A few months ago, in Phoenix, illegal immigration opponents testified tearfully about how cops had been shot by undocumented immigrants. This wasn’t a street rally, it was a state senate subcommittee hearing chaired by Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, who spearheaded passage of The Employer Sanctions Act and other state laws that Sheriff Joe Arpaio now cites as reasons for his raids.
For what must have been the umpteenth time, Pearce listened to his own son, a sheriff’s deputy, detail how he’d been shot three times by an undocumented immigrant during a bust that went awry.
The senior Pearce was near tears as he rattled off names of cops in Arizona and across the nation who had been killed by undocumented immigrants.
It is awful, Senator Pearce. I agree.
It’s also awful when undocumented immigrants are stabbed by teens who said they were on the prowl for “beaners.”
This is why the New York based activist group Long Island Wins focuses today on the slaughter of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero. The New York group, which advocates for immigrants rights and comprehensive immigration reform, has launched a memorial of Lucero on the anniversary of his death. You can read about it here.
The point is, undocumented immigrants, like cops, shouldn’t be slaughtered on the streets.
It works both ways.
yes, escalating the emotional stakes doesn’t get us any closer to answers.
I have just discovered you and I am THRILLED to know that you up there keeping an eye on Joe Arpaio and speaking out on behalf of migrants. Here in Tucson we (volunteers working with undocumented migrants in the desert) get so depressed reading about the draconian activities of Sheriff Joe. Keep up the good work; it puts a smile in the wrinkles of my not-new old face.