Immigration raid protest in Phoenix, AZ and Sheriff Joe Arpaio

This past Saturday, thousands of protesters demonstrated in Phoenix against recent immigration raids led by local Sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to the Reuters article covering the event:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has dispatched deputies into Hispanic communities in the Phoenix area where they stop people and arrest anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U.S. resident.

Under a deal allowing them to enforce federal immigration laws, the deputies have arrested more than 1,500 people whom they determined were in Arizona illegally.

Latino activists and lawmakers call his program a clear case of racial profiling because only people who look Hispanic are targeted. Arpaio steadfastly denies the charge.

Earlier this month, he stirred more controversy when he marched 220 illegal immigrants in shackles and striped prison garb through Phoenix under armed guard.

The word "unsentenced" was printed on their prison garb assuming their guilt even before their trials and paraded in front of TV cameras to a tent city encircled by an electric fence. So much for innocent until proven guilty under American law.

The NY Times labeled the stunt a "degrading spectacle," in an editorial in early February, orchestrated by Sheriff Arpaio "the publicity-obsessed star of a Fox reality show and the self-appointed scourge of illegal immigrants." He's facing a federal investigation for possible civil rights violations. But the Times aptly notes that, Sheriff "is not an isolated rogue":

As a participant in the federal policing program called 287(g), he is an official partner of the United States government in its warped crackdown on illegal immigration.

These immigration raids, which began under the Bush administration, have wreaked havoc on immigrant communities across the country. A report called "Over-Raided, Under Siege" released in January 2008 by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee examining the federal policing program, concluded that the "Department of Homeland Security is leading a new type of assault on the rights, lives and wellbeing of immigrant families, workers and communities in the United States" which subjects them to a "distinct form of 'collective punishment.' " Such treatment of immigrants has gotten international attention and increasingly tarnishes any American claim to human rights leadership globally.

One of the groups organizing the protest in Phoenix was National Day Laborers Organizing Network has built a campaign targeting Arizona for a "coordinated national intervention" to not only help out those immigrants suffering under these raids but to "to help scaffold efforts to achieve broader federal immigration reform goals":

Maricopa County, Arizona: Ground Zero

Immigrants’ rights are under unprecedented assault across the country, but nowhere more so than in Arizona. The infamous Sensenbrenner legislation never needed to pass to achieve its desired effects. The very ideas contained within the bill that brought millions of people onto the streets in protest have become the reality in Arizona, where immigrants have been dehumanized.

In Phoenix, the fifth largest city in America, the “attrition strategy” has been taken to extreme and dangerous levels. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has become the public face of ICE’s experimental and dangerous 287(g) program which devolves federal immigration enforcement responsibilities to willing local law agencies.

Sheriff’s deputies roam the streets in black ski masks, separating children from their parents during routine traffic stops. People with known relationships to white supremacist organizations direct law enforcement activity. Vigilantes deputized as part of an official “posse program” raid government buildings with assault weapons and attack dogs to chase down suspected janitors. And last week, the nation witnessed the ritual humiliation of migrants in a spectacle evocative of some of the most horrific episodes of human history.

In Phoenix, the idea that immigrants are “Illegal” has metastasized. The proposition is no longer just that immigrants should be deprived of rights, have less ability to form unions, not be allowed to send their kids to school, and be denied basic services. What is now being tested before is the country is whether those deemed to be “Illegal” are worthy of punishment.

They are asking people to do the following things to support their campaign:
1) Hold local teach-ins to raise awareness about the crisis in Arizona, and raise funds to support local efforts.

(2) Join us in Phoenix on February 27 and 28th for a national gathering and peaceful demonstration.

(3) Sign a petition to request the Department of Justice to investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

(4) Call you Congressperson and let her or him know that we can not let our country become like Arizona.