Project Economic Refugee

Check out this satirical take on Arizona’s SB 1070 authoritarian police law:

What do you think?

Side note: if you’d like Project Economic Refugee to feature one of your videos, shoot us an e-mail-just click on the “Contact” tab of this blog.

• Via Politico.com: looks like instead of immediately deporting them, Republican Gubernatorial candidate wants Arizona to keep economic refugees in tents; no word for how long.
• Arizona’s Brown Codes: A Generation’s Fight – By Kent Paterson: “Taken together, the Arizona laws resemble the Black Codes passed in the U.S. South immediately after the Civil War.” Read more here.    
• Boston.com has these dramatic pictures of the recent Central American natural disasters and reports the following: “In just the past seven days, residents of Guatemala and parts of neighboring Honduras and El Salvador have had to cope with a volcanic eruption and ash fall, a powerful tropical storm, the resulting floods and landslides, and a frightening sinkhole in Guatemala City that swallowed up a small building and an intersection.”  Sign this petition to ask the U.S. government to grant Guatemalans Temporary Protected Status.
• The Christian Science Monitor has this revealing analysis of President Obama’s own “misguided” immigration policy: the so-called “Secure Communities” program.  The piece states:

…a little-noticed federal enforcement program known as “Secure Communities” deserves greater national attention.

As with Arizona’s recent law, it is susceptible to racial profiling and a lack of due process in the jailing and deportation of illegal aliens. It’s a program that has potentially far-reaching consequences if not properly managed. In the rush to tackle immigration, and in the wrong hands, it could turn into a mass deportation program.

The program is intended to target “criminal aliens” – undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of serious felonies like rape, murder, or even immigrant smuggling, and who are already serving time in jail. It’s not meant to be used in routine law enforcement against persons stopped for traffic violations or accused of lesser crimes who later turn out to be illegal aliens.

But the federal government’s own data suggests that this is exactly what’s occurring.

• Boston.com: A 19-year-old Harvard biology student, who has been in the United States unlawfully since he was 4 years old, was detained at a Texas airport this week and is now fighting deportation to his native Mexico.  Read the story here.  Here’s the Facebook group in support of Eric, the Harvard student that Boston.com refers to.
• Police and Border Patrol agents detained U.S. citizens and legal residents along with illegal immigrants in 1997. Many fear the new law will make history repeat itself.  Read this L.A. Times piece.

• The AFL-CIO and the nation’s largest civil rights coalition issued a strongly worded call for the Obama administration to sever its ties with law enforcement officials in Arizona.  Drop them a comment in support here.
• 4 undocumented youth have staged a sit-in at John McCain’s office urging him and Congress to pass the Dream Act now.  Check out this TwitPic that was posted as it happened.  The students were later arrested and put on deportation proceedings.
• Marielena Hincapie’s Huffington Post column explains why the National Immigration Law Center and its allies filed their lawsuit against Arizona’s SB 1070.
• Show your support for Jessica Colotl’s struggle to remain in the U.S. to finish her college education by voting on these two polls: wsbtv.com & Fox5.
• Several members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors introduced a resolution asking law enforcement to opt-out of the dangerous police-ICE collaboration program which is so disingenuously called the “Secure Communities” program.
• President Obama’s Organizing for America wants to hear the stories of those who voted for the first time in 2008.  Please forward this link to those who voted for the first time with immigration reform in mind.
• The SEIU recently sent this e-mail asking the following question: Who benefits from our broken, enforcement – heavy Immigration policies?  Check out this graphic and this video that shows who are the people that benefit.  Last year, there was over $1.7 billion in revenue – 40% of it from contracts with ICE, US Marshals Office, and Federal Bureau of Prisons – and a large portion of that work was immigration related.
• It looks like Mr. Cafferty is trying to pick up where Lou Dobbs left off at CNN.  He has published a few anti-immigrant blog posts using lines like these: But when one of our states that is being ravaged by the presence of 460,000 illegal aliens inside its borders does something about it, the president says that’s “misguided.”
• Rhode Island State Rep. Palumbo has introduced a bill that is similar to Arizona’s authoritarian police law.
• Amazingly, the President of FAIR (an organization with ties to white supremacists) Dan Stein is scheduled to appear On Democratic Party Panel.
• Michelle Obama Talks Immigration with 2nd Graders; Mrs. Obama was having a little problem explaining to a little girl why Obama is deporting so many people. The little girl then reveals to her that her mom doesn’t have papers.  DIGG the story.
• Protesters, many of them college students, rallied outside the downtown Orlando office of Sen. George LeMieux to call for his support of two immigration reform bills lingering in Congress without enough votes for passage.
• Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun (AH’-oon) has endorsed a federal proposal that would allow undocumented college students a pathway to permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.
• Check out this opinion piece from Cesar Chavez’s long time press aid.  The Tea Party folks should not be able to use Cesar Chavez as a symbol of anti-immigration!

