[6 short articles on Education, Immigration enforcement, and Policing in Arizona—Count as 1 rdg for Rdp’s and Notes] Arizona bans ethnic studies in public schools By the cnn wire Staff

[6 short articles on Education, Immigration enforcement, and Policing in Arizona—Count as 1 rdg. for RDP’s and Notes]

Arizona bans ethnic studies in public schools

By the CNN Wire Staff

May 12, 2010

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/12/arizona.ethnic.studies/index.html?hpt=T2
(CNN) -- Fresh on the heels of a new immigration law that has led to calls to boycott her state, Arizona's governor has signed a bill banning ethnic studies classes that "promote resentment" of other racial groups.

Gov. Jan Brewer approved the measure without public statement Tuesday, according to state legislative records. The new law forbids elementary or secondary schools to teach classes that are "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" and advocate "the overthrow of the United States government" or "resentment toward a race or class of people."

The bill was pushed by state school Superintendent Tom Horne, who has spent two years trying to get Tucson schools to drop a Mexican-American studies program he said teaches Latino students they are an oppressed minority. There was no immediate response from the Tucson Unified School District, the law's main target.

Brewer's signature comes less than a month after she approved a state law that requires immigrants to carry their registration documents at all times and allows police to question individuals' immigration status in the process of enforcing any other law or ordinance. Critics of the law say it will lead to racial profiling, while supporters say it involves no racial profiling and is needed to crack down on increasing crime involving illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council overwhelmingly approved a boycott of Arizona-based businesses and governments unless the state repeals the new immigration law.

The city's legislative analyst reported that Los Angeles currently has $56 million in contracts with companies headquartered in Arizona.

Several other California cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, have already adopted resolutions requesting city departments to not sign any new contracts with Arizona companies.
Arizona’s “banned” Mexican American books

by Roberto Cintli Rodriguez

Tucson Citizen

January 19, 2012

http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/19/arizonas-banned-mexican-american-books/
In the aftermath of the suspension of the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American studies department, TUSD has confiscated and continues to confiscate MAS teaching materials. Besides artwork and posters etc, that includes books. This move came in response to an unconstitutional measure, HB 2281, which was specifically created to dismantle the highly successful MAS-TUSD department.

Amid a massive backlash, TUSD officials have backpedaled, claiming that the confiscation of the books that took place after the 10 January MAS suspension does not constitute a banned books list. While TUSD claims that only seven book titles were ordered boxed and carried off, the fact is that the confiscation – in some cases, in front of the students – involved more than the seven titles. But the seven books that are “not banned” (but merely “confiscated”) are:

• 
  Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
  
• 
  500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez
  
• 
  Message to Aztlán, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
  
• 
  Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, by F Arturo Rosales
  
• 
  Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña
  
• 
  Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire
  
• 
  Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow
  

The MAS-TUSD curriculum comprises some 50 books. All have been or are being removed or confiscated from every classroom; teachers are being told to turn in the books that have not been “confiscated”. This might strike the average person as odd: it’s as if the presence of these books inside classrooms constitutes a distraction or bad influence. Apparently, students should not be able to even see those books in the classrooms… [Dunn cut some for space reasons]

As a result of the banning of the MAS program, there has been much unrest. One action involved a walkout and march from Cholla High School to the TUSD headquarters, a distance of five miles. When the marchers reached TUSD headquarters, they were met by several bureaucrats, including administrator, Lupita Garcia, an opponent of the MAS program who oversees the district’s ethnic studies programs. She unabashedly told the students that racism has nothing to do with color and that Mexico is where Mexican studies is taught, not America!

This was, of course, inaccurate: what was suspended by HB 2281 was Mexican American studies, not Mexican studies. When students asked why European studies has not been banned, nor any other area studies discipline, the administrators had no response....[Dunn cut rest for space reasons]

Cop had to take stand and fight SB 1070
Ernesto Portillo Jr.

Arizona Daily Star

May 9, 2010

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_fe503c05-8e92-587b-8be7-09f7c1cd00c0.html
Sitting in a downtown coffee shop, relaxed and casually dressed in civilian clothes, Tucson police Officer Martin Escobar is serious.

