SB 1070 SPONSOR RUSSELL PEARCE FACES TIGHT RECALL ELECTION, THANKS IN PART TO ARIZONA UNDOCUMENTED KIDS

Arizona state senator Russell Pearce capitalized on the  (still unsolved) death of an Arizona borderlands rancher (Pearce blamed an “illegal alien” for the killing) in the spring of 2010. Pearce rode a wave of fear to push through Arizona’s controversial immigration law and was subsequently elected president of the Arizona Senate.

Now Pearce, a Republican and Mormon who just last year was  the most powerful politico in Arizona, faces a super-tight recall election in his heavily Mormon, heavily conservative district in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix.

Pearce’s opponent, Jerry Lewis is a charter school company guy who is inexperienced politically. He’s a Mormon, just like Pearce. He’s a Republican, too. Pearce got more money.  And yet, Lewis is enjoying a slight lead, according to an ABC News-Arizona Capitol Times poll released last week.

Political observers said Pearce was so entrenched in the district no one could defeat him.

But a new breed of Arizona activists proved them wrong. They are young, energetic and tirelessly optimistic. Some are white. Some are brown.  Some are citizens.  Others are unauthorized immigrants.

***

On a recent afternoon, I followed two of these young activists as they walked on the sidewalks of east Mesa, canvassing.

 Zack  is 21, an ASU student  majoring in urban planning and minoring in Chicano and Latino studies.

Lily is 25, and was brought to the United States by her Mexican parents when she was 10. The family came to the country legally, with visas. But the visas expired. And Lilian is an unauthorized immigrant.

The two knocked on doors, asked people if they were registered to vote, and if they had their early ballots.

LILY AND ZACK

“I don’t like anything Pearce has done,” said Zack, an American citizen who has canvassed “a lot.” He told me this after he had canvassed the entire neighborhood that day.

And Lily chimed in that even though she couldn’t vote, she wanted to help. (I took their picture while they canvassed.)

 I’ll get back to Lily and Zack in a bit, but first  some background.

***

Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070, makes it a  state crime for unauthorized immigrants to set foot in Arizona and turns all law enforcement officers in Arizona into immigration enforcers.

The law was crafted in large part by Kris Kobach, now the Kansas secretary of state, who wrote the law while working for the legal branch of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The  controversial non-profit was founded by alleged white nationalist John Tanton, who still sits on its board. (FAIR’s sister non-profits are Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA. If you visits their websites, you’ll see they are cut from the same cloth.)

Pearce did not write the law, as he sometimes suggests. He did sponsor the law in Arizona.

But after a brief period in which Pearce enjoyed tremendous popularity, the tables turned on him.

Arizona business leaders,  stung by boycotts and employment problems that resulted from SB 1070, paired with moderate Republicans in Arizona’s senate and legislature. They  managed to kill Pearce’s immigration measures in 2011. Those measures included a bill denying Arizona birth certificates to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents.

In another blow to Pearce, the Mormon Church headquarters in Utah voiced its approval of  the Utah Compact, which says among other things that  immigration is a federal, not a state  problem. And privately, some Mormons in Arizona expressed deep concerns about Pearce.

What’s more, data showed that illegal immigration was simply not the problem Pearce said it was. The  most reliable measure for illegal immigration — apprehensions at the border — slipped down to a low not seen since the 1970s, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Washington.

And just a few days ago, the Department of Homeland Security announced a 40 percent decrease in the already declining numbers of unauthorized migrants  apprehended at the Arizona border.

It became clear that Pearce’s fear mongering was more political than real.

***

 I talked to a couple of Latina voters in Mesa who had already sent in their ballots. They told me that incredible as it may seem, some Hispanic voters still want to vote for Olivia Cortes, a sham candidate put up by Pearce supporters to deflect votes away from Lewis and give Pearce the edge.

Cortes is no longer running, but her name is on the ballot.

The women also told me that some Latinos don’t know Pearce is affiliated with SB 1070.