On the race for California’s next governor, Project Economic Refugee previously exposed Steve Poizner for all his poisonous rhetorical attacks on immigrants, economic refugees, and by extension on Latinos and other minorities. Meanwhile, Meg Whitman, his opponent in the Republican June 8 primary, has been particularly slick on the way her campaign has handled the issue.  She has proven that she certainly knows on which channels she should air her anti-immigrant messages and on which ones she should not: she has shown relative restraint on her T.V. ads but has let loose on the radio, unlike Steve Poizner who to his own political peril has gone all out with his blame-the-immigrants messages on T.V. where you unavoidely reach a more complex political spectrum. 

A marketing expert, Meg Whitman has shown she has definitely done her P.R. homework by airing her own anti-immigrant rhetoric via a virtual focus on the radio.  This would make strategic sense for her, since radio tends to be dominated by conservatives because of corporate monopolies favoring right-wing hate speech. Radio has definitely allowed her to be as sneaky and as anti-immigrant as she chooses to be, avoiding alineating Latino and other minorities that have strong connections to the immigrant experience should she go all out on immigrants on T.V. as well.

In fact, she has decided to go after immigrants on the radio in a blaze of glory, featuring none other but the infamous Pete Wilson, the former Governor of California, who after his unabashed support for that state’s Proposition 187 in the 90′s, became the hero of anti-immigrant rhetoric and bigots all over California. Meg Whitman first started slow, focusing on having Pete Wilson do a subtle endorsement of her policies without actually mentioning the topic of immigration.  Take a listen:

Here’s the transcript of the ad (via Meg Whitman’s own site):

ANNOUNCER: Former Governor of California Pete Wilson.

PETE WILSON: What has happened to California? Our taxes are too high, other states are stealing our jobs and government is California’s growth industry. This year we must elect a governor who has created thousands of jobs in the private sector, not government. A governor with a courage to make tough decisions and to say no to the spenders in the legislature.

Meg Whitman is the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, who is up to the challenge. Meg isn’t a politician. Her experience is making payrolls, not excuses. And she’s committed to rebuilding California by creating jobs, cutting spending and making our schools work. Some say California is ungovernable. Well, I know better. You bet California can be fixed with the right gutsy leader. And her name is Meg Whitman.

MEG WHITMAN: It’s time for A New California. Share your ideas and read my plan at TalkToMeg.com.

ANNOUNCER: Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010.

Then upon deciding not to be outdone by Poizner, she went all out with unleashing Pete Wilson, borrowing from his rhetoric and doing what conservatives do best: reducing the issue to their typical mantra of “they’re just illegals”:

Here is a transcript of the ad (also via Meg Whitman’s own website):

Announcer: Meg Whitman on illegal immigration.

Meg Whitman: Don’t be fooled by misleading ads, my position on immigration is crystal clear. Illegal immigrants are just that, illegal. I am 100 percent against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Period. As Governor, I will crack down on so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco who thumb their nose at our laws. Illegal immigrants should not expect benefits from the state of California. No driver’s license and no admission to state-funded institutions of higher education. And I’ll create an economic fence to crack down on employers who break the law by using illegal labor.

Pete Wilson: This is former Governor Pete Wilson. I know how important it is to stop illegal immigration and I know Meg Whitman. Meg will be tough as nails on illegal immigration. She’ll fight to secure our border and go after sanctuary cities. Please join me in supporting Meg Whitman for Governor.

Announcer: Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010. Meg2010.com.

