Rep. Luis Gutierrez: Obama Must Act To Ease Arizona's Deportation Panic

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.

President Obama, who promised immigration reform but has failed to make it a priority or use his office to make good on his campaign promises, is now able to see what lies ahead. The Obama administration has escalated mass deportation as our singular approach to immigrants and this has combined in Arizona with anti-immigrant hysteria that is festering to the point that state and local elected opportunists are taking matters into their own hands - with complete federal acquiescence.

We are now deporting people at a rate of 1,000 per day -- with nearly half of the arrests in the state of Arizona -- and now the state legislature is on the verge of escalating that pace dramatically. A law (SB 1070) that passed the state House this week and is probably headed to Governor's desk for signature, authorizes state and local police to round up anyone "suspected" of being an undocumented immigrant. As if that weren't bad enough, the law throws in a bounty of $500 in fines and a possible misdemeanor conviction on criminal trespassing if the particular lawman involved happens to guess correctly and the person they arrest cannot prove they are here legally.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/obama-must-act-to-ease-ar_b_541710.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126076745

A white supremacist group rallied against illegal immigration in downtown Los Angeles Saturday as hundreds of counter-protesters gathered to shout them down in a tense standoff that included several arrests, thrown rocks and police in riot gear. Police officers stood between the white supremacists and counter-demonstrators on the south lawn of Los Angeles' City Hall, where about 50 members of the National Socialist Movement waved American flags and swastika banners for about an hour.

The white supremacists, many of them wearing flack helmets and black military fatigue uniforms, shouted "Sieg Heil" before each of their speakers took the podium to taunt counter-protesters with racial, anti-Semitic and misogynistic epithets. "We will meet you head on," one of the white supremacists, whose name could not be made out over the fuzzy public address system, warned the crowd from behind several phalanxes of police in riot gear.

Members of the Detroit-based group said they picked the location for their rally because of Los Angeles' large immigrant population. They accused some of the immigrants of stealing jobs and committing crimes.

Group members also said they were reacting to the recent number of street marches across the country encouraging legislators to enact reform that includes amnesty for some illegal immigrants. National Socialist Movement regional director Jeffrey Russell Hall announced that the group would begin backing political candidates who agreed with their anti-immigrant message.

punish employer who hire illegals. It would be fairly easy but we won't because we need illegals who are willing to work shit jobs for shit wages.

Arizona may find that they drive business from their state has happened when they tried to stop illegal immigration in slaughterhouses. The owners of the slaughterhouses told the governor of the state that was trying to crack down they would move to another state taking tax revenue and "legal" jobs with them.

Could be very good for states around AZ.

One can always predict odious "legislation" to pop up close to an election..

Republicans excel at Brier Patch Politics. They know all the levers to pull. They hope to add immigration scuffles for democrats. They know that Mexican Americans & their non-American brethren are in support of democrats, so this is a win win for republicans..

They force the hand of democrats who must step up...and then label the ones who don't, as cowards.

This is why they always dust off their pet-outrages & take them off the shelves every few years..

they know they cannot "succeed", but they have to appear to be tough on immigration in order to get their racist, xenophobic buddies to go vote..and of course if the piss off enough democrats, they won't vote..

They use:
guns
abortion
immigration
taxes
vouchers/charters etc


We all know where everyone stands on all these issues,. and nothing is to be gained from re-re-re-re-re-hashing them all for the umpteen-millionth time, but we always do..

republicans had the WH, the congress the Scotus, and had them all for many years, and yet they did not "do" anything about any of these issues (to the satisfaction of their voters)...why?

because having the unresolved issue is their vote-getting machine.

They really don;t want immigration to be "solved", because it serves their purpose to run around acting tough..and if they ever reached their goals, who would mind their kids, cook their food, fix their lawns, wash their cars , roof their houses, grow their food?

Cheap labor has always ruled in the US.. The British "used" the early settlers, then we "graduated" to slavery, imported Chinese men (but forbade them the right to bring wives), then we imported Irish, Slavic, Russian & Italian people. we are addicted to cheap labor, so after the sabre rattling dies down , post-election, things will go back to the way they always have been.. poor people coming here to be taken advantage of, in exchange for the hope of their own american dream..someday..

Check out Europe now, much less in the 1930's. While Europeans have created a much more progressive society than the US, far-right parties have gained ground in elections in the past couple of years - most recently in Hungary. The extreme right BNP and UKIP are poised to win seats in the UK parliament for the first time in May elections.

It's always easy to sell the idea that it is "their" fault. If we just get rid of "them", you life will be much better.

Of course the elites that want to pit "us" versus "them (immigrants, Blacks, gays, etc.)" can sit back and smile when we spend our energy fighting with "them" rather than with the elites and "the man behind the curtain."