Thousands of Hispanics fleeing Arizona

[D.Turtle]

Who would have guessed this would happen:

Arizona immigration battle turns bitter

The US state's new immigration law is threatening to divide America with panicking Hispanic families fleeing

The intersection of 43rd Avenue and Thomas Road on the west side of Phoenix is lined with the same monotonous range of petrol stations, fast-food outlets, pharmacies and clothes stores that you'll find in any modern city in America's heartlands. It is distinguished only by the exceptionally mundane.

Look closer, though, and a disturbing pattern emerges. Here is a real estate office that is shuttered and empty, here a panaderia – a bread shop – that has closed, and next door to that, a children's clothes store also shut. Across the road a cellphone outlet is boarded up and a large grocery store has vanished. A Mexican restaurant still has its sign proudly boasting "Tacos Since 1975", but there are no tacos being made here any more. A rival restaurant nearby, Marly's Mexican Food, has a sign saying "Drive Thru Open", yet the building has been stripped bare. A handwritten note in the front entrance says "Se cierra el negocio porque nos mudamos de estado" – the restaurant is closed because we've moved out of the state.

It's as if the whole area is turning into a tourist ghost town, for which the west is renowned. But this is not supposed to be a ghost town. This is bustling Phoenix, capital of Arizona and one of America's fastest growing and most dynamic metropolises.

Why this is going on is the question put to Sergio Diaz, the owner of an English language school next to Marly's restaurant, where a room full of young students are practising English verbs. "We've been in business since 2000," Diaz says. "At the end of this month we are going to close."

"My students are about 90% undocumented," he says, referring to the largely Mexican illegal immigrants who attend his school. "Three months ago we'd have up to 200 students every day; now there are only 15. They are all leaving, or preparing to leave."

Diaz says his clients are fleeing a controversial new immigration law that comes into effect throughout Arizona on 29 July. SB 1070 amounts to the harshest crackdown against undocumented immigrants that has been made in any part of the US for a generation. It has put Arizona in the centre of a nationwide foment about immigration that is pitting individual states against the Obama administration, whites against Hispanics.

At the heart of the debate are the 12 million or so illegal immigrants, most of them Mexican, who already live and work in the US, about 500,000 of them in Arizona. Over the past few decades they have become a fixture of American life, building homes and families and carrying out the low-paid farm work that few US citizens are prepared to do.

They have been largely tolerated, existing just below the surface of American life, sending their children to school, paying taxes and only coming into contact with police if they committed serious crimes. Immigration violations were generally treated as a civilian, rather than a criminal matter.

But in recent months, the mood has hardened, and nowhere more so than in Arizona, whose border with Mexico is the busiest crossing point for undocumented Mexicans. Anger towards them has increased in the wake of highly publicised incidents linked to the burgeoning drug wars on the Mexican side of the border, including the shooting of an Arizonan police officer in April.

Politicians have responded to demands for the border to be strengthened and for more deportations, culminating in SB 1070. The legislation, in effect, turns Arizona's undocumented residents into criminals, handing responsibility for enforcement from immigration officers to the police. Anyone without proper papers who comes into contact with the police – be it for something as minor as a broken brake light – can have their documents checked if police suspect them of being illegal immigrants, and find themselves rapidly deported. Anyone who helps an undocumented person, whether by housing them or offering them work or even feeding them or giving them a lift, can also find themselves in trouble.

Lydia Guzman, a community worker with Somos America, a coalition of Hispanic groups in Phoenix, says the mood among Latino families has changed over the past two months, ahead of the law coming into effect: "Panic has set in."

The mood has changed, too, among white Americans, who have interpreted the increasingly aggressive language used by politicians as a green light to express their own prejudices. Incidents of harassment towards undocumented Latinos from employers, landlords and neighbours have increased. Should the victims protest, they are frequently taunted with the refrain: "So what are you going to do about it, tell the police?"

The hostility has reached such a level that Guzman deploys an extreme metaphor, saying that a "Gestapo community" is in the making.

"Just last week, a family told us that the people next door, who they'd known for 10 years, had reported them to the police because their dog was barking too much. The father was arrested in front of his three young kids."

