Earlier this week, I received an e-mail “alert” from a man named Eric Johnson, writing, as he put it, “for that Great American, Senator Russell Pearce.” Johnson wanted me to know that an immigration bill was zipping through the Arizona House of Representatives. The bill was, word-for-word, the same bill Russell Pearce had authored and successfully moved through the Arizona Senate a few weeks earlier.

I first ran into

Senator Russell Pearce last year, when he vowed at a press conference that he’d get his immigrant-trespassing bill passed in 2010. He called it the “safe neighborhoods” bill. It penalizes undocumented immigrants for setting foot in Arizona and turns cops into immigration enforcers.

True to his word, Pearce got a Senate Bill passed this year, and a similar House bill today sailed through the Arizona Legislature committee of the whole, and is set to be voted on tomorrow or later this week. It is called HB 2632. I sat in the balcony of the Arizona house today, surrounded by lobbyists who talked so loud it was hard to hear what the legislators said on the floor below us. I did notice Mexicans sitting with inscrutable expressions on their faces and a gaggle of yellow-shirted, Pearce fans dressed in yellow tee shirts.

I’d seen those shirts, and those faces, before.

Look at the pictures below, which I took during Pearce’s 2009 press conference.
Note three things.

First, note that Russell Pearce wears a yellow tee shirt

Second, note that his ally Sheriff Joe Arpaio stands nearby, and then takes the podium.

Third, note that the aging woman in yellow stands near a sign that says “illegal aliens” cost the state $400 million for uncompensated healthcare. I point out the sign because undocumented immigrants are banned from using state-funded healthcare.

The same lack of logic must have prompted Pearce to call his trespassing bill the “Safe Neighborhoods” bill — because critics say it would make neighborhoods less safe. It should, in fact, be called the Unsafe Neighborhoods bill.

Here’s why.

The proposed law, which should be voted on any day this week, will transform Arizona policemen into immigration enforcers, whether they like it or not, and these immigration cops will, like Sheriff Joe Arapio, neglect the solving of serious crimes, like rapes and murders, in order to arrest each and every undocumented immigrant in Arizona for “trespassing.”

Keep in mind that approximately 460,000 undocumented immigrants are thought to live in Arizona.

If the new immigration cops arrested even one-tenth of these men, women and children for trespassing on Arizona soil, the state would surely face expensive challenges in court because the immigration goons would almost certainly question, detain, and arrest people with brown skin who are American citizens. This of course, is already happening in Phoenix.
Beyond civil rights abuses, there’s the practical matter of, the expense of arresting 460,000 people in the face of severe budgetary problems.

Arizona faces the “second steepest budget decline” in the United States, according to The Arizona Republic.
Arizona’s leaders have already knocked more than 30,000 people (mostly little kids) off state-funded healthcare, sold state buildings and closed state parks and schools.

Yet those same budget slashers are set to vote this year on a largely unfunded law that would financially burden a state already crippled by the recession.

The promoters of the law say each immigrant will be forced to pay $500 and that will cover expenses.

But ask yourself whether the trespassers about to be deported are eagerly going to hand over $500.

Or if they even have such cash in the first place.

It’s not a practical solution.

Pearce is not a practical man, however, and he is not supported by practical men.

He is not supported by clear-headed conservatives or moderate Republicans. He is not supported by Democrats. He is not supported by the business community or the agricultural community or any other reasonable community.

He is supported instead, by national anti-migrant groups, a dwindling number of Arizonans who fear or hate Mexicans, the aging groupies dressed in yellow, and, finally, by Minutemen.

Or, at least a few Minutemen.

Pearce’s own son said at a hearing I attended last year that he is a Minuteman, and Pearce’s good friend and colleague in the senate, Al Melvin, judging from the last line on his resume, is also a Minuteman.

Minutemen aren’t just tea party gadflies on steroids. And they aren’t just retired military folks who’ve overstated illegal immigration threats so they can dress up in camouflage once again and drive around in quads and report to their command center about “illegals” invading America.

You may recall that a Minuteman splinter group was accused of slaughtering a nine-year-old child in Arivaca, Arizona. The trio says they are innocent, and await trial in Pima County Superior Court. According to police, they slaughtered he little girl and her dad in an effort to steal the dad’s marijuana stash so they could fund their operation to protect America from “illegals.”

Consider the logic of that plan.

Then consider the logic of Arizona legislators who just pleaded poverty and stripped tens of thousands of children off healthcare rolls and closed state parks and slashed school budgets and then turn around and vow to vote on a burdensome, expensive law that will mandate the arrest of 464,000 people for trespassing on Arizona soil.

What happened to all that concern about budget woes?

What happened to the logic?

I don’t have the answers to those questions.

You could get them from that Great American, Senator Russell Pearce, though, if you call him at the State Senate. Or, if you want, you could call Kirk Adams, who is the speaker of the Arizona House, the guy who just allowed the trespassing bill to pass through a committee so it could be voted on by the entire house, instead of keeping the bill in the committee and letting it die.

Or, maybe you could just call up a Minuteman.

But I have to.

First, though, here’s her picture.