And some didn’t even know what SB 1070 was.

Could this be possible?

Yes, the two women  told me. People watch TV, but they don’t watch the news.

They don’t read. They don’t get things straight.   They don’t do their own research.

Yes, some will vote for Cortes.

***

This really is a neck-in-neck race.

After we got back to the canvassing headquarters, I asked Lily how she’d react if Pearce won.

She said she’ll just keep on. She understands what it takes to overcome obstacles.

ARIZONA EMPLOYER SANCTIONS LAW UPHELD BY U.S. SUPREME COURT ENFORCED AGAINST IMMIGRANTS, NOT EMPLOYERS

Last week, the United States Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s Employer Sanctions Law, which went into effect in 2008. The law was  supported by the  Federation for American Immigration Reform and sponsored by its chief Arizona ally, Arizona state senator Russell Pearce. The legislature passed the law in 2007,  and Gov. Janet Napolitano signed it, as a way to sanction employers who hired unauthorized workers. The law says any business twice caught and charged with hiring unauthorized workers could have its business license yanked.

I wrote about this law in 2007 and 2008 for Newsweek.com, taking a look at both sides.  At the time Janet Napolitano told me, “If Arizona is a laboratory for democracy, then so be it.”

And I wrote about the law again for The  Daily Beast, and included background info, the Supreme Court fight, etc. Keep in mind that this law has nothing to do with Arizona’s draconian immigration law, SB 1070, which is also being challenged in the courts.

Last week, the Supreme Court  upheld a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. In a nutshell, the court ruled that the employer sanctions  law was constitutional because it did not infringe on federal law. In fact, states are entirely within their rights to control business licenses, the courts ruled.

But, as is so often the case with Arizona immigration laws, the employer sanctions law does not punish Arizona businesses.

At least, not much.

Less  than five businesses have been sanctioned in the three years since the law  has taken effect.

Employer-sanctions prosecutions have occurred in only one county — Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix and most of its suburbs. That’s the headquarters of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his allies in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors  from other counties don’t take the law seriously, saying it is a flawed piece of legislation that does not allow prosecutors the necessary tools to put forth a good case.

(Photo credit: promigrant.com)

The law,  intended to go after businesses, has been used by Sheriff Joe to investigate car washes and landscaping companies and round up unauthorized immigrants in front of television news cameras. At taxpayer expense, the zip-tied immigrants are hauled off to jail, slapped with working-with-fake-papers felony charges (identity theft and forgery)  defended by public defenders, prosecuted, tried, and sent to jail for several months. (Please see wonky footnote at end of this story.)

Then after they serve their jail time, many are deported.

But many are not. If they’ve got families in Phoenix,  they will do anything to stay with their kin.

That includes mounting a fight against deportation in federal immigration court. And while immigrants pay for their lawyers, taxpayers pay for the court costs and prosecution, which drags on for years.

So in Arizona, many consider the employer-sanctions law as a thinly disguised way to get rid of Mexicans.

Not sanction employers.

***

WONKY FOOTNOTE: (Sheriff Joe’s employer-sanctions based raids result in many undocumented immigrants in his jails classified as felons.  This classification is peculiar to Sheriff Joe’s  jails. The state and federal government do not have a way of counting the number of unauthorized immigrant felons in  prisons.  Repeat, there is no way to know how many undocumented migrant felons are in American  prisons. Prisons are where the hardcore guys go, and the feds don’t filter  felon undocumented immigrants in their stats. Instead, the feds and states lump all immigrant-crooks, documented and undocumented, into one category.)

TERRY GREENE STERLING ON GRATITUDE AND TALENTED FRIENDS IN ARIZONA’S IMMIGRATION WAR ZONE

I’m grateful for my family, my health, my work and my friends. Sometimes, I get to work with my friends. That is a great joy. Two dear friends have come out with remarkable projects this year, and it has been a pleasure  and honor to see their excellent work take form.