With two weeks still to go before SB 1070 becomes a reality, thousands of families are already leaving Arizona. Sandra Soto packed her bags last week, quitting the city where she's lived for 20 years and relocating to New Mexico. She, her husband and two of her three children are legal US residents; only the third child is undocumented, but this was enough to make her want to leave.

Besides, she says the atmosphere has become too unpleasant. "It doesn't matter that I'm legal. The first thing I'm asked these days is to show my papers. Just because my skin is a little dark, that I'm Hispanic. That's all they see."

Stephanie, who attends Puente, a Hispanic community group, has an extended family of some 20 or 30 people. Many are legal, some aren't. Recently, one of her nieces was taken in by immigration officials and held in custody for a week. A nephew who has lived in Phoenix since infancy was deported last month to Mexico, a country he barely knows.

"We have followed every single rule in this city to show that we can be good citizens here. I've worked two jobs at a time, cleaning hotels by day and at night – some of the hardest work there is. Yet they say we are trying to rob them."

Opinion polls have shown that more than two-thirds of Arizonans are in favour of the new law. White voters have justified the clampdown on the grounds that illegal immigrants have caused a violent crime wave, when in fact, outside the largely self-contained crime committed by Mexican drug cartels against themselves, the state is enjoying a period of relatively little criminality. It is also said that illegal immigrants are pouring over the border in record numbers, though in reality the rate peaked 10 years ago.

"They are taking our jobs" is another key assumption. But as research by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University has shown, undocumented immigrants create jobs and support services through the taxes they pay on wages and purchases.

Take schools. Precise numbers won't be known until the start of the new school year, but there is already mounting evidence that large numbers of Hispanic families are removing their children from Phoenix schools in preparation for leaving.

Falling school rolls will mean a collapse in education funding, because money follows the child. In turn, this will hit the quality of education for everybody's children, white Americans included.

Talent is also being squandered. Silvia Rodriguez, 23, has been offered a place at Harvard next year to study arts and education. She has lived in Phoenix since she was two, but because she lacks legal resident status she is not eligible for funding and has to raise the fees privately.

She had been successful at raising the money through foundations and fundraisers, but a few weeks ago support suddenly dried up. "People are afraid because under the law you cannot provide aid to somebody who is undocumented," she says. She now fears that she will be unable to find the $23,000 she still needs, and will have to forego the chance of studying at America's pre-eminent academic institution.

All these examples suggest that by adopting SB 1070, Arizona is economically shooting itself in the foot. But there are others who oppose the new law for reasons more fundamental than self-interest.

Bobbie, a white American from Ohio, believes that it is depriving Americans of the very freedom that made their country great.

For the past 11 years, Bobbie has been married to Roberto [not his real name] from Oaxaca, with whom she has two children, both of whom are also US citizens. Roberto is undocumented. Last year, he was picked up in a raid on his workplace in Phoenix and deported back to Mexico.

Then last July, desperate to be reunited with his family, he began the long and perilous walk across the Mexican border into Arizona. He walked in the searing heat for four days without water. When Bobbie didn't hear from him she presumed him dead.

"I prayed and I prayed. I lit candles over his photograph, and prayed some more," she says. And then he called and said he had made it across. Bobbie brought him back to Phoenix and he has been living back with his family ever since. But it is only a half-existence now.

"He's like a ghost here. He is scared. We don't go to the shops, we don't go on family outings. When the new law comes in I am going to have to hide him in the back seat of my car and smuggle him to work."

Bobbie, who has lived in Phoenix for 31 years, is now saving up money to leave Arizona for Las Vegas or Florida. She sees what is happening as a violation of her rights as an American. "They are telling me who I can and cannot marry. My kids are American, yet they look Hispanic, so are they going to be pulled over and questioned too? It feels like I'm no longer in America."

Autumn Rose, Bobbie and Roberto's American-born daughter, aged nine, enters the conversation. "When my dad went away I felt he would never come back, but when he did it was like a miracle," she says. Then she addresses herself to Bobbie and says: "If he goes away again I want to go with him. I don't care if you say no ... I will go with him to protect him."

