Showdown in Arizona, Where Mariachis and Minutemen Collide

[no name 1]

Editorial Observer

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

Published: December 10, 2007

PHOENIX — Want to see America unraveling? Come here, to Thomas Road and 35th Street, to M. D. Pruitt’s furniture store. Come on Saturday morning and stand near the eight delivery trucks barricading the parking lot, like the wall of an urban Alamo.

For the last seven weeks, a sidewalk protest here by Latino immigrants has blossomed into a feverish reality show, attracting Minutemen, mariachis, children dancing in Mexican folk costumes, white racists, United Nations observers, Phoenix police officers and Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies.

The weekly confrontation — strident and stalemated — perfectly mimics the national debate. But it’s a sideshow to something even uglier: what happens when immigration’s complexities are handed to local law enforcers sympathetic to the fury of one side.

Thomas Road has lots of Latino day laborers, or jornaleros, who hustle for work near Home Depot. A few months ago, the Phoenix police shooed them away. They dispersed to streets nearby, angering local businesses. One of the biggest, Pruitt’s, hired off-duty city police officers to keep jornaleros at bay. The city put a stop to that, so Pruitt’s turned to the county sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Joe, as he is known, needed no prodding: hunting undocumented immigrants is his specialty. He has arrested hundreds under a state antismuggling law (for smuggling themselves) and has had 160 officers deputized as federal immigration agents. They have made more than 50 arrests near Pruitt’s since the protests began.

They’ll pull a car over for a traffic infraction, then check everyone’s papers. They say they act on reasonable suspicion only — if they see a shirt or shoes like those worn south of the border or hear Spanish. They say it isn’t profiling.

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on. He has officers on Pruitt’s payroll, guarding the lot on protest days. Last week, he issued a news release demanding that the demonstrators stop hurting Pruitt’s and vowing to crank up the pressure until they went away. It was a naked attempt to stifle dissent and help a business ally.

People here are used to that from Sheriff Joe. He describes himself as “America’s meanest sheriff” and has recently been basking in the love of nativists like the Minuteman Chris Simcox and radio host Terry Anderson, who gushed over him at a roast in Sun City West this month.

If Arizona begins punishing companies that hire illegal workers under a state law that takes effect Jan. 1 — a lawsuit to block it was thrown out Friday — it will fall to counties to do the purge. In Maricopa, that means Sheriff Joe.

The protests at Pruitt’s are the only real opposition he has faced. Their leader is Salvador Reza, a stocky American of Mexican and Apache ancestry, an Air Force veteran who has spent years organizing jornaleros and small-business owners here.

Mr. Reza says he can’t understand why America accepts global flows of companies, money and jobs but not workers. Why faith in market forces seems to have been eclipsed by fear of immigrants. Or why the country cannot set up legal channels to let jornaleros come and go and not be hassled. “They actually are people with a work ethic that would make the Puritans proud,” he said.

Pruitt’s owner, Roger Sensing, says he needs armed officers to protect customers from jornaleros. Mr. Reza calls that ridiculous, and one informed noncombatant, the Rev. Craig Geiger, pastor of a Lutheran church across the street, agrees. He told me he had never seen a laborer enter Pruitt’s lot. He also said his Latino congregation did not drive to church anymore. Documented or not, they fear Sheriff Joe. They walk.

Pastor Geiger leaves the neighborhood on Saturdays, because it gets deafening. When I was there, a trio singing Mexican ballads strolled through the crush. A Minuteman with a bullhorn followed them. “Monkeys coming through!” he shouted. His side rushed up to drown the music out: “Born in the U.S.A.! Born in the U.S.A.! K.K.K.! Viva la Migra! January First!”

The restrictionists see Jan. 1 as the dawn of a new era, when the Mexicans disappear and everything gets pure and legal again. It is uncertain whether Arizona’s economy will survive the exodus. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state,” Mr. Reza told me.

source

[peejay 327]

The New York Times is clueless. They are too far away and don't have to live with it day in and day out. Idiots!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on.

Let me take a stab at this:

The Sheriff is on the side of the law. That's how it should be. I'd be concerned if he wasn't or if there was a doubt about that.

What makes this newsworthy? Do we not have enough Sheriff offices that are without a doubt on the side of the law?

So, now what? Outrage over a Sheriff's office doing what it is tasked to do?

It is uncertain whether Arizona’s economy will survive the exodus. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state,” Mr. Reza told me.[/i]

My gut feeling is that Mr. Reza is in for a surprise.