Kathy McCraine, my dear  rancher friend, has spent her life documenting the vanishing cowboy culture in the American West.  She recently published a truly remarkable book that fuses culture, oral history, food, and art — honestly, you’ve never seen anything like it.  Mark Kohler illustrated the book with stunning watercolors, and Kathy added her fine reporting and photography. The book is called  Cow Country Cooking. But it’s about a lot more than food.

(Full disclosure: I spent my childhood on the O RO ranch featured in the book.)

(More full disclosure: Kathy took a lot of pics for my book, Illegal, Life and Death in Arizona’s Immigration War Zone and I edited her copy for Cow Country Cooking.)

For several years, my friend Valeria Fernandez, an outstanding broadcast and print reporter based in Phoenix, has been working with Dan DeVivo on a remarkable documentary  called Two Americans. The main characters are  Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Kathy Figueroa,  a little girl whose parents were arrested by Sheriff Joe’s deputies in a car-wash raid.

I’ll leave you with a link to the Two Americans website and a taste of the documentary, below.

Watch this:

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.

ON ELECTION DAY, SOME YOUNG LATINOS IN ARIZONA VOICED THEIR OPPOSITION TO ARIZONA’S NEW IMMIGRATION LAW, SB 1070, BY TRYING TO GET OUT THE VOTE.  HERE’S MY TAKE FOR AZCENTRAL LAST NIGHT. AZCENTRAL IS THE ONLINE SITE FOR THE BIG PHOENIX DAILY, THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC.

CELSO.

Read the rest of the post about this DREAMER here.

And here’s another post, about Fidel, a young American citizen canvassing neighborhoods.

Latino activists are still crunching the Arizona numbers.  For sure, Arizona’s immigration law helped elect positively impacted those candidates  who supported it. But this law, which aims to kick all undocumented people out of Arizona, has affected many Latino citizens personally. And I’m convinced a lot of Arizona voters don’t even understand the law.

Let me explain. In a nutshell, SB 1070 aims to boot all unauthorized immigrants out of Arizona. But a fascinating Arizona Republic poll released in July indicates that while 55 percent of Arizonans supported SB 1070, an incredible 62 percent wanted employed unauthorized immigrants without criminal records to stay in Arizona.

How can you want to kick out the very people you say you want to stay?

Long story short, über confusion rules the Arizona electorate when it comes to SB 1070.

What’s even more confusing to voters is that a federal judge in Phoenix temporarily enjoined parts of the law, so it’s not being enforced to its full extent right now. It may never pass judicial muster. But no matter. It’s already had its impact. The law propelled Jan Brewer and her Republican allies in Arizona to victory.

More important, the passage of SB 1070 deeply wounded and insulted many young Hispanic voters in Arizona. They’re the ones who are likely to get stopped and hassled. They’re the ones with undocumented grandparents and parents and siblings.

And honestly, this election is just a blip to them. They know their numbers are growing. And they will not forget SB 1070.

AMERICA’S TOUGHEST SHERIFF HAS MOUNTING LEGAL BATTLES WITH US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, CHIEF DEPUTY HENDERSHOTT INVESTIGATED BY DOJ

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s mounting legal troubles with the feds in a story for  The Daily Beast. In a nutshell, two Department of Justice probes are moving fast — the first involves alleged civil rights abuses stemming from Sheriff Joe’s raids of Latino neighborhoods and workplaces; the second involves alleged retaliation against those who speak out against the sheriff, including journalists, judges and politicians. I quoted reputable attorneys who have battled the sheriff and  maintain the sheriff might get indicted.  To get the other side, I e-mailed the sheriff’s office several times. The sheriff’s official spokesman would not comment, but referred me to an attorney for the sheriff who did not return my call.
Now The Arizona Republic reveals that someone else was allegedly in the sheriff’s cross hairs — a deputy who dared contribute campaign money to a guy who was running against the sheriff. He was reportedly  Tased by another deputy while at a cemetery. No charges were filed in the internal investigation.
The Republic’s report, released today, indicates what many insiders have repeatedly told me. David Hendershott, Arpaio’s chief deputy, is allegedly behind much of the retribution and alleged abuse of power, like dead-end criminal investigations launched after the sheriff is criticized. A highranking member of Arpaio’s staff seeks an investigation of Hendershott for alleged abuse of power.
Here’s a video from the NBC affiliate Channel 12′s Kent Dana, a good reporter, on that allegation.