Well, I guess the racists are getting what they want.

[Shroom Man 777]

But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?

It came true. You're lookin' at it.

America is god's most beautiful country. I love how people can do horrible things without even realizing what it does to people who aren't them. God bless America.

Anyway. What arguments against this law are there? Aside from it being too harsh or unethical and horrible, what protection can there be for people who are illegal or undocumented?

[Axiomatic]

You could talk about the law of unintended consequences, except this consequence is in no way unintended.

[Norseman]

You could talk about the law of unintended consequences, except this consequence is in no way unintended.

I would go as far as to say that this will lead to massive support for similar laws elsewhere, since in the eyes of the people who voted for it this is proof that it works.

[KrauserKrauser]

Super big news! Criminals flee prosecution! Big news story! Federal law actuaqlly going to be enforced, gasp shock horror!

Maybe they'll all end up in the haven cities and continue to destroy their social services.

[Serafina]

Super big news! Criminals flee prosecution! Big news story! Federal law actuaqlly going to be enforced, gasp shock horror!

Maybe they'll all end up in the haven cities and continue to destroy their social services.

By that logic, jews fleeing from the third reich were also criminals.

Grow a fucking brain.

[Frank Hipper]

Posting mistakes by The Spartan have been deleted per his request...carry on.

[MKSheppard]

It's been against the law for a very long time to be here illegally -- since I think 1891; when the Bureau of Immigration in the Treasury Department was authorized to deport illegal aliens.

So, I'm not seeing anything wrong with the actual enforcement of those laws.

[Mr. Coffee]

You'll start seeing the problems with it when the costs of certain goods and services go up because you tried to deport your cheap labor pool. But hey, the anti-immigration crowd isn't exactly known for examining the consequences of anything they support. So here's to laughing at Arizona homeowners when the cost of new home construction skyrockets because home builders no longer have access to Mexicans, same with home remodeling.

[eion]

It's been against the law for a very long time to be here illegally -- since I think 1891; when the Bureau of Immigration in the Treasury Department was authorized to deport illegal aliens.

So, I'm not seeing anything wrong with the actual enforcement of those laws.

Except that the regulation and enforcement of immigration laws is an exclusively federal matter.

Next Arizona will start passing its own tariff statutes and set up border stations with New Mexico.

[MKSheppard]

Except that the regulation and enforcement of immigration laws is an exclusively federal matter.

And that's what Arizona police are doing -- they are detaining known illegals so that they can be reported to and deported by the Feds (ICE).

It's the same with Rhode Island LINK

SCITUATE, R.I. — Rhode Island State Trooper Nuno Vasconcelos was patrolling Interstate 95 a few months ago when he came upon a two-car accident in heavy traffic. The trooper pulled up, stepped out of his cruiser, and asked one of the drivers for his license.

The man said he did not have a license, and under questioning, confessed that he was here illegally from Guatemala.

If the accident had happened 15 miles north in Massachusetts, the man would probably have been arrested for driving without a license, which carries a fine of up to $1,000 and 10 days in jail, then released pending an appearance in district court.

But in Rhode Island, illegal immigrants face a far greater penalty: deportation.

From Woonsocket to Westerly, the troopers patrolling the nation’s smallest state are reporting all illegal immigrants they encounter, even on routine stops such as speeding, to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

[Lonestar]

By that logic, jews fleeing from the third reich were also criminals.

Grow a fucking brain.

I was unaware that Arizona was rounding up Hispanics and sending them to death camps.

Learn something new every day.

[KrauserKrauser]

Super big news! Criminals flee prosecution! Big news story! Federal law actuaqlly going to be enforced, gasp shock horror!

Maybe they'll all end up in the haven cities and continue to destroy their social services.

By that logic, jews fleeing from the third reich were also criminals.

Grow a fucking brain.

Love the logic on that one. Enforcing immigrationlaws = the holocaust. Grow up you fucking drama queen.

America =/= Nazi Germany because we are finally enforcing a preexisitng law. Actually inquiring about the citizenship status of a person now equals the gas chamber? Who knew! But think of their precious sensibilities!