Molly Molloy's photo by Richard Barron

You can see she’s standing next to border trash. She understands that just like everything else on the US-Mexico border, it means many things. It says many things.  It provokes  outrage, sorrow, curiosity.

It is part of an undocumented region.

Which brings us back to Molly Molloy,  a fifty-four year-old-librarian, historian,  journalist and writer.   She grew up in the American South, graduated from college, worked odd jobs, and then lived for almost two years in Latin America, where she became fluent in Spanish. (She’s really good at Spanish, so good that she’s served as a translator for a guy I think is one of the most clear thinking, talented, and honest writers in the Southwest– Charles Bowden.) In 1992, Molly Molloy became a librarian at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Las Cruces sits close to the Mexican border, near the Rio Grande River.  And it’s less than an hour’s drive from El Paso, Texas, which is just across the river from Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Where, according to Molly Molloy’s most recent dispatch, thirteen high school kids were massacred early this morning.

You see, Molly opens our eyes to such things via her Google group. It is called “Frontera List.”   If you join this group,  you will know what is happening at the U.S. Mexican Border from multiple perspectives. In  English.  In Spanish. From journalists, scholars, writers, victims, activists, migrants, Americans, Mexicans, and citizens of the world. Here’s the link:   http://groups.google.com/group/frontera-list?hl=en

Here’s a dispatch that Molly sent today. First she writes:

These stories were posted this morning at about 10 am, but I was on my way out toplay music at a church in Las Cruces.  The sermon and scripture today was all about LOVE–St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, verses 1-13…  Look it up. Many of you probably know it by heart like I do. I am certain I was the only person in the room to feel the power of the irony here.  It took the El Paso Times till about noon to post a link to the Reuters article.  See below. The massacre happened just after midnight, according to El Diario and Lapolaka.  I encourage you to look at the photos. Rivers of blood in the street outside of the house where the events took place. Follows my translation of the Diario article, the original, Reuters in English, and Lapolaka…  The photos are at the links. Also below, two other killings reported from late last night that are not included in the total for yesterday.  So, if it was 205 this morning, then it is now at least 220.  Note that of the injured in this automatic weapons fire, more will probably not survive and their deaths will probably not be reported.  molly

[Next, Molly translates some of the story from the Mexican newspaper of record, El Diario.]

http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.php?notaid=3eefbef53ec9362ca0516f9081ddf6a1
Students massacred in Villas de Salvarcar
Thirteen were killed and 8 injured in an armed attack carried out by a
group of individuals who arrived in 7 vehicles in the Villas de
Salvarcar neighborhood.
The majority of the victims are minors, students at two different
schools.
The attack occurred in the early hours of Sunday at the intersection
of Vista del Portal and Portal de Salvarcar, where a party was being
held.
Two other people died at the scene who were not part of the group and
had arrived on a motorcycle to buy sodas at a store next door to the
house where the massacre took place.
The injured were taken in private vehicles to social security clinic
66 located a few minutes from the scene. Of the 11 injured in all, 2
died inside the hospital and another outside–the last was semi-nude
as he had gone outside of the house when he heard the first shots.
Among the victims also is an adolescent who, it is said, was a witness
to a multiple homicide that occurred in the El Campanario neighborhood
a few days ago.
It is worth mentioning that the residents of the area nearly lynched
the soldiers and police who arrived at the scene of the crimes, as
they seemed to only hold up the investigations and also trampled on
the evidence at the crime scene.
The informants said that the attackers arrived in 7 vehicles, that
they used the vehicles to block the street, others kept guard while
others carried out the attack.

[Then Molly  posts links to the stories that document this horror.]

http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.php?notaid=3eefbef53ec9362ca0516f9081ddf6a1
Masacran a estudiantes en Villas de Salvárcar

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60U1CQ20100131
Gunmen kill 13 students at party in Mexico

http://lapolaka.com/2010/01/31/aberrante-masacre-estudiantil/
ABERRANTE MASACRE ESTUDIANTIL..!
http://lapolaka.com/2010/01/31/aberrante-masacre-estudiantil/
Descargado de Lapolaka.com © 2010

http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.php?notaid=7e327d360fdee704e8ad877ece1e0704
Asesinan a dos en distintos hechos

OK, now you see why I didn’t want to write about Molly  and her work. She is a treasure trove of story ideas for journalists covering the border.

But her work should be shared with the world, because many more than just selfish journalists yearn to know about the border – the deaths, the boondoggles, the drug cartels, the politics, the economics, the personal stories.

The varied experiences of life and death on the border are being erased faster than they can become known, studied and understood.

Molly wrote this on behalf of New Mexico State University Library to see if in this ongoing recession someone, somehow, someplace, can fund an archive at the library where a record of what is happening on the border  can be preserved, studied, and perhaps understood.

Because I can’t understand it now.

I can’t understand why thirteen high schoolers were gunned down in Juárez, right across the river from El Paso.

And if it weren’t for Molly Molloy, I wouldn’t even know it happened.

From time to time, I’ll post photos taken as I report and write my book. I recently shot this photo of a culvert on the Arizona-Sonora border. The heap  of plastic water bottles on the Sonora side indicates plenty of folks took advantage of the obvious. What do you think of the quality of this photo? I shot it with a video camera.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling