Senate Bill 1070,  Arizona’s contentious immigration law, is about to take effect July 29. As immigrants decide whether to hightail it out of Phoenix, the Mexican government, The American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Cvil Liberties Union, and many other groups  seek to bar the law from taking effect on constitutional grounds in federal court in Arizona.

So the dust hasn’t cleared in Phoenix.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, the dust hasn’t cleared on my website, either. We’re slowly working on the redesign, but we wanted to keep it  up so think of it as a remodel job.

Stay tuned.

My book, ILLEGAL, Life and Death in Arizona’s Immigration War Zone, [Globe Pequot Press/ Lyons] is due out July 1, and already some wonderful bloggers are giving it some attention. Carmen in the Arid Zone gives the book a thumbs up, and not just because her name is indexed between “cocaine and coyote.” Ted Hesson of Long Island Wins runs an excerpt  and  generous critique in this post. And the Spar and Bernstein blog also was kind enough to mention the book.

With deepest gratitude, and …..

…..stay tuned!

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.