Today the Associated Press reports that apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants at the border declined for the fifth straight year, and are at the same rate we saw during the Nixon administration.

In the meantime, the Obama Administration continues to deport at a record clip.

And Republicans are moderating their hardline stance on immigration reform.  Republicans are historically  the party that enacts immigration reform. The last big reform was led by Ronald Reagan.

Newt is talking about a kinder, gentler policy. And so are pundits like  Bill O’Reilly.

The Republicans have a chance of winning this election if they can win over Latinos, who are disenchanted with what they see as the the Obama administration’s broken promises to enact reform.

This all leads me back to my book, which chronicled the vivid stories — and the stunning effects of a broken immigration policy — of undocumented immigrants in the Phoenix area during the Arizona immigration law controversy. In the book, Illegal, Life and Death in Arizona’s Immigration War Zone, I posited that the real problem wasn’t the right-wing frenzy over illegal immigration, because despite the heated rhetoric illegal immigration was waning significantly.

The real immigration problem centers on the unauthorized immigrants who live here  — and the  way in which our nation chooses to treat human beings.

Photo by Farmer Dodds from Flickr

Almost three years ago, on a cold night in November, two Border Patrol agents allegedly came across four “Mexican National” pot smugglers in the Arizona desert. The agents, Dario Castillo and Ramon Zuniga, forced the smugglers to take off their shoes, socks and jackets (just like drop house kidnappers) and burned them. They forced the smugglers to eat pot. Then they sent them hightailing into the desert. Now the two agents have been indicted for human rights violations by a federal grand jury in Tucson. Again, this is all alleged.  It’s too early for the BP agents to respond. But you  can read the DOJ press release below.
Border Patrol 2011-170(Castillo et al)

PHOTO OF RUSSELL PEARCE VIA FLICKR BY GAGE SKIDMORE LICENSED BY CREATIVE COMMONS

In an exclusive salon.com  story,  Jeff Biggers carefully documents how the sponsor of Arizona’s famed SB 1070, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, “borrows” entire passages from extremist nut jobs for his Facebook page and in his writings. In at least one case, the “borrowed” material had already been thoroughly debunked as hate-filled nonsense before Pearce copied it.

Biggers reinforces in a new and fresh way what Arizona journalists have been pointing out for years.

Pearce lacks integrity.

For years, Arizona journos have been pointing out that Pearce, a former director of the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles, had to leave that post after allegations of tampering with a driver license record of a constituent.  He was not prosecuted.

Although Pearce has long spouted off about family values, both is former and current wives told police Pearce bullied them. One wife said Pearce tried to choke her, but later retracted the statement.

Pearce’s son Joshua is a troubled soul with a substance abuse problem and an arrest record. CPS took his kids, Pearce’s grandchildren.

In December, Phoenix New Times published my investigative piece documenting Pearce’s ties with the extremist group FAIR, the powerhouse behind SB 1070 that was founded by John Tanton and is closely allied to its cousins NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS.

Now Pearce is the only legislator in Arizona history to face a recall election. It’s scheduled for early November.

Russell Pearce’s long, sorry saga has long evoked outrage in Arizona.

But should it also evoke pity?

DREAMERS, MINUTEMEN, AND TUCSON SHOOTINGS :  TERRY GREENE STERLING EXPLAINS WHY SHE QUIT BLOGGING

One night in December, just a few days before  Christmas, two groups of ASU students gathered in two very different parts of Phoenix.

The first group of kids wore college graduation gowns, and received diplomas, and were hugged by their relatives, who then bought them celebratory dinners.

Yay!

They’d finally made it through Arizona State University.

At the very time graduates were celebrating, another group of ASU  students huddled together on a sidewalk in front of the darkened office of Sen. John McCain in central Phoenix.

PHOTO BY TERRY GREENE STERLING

It was a cold night, but the students were full of warm hope. They hoped that the next day, the Dream Act would pass in the lame duck Congress. The Dream Act, introduced every year since 2001, would allow kids who are unauthorized immigrants and have lived in the United States for most of their lives, and have graduated from high school, and  have not committed crimes, temporary legal residency so they can attend college or join the military. If they accomplished these goals, the students would be given permanent legal residency, and eventually citizenship. The students had been focusing on McCain’s office because even though he had transformed from immigration reformer to immigration hardliner, they still held hope that he’d vote for the Dream Act. After all, he once supported it.

PHOTO BY TERRY GREENE STERLING

But McCain didn’t vote for the Dream Act the next day.

It was a bitter disappointment for these honor students, who watched the senate vote on their laptops as they sat on the sidewalk.