Steve Poizner, once again being his awkward and short-sighted self, has chosen to be even more flamboyant for his hatred of immigrants by actually launching an ad that cheers Arizona’s new racist authoritarian police law:

…and where is the Democratic Party candidate, Jerry Brown on all this, you might ask? You might expect he’d be recording both of Meg Whitman’s radio ads and Steve Poizner’s T.V. ones and use them against either one of them in the general election in Spanish and Asian language T.V. channels.  Well, don’t hold your breath:  Jerry Brown has chosen to hide behind a slogan of “centrist” and boring rhetoric.  Via an interview he gave with the San Francisco Chronicle:

• Major League Baseball Player’s Association condemned Arizona’s misguided, mean-spirited new immigration law.
• David Frum, former assistant to President W. Bush actually argues that Latinos are inferior immigrants in a piece published by CNN.
• More proof that the people behind Arizona’s authoritarian immigration law have extremists tendencies: Group behind Arizona Law SB1070 Endorses Armed Militia.
• The Marietta Daily Journal asks the following question on an online poll: “Should Georgia enact an immigration reform law like Arizona’s?”  Last time checked, the responses were 54% “no” and 46% “yes”.  To vote, visit their site here.
• DIGG this story: Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas is open to working on immigration reform;  ”he told La Opinion that he is open to discussing the bill with Schumer and other Democrats, so long as the White House makes a commitment to leading on the issue”.
• President Obama told a White House reception Wednesday that he wants “to begin work this year” on comprehensive immigration reform, warning the audience that securing the legislation will be difficult but possible.  Read the analysis on America’s Voice’s DailyKos Diary.
• Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, joining the City Council in registering strong objections to the tough new immigration laws in Arizona, said [...] that he will consider canceling city contracts with firms based in the state that agree with the crackdown.
• New York Senator Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer asking her to delay Arizona’s new authoritarian immigration law until U.S. Congress addresses immigration reform.  Brewer flatly denied Schumer’s request.
• In a piece [published on The Progressive magazine] that connects Asian Americans, college students, and people with disabilities to the issue of immigration reform, Angela Kim writes from the perspective of a student leader at AKASIA, a group organized at the Korean Resource Center as part of a growing movement of directly impacted people who would benefit from changes in immigration law and from a better national understanding of how the current policies damage us as individuals, families and communities.

 Arizona Republicans pulled a suicide pistol on their political careers by passing such racist unconstitutional and therefore anti-America law. These politicians and their allies in the Tea Party crowd are about to get a lesson on what a real rally looks like.   

So where is your city going to be meeting to rally against racist authoritarian police laws (like Arizona’s), and demand immigration reform?

In Downtown Los Angeles, there’ll be a big meeting point on the corner of Broadway and Olympic at 10:00am and will end with a rally at Broadway and Temple.

Here’s a map plotting planned marches (via reformimmigrationforamerica.org) across the United States; you can also see their running list here.

Here’s another working list (via immigrantsolidarity.org) of rallies and meetings points across the nation.

Articles:

Reuters: Arizona immigrant law energizes Hispanics, Democrats

New America Media: After Arizona, 100,000 Expected for LA’s May Day March

CNN: Group plans protests for immigrants’ rights in 39 cities Saturday

Now that Governor Brewer has signed SB1070 into law, there’s been a lot of talk in the past few days about boycotting Arizona (besides the protests, the lawsuits, and the election consequences that are sure to come down on those that supported the law).  However, in order for a boycott to be truly effective, it needs to be as targeted as possible to maximize impact.  I recommend the boycott start with targeting those companies that donated to the politicians that voted to pass the law in the first place. 

Here’s the list of Senators and their district numbers that voted YES (via the AZ legislature website; click on their names to find out who were the major funders of their last election campaigns):


Sylvia Allen (R-5)
David Braswell (R-6)
Chuck Gray (R-19)
Jack W. Harper (R-4)
Barbara Leff (R-11)
Al Melvin (R-26)
Russell Pearce (R-18)
Jay Tibshraeny (R-21)
Ed Bunch (R-7)
Linda Gray (R-10)
John Huppenthal (R-20)
Steve Pierce (R-1)
Thayer Verschoor (R-22)
Frank Antenori (R-30)
Ron Gould (R-3)
John Nelson (R-12)
Robert “Bob” Burns (R-9)

Notice that they were all Republican.  In fact, the only Republican to vote “No” was:

Carolyn S. Allen (R-8)