[no name 1]

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on.

Let me take a stab at this:

The Sheriff is on the side of the law. That's how it should be. I'd be concerned if he wasn't or if there was a doubt about that.

What makes this newsworthy? Do we not have enough Sheriff offices that are without a doubt on the side of the law?

So, now what? Outrage over a Sheriff's office doing what it is tasked to do?

It is uncertain whether Arizona’s economy will survive the exodus. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state,” Mr. Reza told me.[/i]

My gut feeling is that Mr. Reza is in for a surprise.

:dance: for January 1!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on.

Let me take a stab at this:

The Sheriff is on the side of the law. That's how it should be. I'd be concerned if he wasn't or if there was a doubt about that.

What makes this newsworthy? Do we not have enough Sheriff offices that are without a doubt on the side of the law?

So, now what? Outrage over a Sheriff's office doing what it is tasked to do?

It is uncertain whether Arizona’s economy will survive the exodus. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state,” Mr. Reza told me.[/i]

My gut feeling is that Mr. Reza is in for a surprise.

:dance: for January 1!

Damn straight. It's about time that all this fear mongering about collapsing economies is buried once and for all.

Let's hear it for the leadership of Arizona!

[peejay 327]

The Old South claimed they couldn't survive without slavery. Imagine that! Same as the idiots that claim they can't survive without massive illegal immigration. Maybe it's about time we find out how full of sh*t they are. And I'll bet the farm they are full of sh*t. Yes...I remember the days before illegal immigration was institutionalized as it is today. We lived quite well without it.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

The Old South claimed they couldn't survive without slavery. Imagine that! Same as the idiots that claim they can't survive without massive illegal immigration. Maybe it's about time we find out how full of sh*t they are. And I'll bet the farm they are full of sh*t. Yes...I remember the days before illegal immigration was institutionalized as it is today. We lived quite well without it.

Yup. The same type of idiots that defended slavery are defending illegal immigration. "We can't survive without the cheap labor". Cry me a river.

[trueimage 0]

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO

HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF

AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER

THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona ) who created the "tent city jail":

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but "G" movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails so he hooked up the cable TV again with only the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.

He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.

When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton -- If you don't like it, don't come back."

He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on tape that he pipes into the jails.

When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More on the Arizona Sheriff:

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before.

Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 year . "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!"

Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers' money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

"This isn't the Ritz/Carlton -- If you don't like it, don't come back."

"It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!"

Let's hear it for the Sheriff! :applause:

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I LOVE Sheriff Joe! Whadda man! Woo hoo!

[Empress of Groovy 373]

It's time for Sheriff Joe to hang it up. He's an egotistical publicity seeker whose policies have done nothing to lower crime rates in Phoenix. Treating people like animals (yes, I know they're convicted criminals) and subjecting them to appalling conditions do not transform them into good citizens. What he has created in Maricopa County is a gulag, and it's not working. He's had 15 years to do something, and he has failed miserably, spending a whole lot of (our) money to do it.

He is a master at self-publicity, I'll give him that. People know his name, and he has star power (well, a form of it, anyway). And the supposed liberal media give him lots of coverage.

Why do I live here again?

[pedroh 21]

Editorial Observer

They’ll pull a car over for a traffic infraction, then check everyone’s papers. They say they act on reasonable suspicion only — if they see a shirt or shoes like those worn south of the border or hear Spanish. They say it isn’t profiling.

source

oh is not???

ORLY?!

[almaty 19]

It's time for Sheriff Joe to hang it up. He's an egotistical publicity seeker whose policies have done nothing to lower crime rates in Phoenix. Treating people like animals (yes, I know they're convicted criminals) and subjecting them to appalling conditions do not transform them into good citizens. What he has created in Maricopa County is a gulag, and it's not working. He's had 15 years to do something, and he has failed miserably, spending a whole lot of (our) money to do it.

He is a master at self-publicity, I'll give him that. People know his name, and he has star power (well, a form of it, anyway). And the supposed liberal media give him lots of coverage.

Why do I live here again?

i agree.. a self centered chopf##k....

[pedroh 21]

how is a shirt or shoes worn south of the border look like??

not racial profiling?? LOLOLOL

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

how is a shirt or shoes worn south of the border look like??

not racial profiling?? LOLOLOL

Didn't you know Arizona has a dress code.