Part 1: The Diabolical Hate Plot.
SB1070 drew national attention not solely because of the passage of SB 1070 but mostly from it’s protracted and aggressive war on migrant communities. A whole set of characters and protagonists motivated by hate and scapegoating have led to human rights abuses in Arizona for years. Arizona is a place where doctrines of hate are imported from white supremacist think tanks like FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and IRLI (Immigration Reform Law Institute) and promoted by private prison corporations and passed by politicians with ties to racist organizations.
Hate mongering politicians in Arizona are more than just demagogues, they are strategists looking to implement laws to preserve what they see as a natural social order. Many of the groups associated with Arizona’s anti-migrant players draw inspiration from the likes of Samuel Huntington and former Democratic Governor of Colorado Richard Lamm. Both have been strong opponents of multiculturalism and immigration while advocating and supporting groups like FAIR, IRLI, and others. There essential argument is that diversity will weaken America. Thus, limiting immigration and accelerating “assimilation” is essential for continued American dominance.
Samuel Huntington
In recognition of the lack of public support for mass deportations followers of Lamm and Huntington began to devise legal strategies that have the effect of mass deportations without the publicity of massive round ups. Much of these ideas came to fruition after years of strategy and organizing that is first outlined in notes and plans laid out in the infamous WITAN MEMOS. In these memos known White supremacists outlined strategies for manipulating immigration policy, infiltrating enforcement agencies and popularizing the concept of immigrants as “illegal.” Before the 1980s being undocumented was seen more so for what it is, a civil offense. But in the WITAN memos the early founders of FAIR understood that to conduct large scale deportation immigrants had to be criminalized in the minds of Americans.
After years of promoting the need for arrest and deportation “Los Haters” as we like to call them, decided to ante up on the concept of the undocumented as criminals by highlighting stories of migrant criminals. These groups ignore studies have that “repeatedly and consistently have found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born.” Instead, Los Haters have highlighted single examples of migrant crimes in what linguist George Lakoff calls “Ideal Case Prototypes” – or using one salient example to represent an entire issue and in this case group of people.
Kris Kobach
Once migrant communities have been sufficiently demonized attorneys such as Kris Kobach and the Center for Immigrant Studies (CIS) have developed dangerous legal doctrines of Attrition through Enforcement and Inherent Authorities. These two hate doctrines must be understood to adequately understand what bills like SB 1070 are meant to accomplish. They are basically strategies to treat migrants so bad they will self deport as well as actual deportation, not in massive raids, but in mundane everyday interaction with law enforcement.
SB 1070 in Arizona is just one of the many bills in Arizona that attempts to establish these doctrines as part of a round the clock way to accelerate police intervention in federal immigration matters. Just google either of those terms to see the chain of op-eds, so called ‘legal studies’ and proposed laws that these groups have been systematically moving into towns, cities, and States.
However, this ingenious, if evil, plot cannot exist without the support of local law enforcement, as well as legislative and executive political bodies. Thus, Arizona has become ground zero for the right’s latest cultural war. In a sense, it is a laboratory of hate.
Part II: Arizona, The Laboratory of Hate
The plot outlined above is not new to those who have been promoting and responding to this fight for years. What is new is the possession, by the fanatical right, of a State political apparatus to move the doctrines of hate into laws. Key to the passage of the hate bills is not only having the political power to do so, but also having the public support and the law enforcement agencies that will happily implement them.
Arizona is home to a set of elected officials that not only moves hate legislation against immigrants, but also promulgate the demagoguery and lies to build support for those bills. One central figure is County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Done with a touch of brutality, Sheriff Joe Arpaio relishes in his reputation as a cruel and inhumane modern day Bull Conner. Sheriff Joe has re-instituted prison chain gangs, built a “Tent City” jail to house inmates , he has compared to a ‘concentration camp’ in extreme heat and cold of the Arizona desert, said “it’s an honor” to be compared to the KKK, and conducts of “Crime Suppression Sweeps” in which 95% of those stopped for traffic citations are Latinos.
Sheriff Joe enforces federal immigration laws shamelessly. He conducts workplace raids at Latino work places and then issues press releases inviting Whites and African Americans to come apply for the new vacancies in a clear provocation of racial tension. Sheriff Joe conducts aggressive traffic stops in which undocumented parents are often taken from their children. Sheriff Joe also gives his officers toys to calm the nerves of crying children as their parents are pried away from them. While the Sheriff says he is just enforcing the law, he is clearly motivated by more as he has been seen tipping off Nazi rally organizers as to where the counter-protesters will be (see photo).
Sheriff Joe targets migrants to divert attention from his poor law enforcement record. In a pulitzer prize winning series by the East Valley Tribune, “Reasonable Doubt”, documents the reduction of investigations, response times, prosecutions and convictions. While some of this has improved recently it is largely attributed to the national crime drop.
Racial profiling in Arizona is now common. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, for example, uses a telephone ‘hotline’ to report undocumented immigrants without any screening. Arpaio has now admitted launching many of his sweeps in response to racist letters from residents. For example, in same review by the East Valley Tribune, “Reasonable Doubt”, well over 90% of all traffic stops conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (MCSO) were of Latinos. This has also led to a civil rights violation investigation by the US Department of Justice.
Another key figure is Senate President Russell Pearce who is a national hero in the hate-a-mexican movement. He is a big time fundraiser who wields his power in the Arizona legislator by threatening to harm the reputation of his peers and limit their access to national hate dollars. Pearce himself is a former Deputy to Arpaio who now has a sort of out-hate sibling rivalry with. Pearce has been closely associated with the Nazi party in Arizona and in particular it’s leader JT Ready.
J.T. Ready. Pearce endorsed Ready for Mesa City Council in 2006 and appeared with him at rallies. In 2004 Pearce was photographed attending J.T Ready’s baptism into the The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church). Church documents reveal that Pearce ordained J.T Ready into the LDS priesthood.
The latest ingredient to the Arizona hate soup is a recent acquisition – a Governor who would sing the bills. Previous Governor Janet Napolitano, and now Secretary of Homeland Security, walked a fine line regarding immigration, but did veto the harsh approaches Pearce and Arpaio advocate. More than just signing these bills Governor Brewer repeats baseless claims like that immigrants are conducting ‘beheadings’ (this one she now disavows) and are responsible violent crime. While few had heard of Governor Brewer in her previous job as Arizona Secretary of State, she is widely lauded by Republicans for her role in limiting voter registrations of youth and people of color.
One web site claimed, “under Brewer’s command, no less than 100,000 voters, overwhelmingly Hispanics, were blocked from registering to vote. In 2005, the first year of the Great Brown-Out, one in three Phoenix residents found their registration applications rejected.”
SIDE NOTE: One Republican Strategy for dealing with their inability to bring in diverse voters as America become a non white majority has been purges of voter files and new restrictions to maintain a strong white voter majority. In fact, Kris Kobach (above) is the new Secretary of State for the State of Kansas. Anyone remember Katherine Harris in Florida?
When you add Jan Brewer, Russell Pearce, and Joe Arpaio to a state full of Minutemen anti immigrant activists, tea partiers, and older White retirees (Snowbirds) you have the formula for not only a far right conservative agenda, but the laws and policies that come with them. One irony is that many of these strategies and costs are paid for by the Federal government under Bush and now Obama via the 287(g) and Secure Communities program. Programs now rightfully under review and criticism for their abuse and misguided efforts and results.
This is how we came to pass SB 1070 and all of the bills proceeding them in Arizona.