The Selma of Immigrants' Rights

By Andrew Stelzer, In These Times. Posted November 25, 2008.

The battle began in front of a furniture store.

Like hundreds of other street corners, the intersection at 36th Street and Thomas Road in Phoenix was where immigrant workers arrived before dawn, hoping that someone would pick them up for a day's work in construction. But last October, the parking lot of Pruitt's furniture became more than a pick-up spot. First, the store's owner hired off-duty sheriff's deputies to act as security guards, claiming that the laborers were causing a disturbance.

Later that month, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America," decided to act on a handful of complaints he had received. He made Pruitt's parking lot the centerpiece of a neighborhood sweep. Arpaio's deputies began arresting undocumented immigrants in the neighborhood and turning them over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation proceedings.

In response, civil and immigrants' rights activists began gathering every Saturday outside the store, protesting what they believe were racially and ethnically motivated crackdowns. Soon, nativist groups from across the southwestern United States -- with names like the Patriots Border Alliance and Mothers Against Illegal Aliens -- arrived to counter-demonstrate. Waving American flags, the anti-immigrant crowd stood across the street, holding signs that declared support for the mass arrests, the closing of the Mexican border and the immediate deportation of all "illegal aliens."

The circus-like scene made for good TV, and Arpaio, a media hound by most accounts, seemed egged on by the protests. In a Dec. 5 sheriff's office press release, Arpaio said, "I will not give up. All the activists must stop their protest before I stop enforcing the law in that area."

Finally, in January, after more than 67 undocumented immigrants had been arrested, the owner of Pruitt's agreed to stop hiring off-duty officers.

Arpaio, however, wasn't done.

Modern-day Selma

The next few months saw several more sweeps -- what Arpaio calls "crime suppressions" -- in different parts of Maricopa County, netting about 240 arrests, according to a sheriff's department spokesperson. However, in a pattern of obfuscation that characterizes the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), the department claims it wasn't keeping arrest logs for the first four sweeps, so it isn't sure how many of those arrested were in the country illegally.

On June 27, during a typical sweep in the town of Mesa -- also in Maricopa County -- only 28 of 72 people arrested were undocumented immigrants, according to the sheriff's office.

An April raid in the dusty town of Guadalupe has become one of the most controversial. The town of 5,732 people, mostly Latinos and Native Americans, has no police force, so it contracts out its policing needs to the MCSO.

The two-day sweep netted 47 arrests, including nine undocumented people. And like the other pre-announced operations, the action brought hundreds of protesters into the streets.

The increased police presence has also scared residents from leaving their homes. Santino Bernasconi, a pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, says that some women were afraid to bring their children to confirmation ceremonies. His parish's mental health agency, Centro de Amistad, has seen a rise in anxiety disorders in children -- fearful for themselves or, if they were born in the United States, fear they will lose their parents.

"I don't compare it in terms of what the Jews went through in Nazi Germany," says Bernasconi. "But a lot of our people are beginning to feel that syndrome like Anne Frank, of 'Who knows when the next knock on the door is the sheriff to cart off everybody?' "

Meanwhile, he adds, real crime in Guadalupe has gone unaddressed.

"[Arpaio's] got time to be stopping people because you got a broken headlight," Bernasconi says, "but he doesn't have time to provide the services that are much more serious. ... And when we call them they don't show up."

During the sweeps, Guadalupe Mayor Rebecca Jimenez told Arpaio that she believed the arrests were instances of racial profiling and that she would begin looking into getting out of the contract with the MCSO and find another source for the town's law enforcement needs.

At first, Arpaio refused to back down, announcing in an April 4 press release that, "Even if they do [cancel the contract], the Sheriff still has jurisdiction here and I will still enforce the illegal immigration laws in that town."

However, in September, he decided to cancel the contract with Guadalupe himself. The sudden move resulted in lawsuits that accuse him of retaliating against Jimenez's free speech.

This stark divide now defines Maricopa County, which local activist Rick Romero calls the "Selma, Ala., of the immigrant rights movement."

See more stories tagged with: immigration, arizona, arpaio, maricopa county

Andrew Stelzer, a freelance journalist in Oakland, Calif., is a producer at “Making Contact,” a weekly public affairs radio program.

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