Up until less than two weeks ago, Escobar was an obscure 15-year veteran on the TPD patrol beat, working nights on the south side. Married, a father of two, Escobar kept a low profile, dedicating himself to family and work.

But in the wake of the April 23 signing of SB 1070, which forces police officers in Arizona to question suspects' citizenship if they have "reasonable suspicion" that person may be in this country illegally, Escobar emerged as an unlikely hero to the law's opponents - and has been eviscerated by the law's supporters.

Escobar, 45, filed a federal lawsuit - one of the first - against SB 1070, which has ignited a maelstrom over the role of local police in enforcing federal immigration laws. A second police officer in Phoenix also filed a lawsuit.

"I didn't do this for me," said Escobar, who in addition to his police career is a martial-arts champion and owner of a jiu-jitsu studio.

Escobar did it for the Latino residents he has served his whole career who he believes will be racially profiled. He did it for his fellow officers, who he believes will find policing more challenging under the new law. He did it for his Mexican-born parents, legal residents who immigrated to Tucson to build a new, strong life for the family.

"My mom and dad speak with accents. They could be racially profiled," said Escobar, a naturalized citizen.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law that is due to take effect in late July unless blocked, rejects claims that SB 1070 will lead to racial profiling. She and proponents of the law argue local police officers will not be allowed to use racial identity as a reason to question someone under the law.

But Escobar, who grew up in South Tucson, flatly rejects that argument. While the vast majority of officers are good, he said, "there's that 1 percent who will abuse the law."

Moreover, he said, the law will inspire fear within the Latino neighborhoods and make policing more difficult. He fears Latino residents will report fewer crimes and be less willing to emerge as witnesses.

"We have worked hard to achieve a greater level of cooperation," he said. "I'm proud of my police work."

Escobar and his five siblings, one of whom is also a Tucson police officer, were raised by their divorced mother in a small house on West 30th Street.

His mother cleaned motel rooms, made tortillas and worked at Garcia Cleaners and Laundry on East 22nd Street, not far from the Escobar home. The family didn't have much and "I didn't notice it much," he said.

But even as a kid, he noticed racial profiling.

As a student at Safford Junior High School, Escobar recalls the day he was stopped by Border Patrol agents near his home. They asked him for his immigration papers.

Scared and unsure, he told them truthfully he was in the country legally and that he didn't have immigration papers. "It struck a chord with me," he said.

That chord has played over and over again in Latino neighborhoods where American citizens and legal residents have been asked to prove their legal status, Escobar said. That happens now, without SB 1070, he said. It will only increase if the law takes effect.

While he wasn't looking for public attention, Escobar is confident he did the right thing in contesting a law he believes will interfere with his work as a cop on the beat.

"There was a great cause and it's not about me," he said. "I just want people to stand up when something is wrong."

Ariz. sheriff illegally discriminated against Hispanics, Justice Dept. alleges

By Jerry Markon,

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ariz-sheriff-illegally-discriminated-against-hispanics-justice-dept-alleges/2011/12/15/gIQAniIBwO_story.html?hpid=z2

December 15, 2011, 12:14 PM

The Justice Department on Thursday accused a controversial Arizona sheriff known for tough immigration enforcement of widespread discrimination against Hispanics, saying Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s department illegally detained Hispanic residents and denied them critical services in jail.

Arpaio, the longtime sheriff in Maricopa County, oversaw a pattern of unconstitutional conduct that targeted Hispanics and retaliated against others who criticized the practices, the department said in an investigative report.

Justice officials were unsparing in their criticism of Arpaio, a former D.C. police officer whose unusual methods have put him at the epicenter of the controversy over the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Once seen as a quirky figure who has inmates dress in pink underwear and forces them to work on chain gangs, Arpaio has in recent years become a kind of folk hero to those who favor his heavily publicized “crime sweeps,” mostly in Hispanic neighborhoods. …[Dunn cut rest for space reasons]

War on the Border

By TODD MILLER

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/opinion/sunday/war-on-the-border.html?ref=opinion

Published: August 17, 2013 
THREE generations of Loews have worked the family’s 63 acres in Amado, Ariz. In the last 20 years, the Loew family harvested thousands of pounds of onions, garlic and pumpkins without incident. So Stewart Loew, 44, who was born and raised on the farm, was surprised when he went to irrigate his fields one night and found himself surrounded by federal agents.