[eion]

Except that the regulation and enforcement of immigration laws is an exclusively federal matter.

And that's what Arizona police are doing -- they are detaining known illegals so that they can be reported to and deported by the Feds (ICE).

No, that's what they were doing before. Now they have passed a law that makes it a seperate crime under Arizona law and subject to jail and fines in Arizona prior to being deported by the federal government. That doesn't take effect until later this month, but this exodus is in response to it.

[Lonestar]

Why is enforcement of immigration exclusively a federal matter? Is the state not permitted to prosecute crimes within it's own jurisdiction?

[MKSheppard]

Why is enforcement of immigration exclusively a federal matter? Is the state not permitted to prosecute crimes within it's own jurisdiction?

More to that matter; why is the Obama Administration suing AZ over it's immigration stance, and not Rhode Island?

If we used the same standard, they'd have to sue sanctuary cities which openly let people flout federal law.

[Sam Or I]

You'll start seeing the problems with it when the costs of certain goods and services go up because you tried to deport your cheap labor pool. But hey, the anti-immigration crowd isn't exactly known for examining the consequences of anything they support. So here's to laughing at Arizona homeowners when the cost of new home construction skyrockets because home builders no longer have access to Mexicans, same with home remodeling.

Wasn't something similar said about slavery. I personally think that the government should come down hard on major companies that pay less than the minimum wage. It would help solve the immigration problem and level the playing field.

[Shroom Man 777]

In an AIM conversation with SHEP, I just realized that libertarianism SUPPORTS illegal immigrants!

Behold, the logic:

MKSheppard 2:10 am
While you can cheat and hold hostage people who do janitorial jobs and mow lawns; you can't cheat people in the construction business on the same scale because that way leads to expensive rework when Jose the Illegal deliberately fucks up the job to get back at the employer who's been massively underpaying him and holding back on the last two weeks' worth of wages.

shroomman777 2:11 am
Well, if Jose the Illegal fucks up the job, then boss man just ditches him and gets a new Illegal, which are a dime a dozen
so by LIBERTARIAN FREE MARKET LAW, Jose the Illegal is pressured by FREE MARKET FORCES to do the best job ever!
to keep his job!

shroomman777 2:12 am
Thus libertarianism supports illegal immigration!

shroomman777 2:12 am
Citizenship and passports are the tools of goddamn government statist shits oppression!

So with that logic, I say these immigration laws are oppressive tools of statist oppressors to infringe upon the Forces of the Free Market! These Arizonians are just goddamn ideologically incorrect Marxist Ayn Rand-revisionaries! Counter-revolutionaries! So to protect the free market, we must protect our fiery latino brothers! Our hombres! God bless America, ay carrumba!

[MKSheppard]

Actually, shroom; you're not that far off. A lot of LOLBERTARIANS do support illegals for that reason: Citizenship and passports are the tools of goddamn government statist shits oppression!

[Shroom Man 777]

It would be awesome if Obama decided to, yeah, speed up deportation of immigrants. But catching and tossing immigrants out of the border isn't easy, or cheap, and building a great damn wall of Mexico would be a bit costly. So to support this immigration law, the Amerikanskis must also support increased taxes!

Then it turns out none of these taxes are going to deporting anyone, but is just going to fund the moon mission or universal healthcare or more F-22s or abortion clinics to harvest stem cells or something.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Super big news! Criminals flee prosecution! Big news story! Federal law actuaqlly going to be enforced, gasp shock horror!

Considering that we've very carefully set up our immigration rules to encourage illegal immigration and make legal immigration from Mexico nearly impossible, calling them "criminals" is ridiculous. We want them to be "criminals"; we've gone to some effort to ensure it. This is about producing an easily exploited class of workers that we can feel smug about mistreating and hating, not about "criminals".

And since you apparently didn't even read the title of the thread much less the story; this is about Hispanics fleeing the new law. Illegal immigrant and otherwise. This entire affair is about racism, not immigration or the law.

Maybe they'll all end up in the haven cities and continue to destroy their social services.

More likely boost their economies with cheap labor and more tax revenue. We are the ones exploiting them, not the other way around.