The sheriff, in the meantime, tooled off to New Hampshire, reportedly to polish his brand and get more campaign funds for his 2012 sheriff’s race. He had to dip into that treasure chest to bankroll TV commercials that blasted his arch-enemy County Attorney Rick Romley, who subsequently lost in the primary elections. And like  Sarah Palin, Arpaio  is a populist who’s more popular outside home state.

“To survive,” he’s fond of saying, “you’ve got to keep all your ducks in order, because everyone is after me.”

ARIZONA GOVERNOR SAYS SHE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SEALING OF SON’S CRIMINAL RECORD

Gov. Jan Brewer at a football luncheon.

I just came across a recent story in  The Arizona Guardian, a Phoenix newspaper. In the story, Brewer tells the Guardian that she had nothing to do with the sealing of her son Ron’s  criminal records. He was charged with kidnapping and sexual assault but ruled criminally insane and committed to a state-funded hospital for the seriously mentally ill. Two judges tell the Guardian that sealing such a case in its entirity was unusual.

The Arizona Republic and The Arizona Guardian were both sitting on the story, pending a legal fight between The Arizona Republic and Ron over publication of a story referencing the sealed court records, which reportedly included letters from family and friends.  Ron’s lawyer argued the records should not be unsealed, and cited prior restraint, according to the Guardian. The  Arizona Republic’s attorney, David Bodney (my former editor at Phoenix New Times) argued back that Ron was the son of an important public figure. Phoenix New Times (Bodney doesn’t work t here any more)  first came out with the story, but avoided the record-sealing arguments by going straight for the police report, which happens to be an unsealed public record.

Smart.

Here’s the Guardian story.

AN AWARD-WINNING NEWSPAPER REVEALS ARIZONA GOVERNOR JAN BREWER’S SON, RONALD, IS CRIMINALLY INSANE. WHY DOES HER POLITICAL RIVAL HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS?

True Confession: For months I have been off-and-on puzzling over  what to do about a sealed criminal court case involving Jan  Brewer’s kid, Ronald. The case was sealed right around the time Brewer, then secretary of state, was appointed governor to replace Janet Napolitano, now the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

I never got around to getting the police report, but Phoenix New Times  did. Here’s what the newspaper reported:  Phoenix Police said Ronald (he’s in his forties now) kidnapped and sexually assaulted  a woman in 1989. He was indicted, but judged criminally insane, and sent to a state-funded facility for the seriously mentally ill in Phoenix. He’s still there.

What’s important about this story is that Brewer as a public figure had long campaigned for  the mentally ill. Then she stopped campaigning so hard when she became governor, and the records about her  own son were sealed.

Earlier this summer,  I wrote about Brewer for  The Daily Beast. She  gave birth to three sons. One died. One is criminally insane.  The third is fine. At the time, I asked Doug Cole, Brewer’s campaign spokesman and a shrewd political strategist, about whether Brewer had a son who was mentally ill.  ”She has a family member in the system, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” He said this rather harshly.

Now I know why.

Back to the New Times story exposing the record-sealing — Democrat Terry Goddard, who is running against Brewer in the upcoming Arizona gubernatorial race, blasted the newspaper for writing about Ronald.

Truth is, this is a valid news story, because Brewer is a public figure who has used advocacy for the mentally ill as one of her feel-good causes. Then she became governor and the records on her own son were sealed.  Something else was sealed, too.

Jan Brewer’s heart.

This is now a legitimate question.