Here’s the list of those that voted for it and their district numbers in the AZ House or Representatives (via Project Vote Smart; also click on their names to find out who were the major funders of their last election campaigns):

Rep. Lucy Mason (R-1), Rep. Andrew Tobin Sr. (R-1), Rep. Doris Goodale (R-3), Rep. Nancy McLain (R-3), Rep. Tom Boone (R-4), Rep. Judy Burges (R-4), Rep. Bill Konopnicki (R-5), Rep. Amanda Reeve (R-6), Rep. Carl Seel (R-6), Rep. Ray Barnes (R-7), Rep. Nancy Barto (R-7), Rep. John Kavanagh (R-8), Rep. Michele Reagan (R-8), Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-9), Rep. Rick Murphy (R-9), Rep. Doug Quelland (R-9), Rep. James Weiers (R-9), Rep. Adam Driggs (R-11), Rep. Steve Montenegro (R-12), Jerry Weiers (R-12), Rep. Cecil Ash (R-18), Rep. Steve Court (R-18), Rep. Kirk Adams (R-19), Rep. Rich Crandall (R-19), Rep. John McComish (R-20), Rep. Warde Nichols (R-21), Rep. Steven Yarbrough (R-21), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-22), Rep. Laurin Hendrix (R-22), Rep. Frank Pratt (R-23), Rep. Russell Jones (R-24), Rep. David Stevens (R-25), Rep. Vic Williams (R-26), Rep. David Gowan (R-30), Rep. Ted Vogt (R-30).

As you can see, all were Republicans on the House side.  So in summary the only Republican to vote “No” in the whole Arizona state congress was Senator Carolyn Allen.

Update: it seems that the focus right now is in how this law will lead to unprecedented racial profiling. While that is important to point out, the topic of how this law will probably lead to an increase in crime rates is getting lost in the media coverage.  When you talk about this with your friends, be sure to point out how this law will destroy the Arizona police’s ability to work with the immigrant community to report and combat crime because all trust between the two parties will be destroyed.

Update # 2: well surprise surprise; it appears that the people behind this new authoritarian law have even more wicked intentions having to do with voter suppression, aka election fraud.  Thom Hartmann interviewed Greg Palast today (April 26) on this and this is what Mr. Palast had to report on the matter:

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote — and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

It appears that not only does the Republican Party in Arizona want to incarcerate economic refugees, aka “undocumented workers”, but they also want to intimidate Latino U.S. citizens into not voting by making them afraid, accusing them of being “illegal” with the threat of putting them in jail.  This new law basically makes it legal to intimidate Latinos at the voting booth come the next election.  Read the rest of Palast’s report here.

Update # 3: (thanks to NamelessGenXer in this comment section)

…here’s a list of “bigger than just AZ” entities that have contributed to the formation of the Arizona Gestapo:

WELLS FARGO
COX COMMUNICATIONS
HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL
BURLINGTON NORTHERN SANTA FE RAILWAY
SAFEWAY
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS
SOUTHWEST GAS
PFIZER
ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR
FARMERS INSURANCE GROUP
WESTERN GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NAIOP (aka the Commercial Real Estate Development Association)

Update #4: looks like Project Economic Refugee is not the only one calling for the boycott to be as targeted as possible.  Reform Immigration for America just sent out a request to its members to target the following companies:

To join Reform Immigration for America’s campaign to be as targeted as possible on the boycott of Arizona, visi this link.

In case you haven’t heard, the Arizona state legislature just passed a new law that will force the police to go after economic refugees (aka “undocumented immigrants”), even when that state’s Association of Chiefs of Police actually opposes this; therefore destroying any sort of confidence or working relations that the police might’ve had with the Latino and other immigrant communities in reporting and fighting crimes in Arizona. 


The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has issued the following statement, which encapsulates our emotions on this:

For Immediate Release / Please Distribute 
 
Contact: Marco Loera, 602-373-3859 and
 
newman@ndlon.org
 
Date: April 13, 2010
 
The following is a statement by Chris Newman, Legal Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network:
 
“Arizona is on the verge of enacting the most anti-immigrant legislation the country has seen in a generation. We are hopeful Governor Brewer will consult with her legal counsel, issue a veto, and spare Arizona the expense of defending an unconstitutional, unwise, and odious bill in federal courts. Arizona has long been a laboratory for anti-immigrant experimentation, and its demagogue leaders have become folk heros for white supremacists throughout the United States, but this bill ushers in a new chapter of disgrace for the state that resisted celebrating the life of Martin Luther King.”