It wasn’t easy to learn English, or to succeed in school, or to get coveted private scholarships to pay their out-of-state tuition.  But they did. And after the Senate shot down the Dream Act, students like Chris wouldn’t give up.

This is Chris’s picture. To the right. Below.

The Senate shot down the Dream Act on Saturday.

On Sunday, Chris was in church, listening to words of hope.

“Help us love even those who hate us,” one of the speakers said.

Chris just sat there on the bench. He speaks three languages.  He wants to be an architect.

“We can’t put our hope in politicians, we have to put our hope in God,” another speaker said.

Chris looked at his hands. He is the only one in his family that excelled in school. And in his family, being different isn’t  always easy.

“Dreams may be deferred but dreams won’t die,” said yet another speaker.

***

I was going to blog about that evening, but I didn’t.  I wanted to take a break from writing and reporting. The holidays. Family. I’d get back to blogging, I figured, in January. Five weeks later,  Jarold Lee Loughner allegedly went on a shooting spree in front of a Tucson Safeway.  He gunned down Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and before he was tackled by onlookers he’d killed six people, including a little girl named Christina-Taylor Green. Instead of blogging, I covered the shootings for The Daily Beast.

Here’s another shooting story. And another

***

I came home, packed fresh clothes and drove back to Tucson, where I covered the murder trial of another little girl, Brisenia Flores, who was gunned down , along with her dad, in 2009 by a man in camouflage who had painted his face black. A woman barked orders during this killing spree, which took place in a house trailer in Arivaca, Arizona.  The super comandante was a beautician. She was dressed in a military outfit too. Her name was Shawna Forde. She wanted to rob this family to fund her border surveillance activities.

I wrote four stories about Shawna Forde for The Daily Beast. I was the only reporter who talked to her.

She told me that even in jail she directed a vast militia.

Her lawyers said she suffered from narcissistic traits.  They said she was repeatedly sexually abused, abandoned and neglected.

They wanted to save her life.

But she’s on Death Row now.

***

I came home again, and made up my mind to start blogging.

Then Republicans in the Arizona Legislature, in lockstep with many of the state’s biggest businesses, voted to kill five notorious immigration bills that would have furthered the state’s  racist image. The businesses said they’d felt the sting of a national boycott, and they’d had enough of Arizona’s immigration laws. Let the feds take care of it, the businessmen said.

***

I think things are calming down in Arizona now. At least for a while. So I’ve made up my mind to start blogging again. For  updates on day-to-day events about madmen, killers, and general goings on in Arizona, please visit my Facebook page.

***

And getting back to those Dreamers, Christian is still in school.

He won’t give up.

His life is filled with hope.

VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA INVESTIGATION BY TERRY GREENE STERLING TIES “CENTRIST” THINK TANKS AND GROUPS TO WHITE NATIONALISTS, REVEALS  MISLEADING REPORTS ARE USED TO ASSAULT 14TH AMENDMENT, AND SCARE THE HELL OUT OF PENNY PINCHED AMERICANS.

Among the findings:

1. The  “cost of illegal immigration” by Federation for American Immigration Reform include cost of educating American citizen children with one or more parents who are unauthorized immigrants. Economists consider education an investment, because it pays off after the child becomes an adult and begins working, paying taxes, and consuming goods. But the economic counterbalance  is missing in the FAIR report, making the cost staggering.

2. 14th Amendment “birthright citizenship” “anchor baby” movement tied to White Nationalists.

3. FAIR and sister organizations  drive immigration debate but are  tied to White Nationalists.

4. Unauthorized immigrants are not an undue burden on the economy, most economists say.

5. A special section on White Nationalist books.

6. Ties of White Nationalists to Arizona’s immigration law hardliners.

Here is the story.

Friends, I’ve spent about a month and a half working on an immigration story for Phoenix New Times, the mother ship of Village Voice Media.

Normally, these pages are reserved for some of my observations on Arizona politicking and immigration, but I’m imposing a gag rule on myself because I don’t want to spill the beans for the New Times Story.

It’s running in early December, and then I will wax eloquent once again. In the meantime, here’s a story I wrote on Sheriff Arpaio for The Daily Beast.

SUE KRENTZ, WIFE OF SLAIN BORDER RANCHER ROBERT KRENTZ, WHOSE UNSOLVED MURDER SPARKED PASSAGE OF SB 1070, ARIZONA’S IMMIGRATION LAW, WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED SATURDAY ALLEGEDLY BY A DRUNK DRIVER

Robert Krentz, a well-known borderlands rancher, was gunned down by a mysterious assailant on his ranch in late March. Although his murder has not been solved,  it was widely blamed by locals and national conservative groups on narco-smugglers in the country illegally. The murder sent a shock wave through Arizona’s legislature, and moderate Republicans who were set to vote against SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, voted instead for its approval. Arizonans were concerned about border security in the wake of the Krentz killing, and many did not understand that not a word of SB 1070 relates to border security.  Sue Krentz, by all accounts, became a reluctant but brave spokeswoman for conservative causes, and  recently was honored with a front-row seat at the Glenn Beck rally in Washington, according to the Tucson Weekly.