[Ritterin Sophia]

By that logic, jews fleeing from the third reich were also criminals.

So you have evidence to suggest the vast majority of hispanics arrested under this law are legal citizens that are being put into prison work camps and killed in execution chambers?

Grow a fucking brain.

Maybe you should. I don't support the Arizona immigration law because it conflicts with the Supremacy Clause, but it's certainly not some kind of Nazi initiative and trying to compare it to such is sensationalist bullshit.

[eion]

Because individual states aren't allowed to fortify their own borders, set their own tariffs, or carry out other activities that are the duty and right of sovereign states.

Arizona can detain those it knows to be in this country illegally and hand them over to federal authorities, but what they can't do is charge them with a state-crime, put them in prison for up to 20 days, and fine them $100 dollars. Nor can they prosecute someone with aiding illegals and fine them $1000 per illegal immigrant.

There is also the issue that no citizen is required to carry around identity documents, so forcing Juan Ortega, 5th generation American citizen whose family has lived in Santa Cruz since the Mexican-American war to carry around his passport while Stephan Miller, naturalized-American citizen formerly of U.K. citizenship, need not is blatant racial profiling.

The law has yet to go into effect, but I really can't see any way for it to be enforced effectively without racial profiling.

It's a small step from Arizona prosecuting illegal immigration under its own laws to Arizona setting country quotas and requiring passports to be carried at all times. There are some realms of jurisprudence that belong to the states exclusively and some that belong exclusively to the Federal government.

[Mr. Coffee]

Wasn't something similar said about slavery.

Thing is, without slavery the large platation cotton farm model didn't work. Other farming methods did work, and the price of cotton went down as the costs of growing it went down. The housing market is a bit different in that there really aren't other ways to build homes, and anything that rises the building costs will get passed on to the consumer by the home builder.

I personally think that the government should come down hard on major companies that pay less than the minimum wage. It would help solve the immigration problem and level the playing field.

I don't disagree. The problem I've got isn't with paying people a fair wage at all, it with this dumbass idea of "boot out all the illegals and the problem goes away" that I think is retarded. You're still going to have the same problems, Mexican economy sucks so the Mexicans come here looking for work and since our immigration system is hilariously fucked up they're going to do so illegally. Cracking down on the illegals themselves doesn't make the problem go away, it just temporarily hides it.

[Lonestar]

Because individual states aren't allowed to fortify their own borders, set their own tariffs, or carry out other activities that are the duty and right of sovereign states.

I'm pretty sure California stops me and asks if I'm bringing any produce into the state whenever I cross the state border. You know, a distinctly customs-y thing that only "sovereign states" do.

Arizona can detain those it knows to be in this country illegally and hand them over to federal authorities, but what they can't do is charge them with a state-crime, put them in prison for up to 20 days, and fine them $100 dollars. Nor can they prosecute someone with aiding illegals and fine them $1000 per illegal immigrant.

Arizona can't enforce residency laws that are based upon the Federal laws?

There is also the issue that no citizen is required to carry around identity documents, so forcing Juan Ortega, 5th generation American citizen whose family has lived in Santa Cruz since the Mexican-American war to carry around his passport while Stephan Miller, naturalized-American citizen formerly of U.K. citizenship, need not is blatant racial profiling.

Interesting. Let me tell you a tale of a pasty white lad who gets the third degree, without fail, everytime he has some kind of interaction with the cops thanks to his accent. My experience with the police is such that if I travel through AZ I would be carrying my passport if it weren't for the fact that I have a CAC in my wallet as well. If I got pulled over in AZ I am sure I would get the level of harassment that your hypothetical Ortega would.

The law has yet to go into effect, but I really can't see any way for it to be enforced effectively without racial profiling.

Yeah and I believe the letter of the law says "go after Mexicans at every opportunity" and not something more general

It's a small step from Arizona prosecuting illegal immigration under its own laws to Arizona setting country quotas and requiring passports to be carried at all times. There are some realms of jurisprudence that belong to the states exclusively and some that belong exclusively to the Federal government.

I really love slippery slope fallacies.

"It's only a matter of time that Arizona states setting RACIAL QUOTAS".