched his twelfth raid in a western suburb of Phoenix. That raided lasted two days. Sixty-six people were arrested. Thirty were believed to be undocumented. Nineteen of the allegedly undocumented immigrants were handed over to ICE, which may or may not deport them. Eleven undocumented immigrants were sent to the sheriff’s jail. I wrote about this raid here.

I also took a picture of what a raid looks like on the streets of Phoenix.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

And just a few days later, event number three: Russell Pearce’s announcement that he has the suppport to push through a new tough Arizona law that will send the “illegal aliens” home. It’s got this title called: Support Our Law Enforcement Safe Neighborhoods Act. The first provision of the proposed legislation involves outlawing sanctuary cities in Arizona, even though Arizona doesn’t have any sanctuary cities. But “sanctuary city” is  the kind of language that gets the Minutemen exercised. The second provision would prohibit undocumented people from “trespassing” in Arizona.  The so-called “trespassing law” was introduced into the legislature last year, and failed. The third prong of Pearce’s proposed law would give subpoena power to investigators of the Employer Sanctions Act, which is now two years old and has yet to successfully prosecute an employer. It is also called the Legal Arizona Workers Act.

I don’t think this legislation  has a chance of passing because it is a trifecta of laws that have been attempted before, and failed. Arizona is conservative, but a lot of my conservative friends are disgusted by the tactics of Pearce, Arpaio and Thomas, all of whom have staked their political careers on ever-more aggressive laws  that take aim at powerless people.

Here’s a snapshot of Pearce at the rally. Note that Sheriff Joe is right behind him.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

At the rally, black lettering on white posters inferred that undocumented people were social-benefit-stealing-cop-killing-job-robbers-in-a-recession.

I wasn’t surprised by this, I’d heard it before in Pearce committee hearings. What surprised me, though, was that the angry crowd seemed to loathe journalists as much as it despised undocumented immigrants.

One journalist asked Sheriff Joe: What does a person who comes from Mexico look like?

It wasn’t a stupid question. Lately, the Sheriff has been taken to task about alleged racial profiling, but the sheriff  answered: “Ask me the question again to show how smart you are.”

The sheriff got whistles and hand claps. The sheriff  got cheers and good-natured guffaws.

Sheriff Joe had given the journalist a good comeuppance, is how the crowd saw it.

Did the crowd hate journalists, I wondered, because journalists reported the truth–that people in Arizona and federal investigators were increasingly skeptical of the iconic sheriff? Did they loathe members of the news media because the reporters sought divergent points of view?

In any case, as I said before,  I don’t think Pearce has much chance of  getting his three-pronged law passed. I don’t think he has the political support. Here’s why: more and more of us, regardless of our political affiliation, skin color, sexual persuasion or social class, have had enough.

We’re sick and tired of hate.