She is a Catholic, and while crossing the street from the Catholic Church in Douglas on Saturday, she was hit by an allegedly drunk driver, a local named Ramon Parra Saucedo. According  to court records I looked up, he  is 69 years old. He’s had many traffic violations, including a previous DUI and a hit and run of a vehicle, the records say. He’s facing aggravated assault and DUI charges in connection with the Krentz hit-and-run.

He is an American citizen, according to press reports.

Sue Krentz was airlifted to a hospital in nearby Tucson.  Leo Banks, a personal friend of Sue Krentz, writes in the Tucson Weekly that Sue Krentz was “thrown thirty feet and suffered a broken pelvis, head and facial injuries and internal bleeding.” Banks reports that Krentz underwent  blood transfusions “and is conscious and in stable condition. “

The unsolved murder of Sue Krentz’s husband has fueled speculation on both sides. Here’s what I wrote for The Daily Beast in July.

Former State Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez says the unsolved murder probe is a case of “purposeful ignorance” and an “attempt to cover up the truth” in a prime drug- and human-smuggling corridor. Politicians talk about securing the border, he said, but they do not address the possibility that the business of Cochise County “ain’t cows, ain’t hay; it’s smuggling drugs and people.”

“Everybody knows what’s going on but nobody knows what’s going on,” said Gutierrez, one of the state’s leading Hispanic leaders.

Such a suggestion is just plain wrong, said Cochise County’s embattled sheriff, Larry Dever.

“He’s suggesting I am dirty and people I know are dirty, and if anyone can establish that, I’d invite them to give it a try,” Dever said.

Born and raised in Cochise County, the 57-year-old sheriff was a friend of Krentz’s. He said he has heard the allegations that U.S. citizens living in the area are involved in criminal activities linked with the Krentz killing, but he dismissed those claims as purely political.

Instead, Dever said, he has a suspect in Mexico and is “very, very close” to solving the case, though he said he cannot put a time frame on it.

The Krentz killing was the result of “a dog protecting his master and the master protecting dog…I think the encounter was accidental,” the sheriff theorized. “Rob was checking out his ranch. The smuggler was smuggling. They came across each other’s paths with a very good man being killed with no reason whatsoever.”

In either case, the Krentz  family has had more than its share of unexplained tragedy.

First, Lady Gaga said Arizona’s latest immigration law, SB 1070, created a “state of emergency” in Arizona.

Now, country star Trace Adkins tells his concert fans to blow him if they don’t like Sheriff Joe Arpaio according to Phoenix New Times.

And Sheriff Joe says the Justice Department is just plain wrong, he’s cooperating so they shouldn’t sue him to get those documents they say they need.  Sheriff Joe has long said he’ll go after “illegals” with or without SB 1070.

And finally, Gov. Jan Brewer , who signed SB 1070 into law, called a special session to deal with what she calls Obamacare. She’s considering “tweaking” SB 1070 with the legislature, so that it will work  around Judge Susan Bolton’s July 28  ruling, that enjoined the harshest parts of the law. Here is video of Brewer talking about the law, courtesy The Arizona Guardian.

Here’s a quick roundup of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio news.

With great fanfare, he opened a new tent for all those “illegals” he hoped were going to be slapped with misdemeanors for being in Arizona illegally, a new state crime under SB 1070, slated to go into effect July 29.

Then a federal judge slapped  slapped injunctions on several key parts of SB 1070 on the day before it was to take effect.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he would conduct a “crime suppression” operation anyway, because there were plenty of state laws that would allow him to conduct these famous raids.

His deputies arrested several people blocking the crime-suppression vehicles.

Next, Sheriff Joe Arpaio heard from the Department of Justice. He’s long been  investigated by Justice Department for alleged racial profiling.  The department says Sheriff Joe needs to cough up documents related to a racial-profiling probe (the raids on heavily Latino neighborhoods and workplaces) or it will sue on August 17.  Here is the Justice Department Letter to Arpaio.

The sheriff is also the subject of a federal grand jury probe in Phoenix for alleged abuses of power and harassment of political enemies. That probe is ongoing.

To top it all off, the sheriff says he’s got a $1 million hit on his head, supposedly by those drug cartels. The alleged hit is the topic of an e-mail from Russell Pearce, the sponsor of SB 1070, to his supporters. Here is the e-mail.