This new Arizona legislation could become law as early as next week!  Here’s what you can do to help stop it (via the UFW):

1. Arizona’s Governor Brewer has not responded to any of the tweets that have been sent to her asking her to veto SB 1070. However, she is tweeting on other stuff and she just tweeted, “Don’t forget to sign up to be a fan on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GovJanBrewer.”

So, join her fan page and leave a wall message asking her to “say NO to racial profiling by vetoing the SB1070!”

2. You can also sign the UFW’s twitter petition by tweeting the following message:
petition @GovBrewer Veto AZ’ SB1070. Say NO to racial profiling. http://act.ly/1wg RT to sign #actly #ufw
 
[The petition to Arizona’s Governor was actually the #2 tweet of the week at one point].
 
3. Call the Governor’s office at: 1800-253-0883 or 602-542-4331.
4. TAKE ACTION. The UFW has an action alert up on this that sends a fax to the governor asking her to veto this bill at http://action.ufw.org/az410

Update # 1: CREDO Action has sent out this action alert to 21,000 members in Arizona. In less than two hours, they generated 623 faxes to the governor’s office! 

Here is the direct link to the fax action.  Below is the email that was sent out:

Tell Gov. Jan Brewer: Stand up for civil rights and veto SB 1070
Don’t let Arizona become a police state. 

Dear [friend],

Yesterday, we received an email from our friends at the United Farm Workers. They wanted to alert us to a chilling new Arizona law that has been passed by the legislature and will soon land on the desk of Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.

If signed into law, the bill would create a unique and frightening police state within Arizona’s borders. A state where anyone who forgets to carry identification or papers proving immigration status could be picked up by police. A state where someone who appears to be a Latino or speaks English with an accent will be at constant risk of being stopped and interrogated by police.

It’s up to Gov. Jan Brewer to put a stop to this law. Send a message today urging her to veto the bill.

As Alessandra Soler Meetze, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, says, “A lot of U.S. citizens are going to be swept up in the application of this law for something as simple as having an accent and leaving their wallet at home.”

And its not just the Arizona ACLU and civil rights groups that are raising the alarm. The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes the bill because it will deter immigrants who are witnesses to crimes from coming forward and helping police.

Not only does the bill make it a misdemeanor not to carry proper immigration paperwork in Arizona. It would also require police officers to demand verification of immigration status whenever they have “reasonable suspicion” that someone is undocumented. Under current state law, officers can inquire about immigration status if an individual is a suspect in another crime, but the wholesale racial profiling required by SB 1070 is not condoned.

Gov. Jan Brewer has not taken a public stand on SB 1070. She needs to hear from us that we expect her to stand up for civil rights and veto SB 1070. Send her a fax today!

Thank you for standing up for civil liberties.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Update # 2: in case you haven’t been paying attention to Arizona’s growing authoritarian trends towards terrorizing the Latino community, check out what Rep. Luis Gutierrez just published on Huffington Post.

It is open season on the Latino community in Arizona. In Phoenix, Tucson, and across the state, people in Latino neighborhoods are afraid to leave their houses, afraid to be apart from their children for even a minute, and afraid to walk the streets because they feel their arrest on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant could happen at any moment. It is a horrifying glimpse at what our future holds across the country if we continue down the path the Obama administration is leading us on immigration.

This week, we saw how destructive things are getting. The combination of a harsh piece of anti-immigrant legislation advancing in the Arizona legislature and a massive, well-publicized federal enforcement action against a broad human smuggling network has sent the unmistakable message to Arizona’s one million immigrants and two million Hispanics: there is a target on your backs and authorities are coming after you.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Update # 3: just got word of the following.

Since Thursday, CREDO members in Arizona have sent 1991 faxes to Gov. Brewer. [They're] hoping to be at 2,000 by Monday morning.

The UFW’s advocacy campaign at http://action.ufw.org/page/speakout/az410 has generated 4,845 faxes from folks to Gov. Brewer.
 
[Their] Act.ly twitter petition at http://act.ly/1wg is at 153 tweet that have been re-tweeted to 68,897 followers.  It is the # 1 act.ly twitter petition campaign of the month in “who’s in the hot seat”.  If you have not yet signed it, you can by tweeting the following message out:  

petition @GovBrewer Veto AZ’ SB1070. Say NO to racial profiling. http://act.ly/1wg RT to sign #actly #ufw

If you make changes it’s important to keep the @GovBrewer and the http://act.ly/1wg RT to sign or to take action directly from http://act.ly/1wg or the signs won’t count towards the total.
 
…and for a while the front of the Gov.’s facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/GovJanBrewer was covered w/anti SB1070 comments.  **this is no longer true.  Currently her supporters have put up a lot of comments encouraging her to sign the bill, so now might be a good time to post more comments asking her to veto it.

Update # 4: Adam Luna over at America’s Voice sent this great e-mail to his organization’s supporters asking ”do I look undocumented to you?”

Remember Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who paraded immigrants in shackles through Phoenix to a tent city in the desert? The renegade sheriff who is being investigated by the Justice Department for racial profiling?

I’m sorry to say that the Arizona legislature has passed a bill that would tell every police officer in the state to do their jobs just like Sheriff Joe: stopping anyone who “looks” like they could be undocumented — or risk getting sued. It’s pretty horrifying.

The bill has made it past the Arizona legislature, but the governor has the power to stop it. Help us make the case!

Please sign the petition to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer asking her to veto this bill now:

http://www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org/Veto

The question is: who judges what an undocumented immigrant “looks” like? Do I “look” undocumented just because I have brown skin, eat guacamole, and listen to Carlos Santana? Do you? I’m sorry, but that’s called racial profiling. That’s discrimination, period.

Police chiefs across the country are already speaking out against the bill, S.B. 1070, which they say will ruin trust with local communities. Tracking down real criminals gets even tougher when witnesses are afraid to come forward and report crime. The Arizona ACLU has come out strongly against it, citing major privacy concerns.

Time is short to stop this unconstitutional bill, so we will hand-deliver your petitions to the Governor early next week alongside major civil rights organizations and our partners in Arizona. We have a chance to stop it, but only if we raise our voices now.

Tell Governor Brewer to veto this awful, un-American bill:

http://www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org/Veto

It’s time for real, federal reform that brings our immigration system back under control.

Thanks for raising your voice to stop this madness and helping to spread the word.

Adam Luna
America’s Voice

Update # 5: looks like police unions, chiefs, and cops are starting to speak out against this legislation because they recognize it will impair their ability to do their jobs-going after actual criminals.  Via the EastValleyTribune.com:

Calling it an “unfunded mandate,” East Valley police departments are concerned about their ability to enforce a sweeping immigration bill that could be passed by the Arizona Legislature as early as this week. […] 

Police unions representing the rank-and-file officers, although not opposed to the bill, believe it could create manpower challenges during a time of budget reductions and are also concerned about potential lawsuits the law could bring, according to Bryan Soller, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Mesa Lodge’s No. 9, which represents 600 officers.

“If we’re getting hammered with calls, is a misdemeanor (trespassing by an illegal immigrant) more important than a stabbing or shooting?” Soller said. “No. The problem with this law is that it’s an unfunded mandate and could eat up a lot of manpower and cost a lot of money.”

You can read more and digg that story here.

Update # 6: to keep informed about all that is going on regarding immigration policy in Arizona, stop by altoarizona.com.

Looks like the bigotmen aka “Minutemen” National group has disbanded.  Via Allvoices.com:

Border Action Network, an Arizona human rights organization that works on the border is not surprised by the recent news. “There has been a growing disconnect from the national and the local Minutemen chapters,” explains Jennifer Allen, the group’s Executive Director.

The Border Action Network notes the local groups’ increasingly aggressive and hostile membership base. In one incident of alleged aggressive membership behavior, Washington State Minutemen chapter members, Shawna Forde and Jason Bush, are charged with murdering a Latino father and daughter in rural Arivaca, AZ in June 2009. They are expected to go on trial later this year.

“The national was getting absorbed into the political fights with candidates and lobbying while the local groups continue to attract fringe extremists that are attracted to the paramilitary culture and hate groups.”

Be sure to promote this story by “digging” it here.