“I’m irrigating, dude,” said Mr. Loew, who was in his pajamas. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me, I’m a federal officer,” the Border Patrol agent said, and demanded Mr. Loew’s identification.

Since Mr. Loew did not carry his wallet in his pajama pocket, the agents followed him into his house; a local police officer, who knew the Loew family, had already arrived, vouched for Mr. Loew’s identity and assured the federal agents that Mr. Loew posed no threat to the homeland or national security, and the agents left without comment or apology.

This kind of brush with law enforcement would have been unthinkable to previous generations of farmers here. But these run-ins have become increasingly common in the rugged, hilly desert stretch along the southern borderlands where, in the post-9/11 world, everyone — even farmers in pajamas — is a potential threat.

The United States-Mexico border has become a war zone. It is also a transfer station for sophisticated American military technology and weapons. As our country’s foreign wars have begun to wind down, defense contractors look here, on the southern border, to make money.

Lately it has become entirely normal to look up into the Arizona sky and to see Blackhawk helicopters and fixed-wing jets flying by. On a clear day, you can sometimes hear Predator B drones buzzing over the Sonoran border. These drones are equipped with the same kind of “man-hunting” Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar (Vader) that flew over the Dashti Margo desert region in Afghanistan.

The Border Patrol is part of Customs and Border Protection, now the federal government’s largest law-enforcement agency. Its presence is a constant factor not only in the lives of Stewart Loew and his neighbors, but also in the lives of those who live in places like San Diego, El Paso, Brownsville, Tex., and other big cities along the southern border that have sizable Latino populations.

The Border Patrol, however, concerns itself far less with counterterrorism than with the agency’s traditional tasks of immigration and drug enforcement. This creates an uneasy mixture of missions. And it results in the deployment of an expensive military apparatus to police and capture immigrants who cross the border in the hopes of finding jobs as maids, janitors or day laborers.

In 2012, a majority of the more than 364,000 people arrested by Border Patrol agents nationwide were migrant workers crossing the border. Agents did not capture or arrest a single international terrorist.

But they have disrupted the lives of tens of thousands of people like Stewart Loew who live and work near the border. There’s a point on Interstate 19, two miles from the Loews’ farm, that buzzes with what borderland residents call the “men in green,” who stop and interrogate everyone who drives past. Border Patrol vehicles scan the off-road areas smugglers and migrants use to circumvent official checkpoints. A mobile control tower with a sophisticated surveillance system mounted on its cabin is visible near the Loews’ farm.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection, plans to invest billions more in borderland surveillance towers, drones and helicopters if the House adopts the immigration reform bill that the Senate passed in June. Even if it doesn’t pass, there is more than $1 billion in the federal budget for surveillance towers that will likely be clustered around the Arizona desert lands, near Mr. Loew’s farm, where most undocumented migrants cross the border… [Dunn cut some for space reasons]

… In recent years, we have built up our boundary and immigration policing apparatus with great speed. Founded in 1924, the Border Patrol deployed just over 4,000 agents in 1993. In only 20 years the agency’s ranks have more than quintupled, and if the reform passes it will increase its size tenfold. … [Dunn cut some for space reasons]

In 2012, the Migration Policy Institute reported that immigration and border enforcement spending totaled almost $18 billion. That is 24 percent more than the $14.4 billion combined budgets in the last fiscal year of the F.B.I., the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives… [Dunn cut some for space reasons]

Projected as an approximately $19 billion industry in 2013, defense contractors seem, in the words of one representative from a small surveillance technology company hoping to jump into the border security market, to be “bringing the battlefield to the border.”

In 1999, the anthropologist Josiah Heyman wrote that the Southwest was becoming a “militarized border society, where more and more people either work for the watchers, or are watched by the state.”

There is nowhere else in the country with such extensive and concentrated surveillance technology; nor is there any part of the United States in which people are as clearly divided between the police and the policed… [Dunn cut some for space reasons]

IN the border zone — 100 miles from the boundary into the interior — the Border Patrol’s authority extends beyond that of other law enforcement agencies. For example, agents have the authority to conduct routine searches at the border even in the absence of reasonable suspicion, probable cause or a warrant.

“The problem with giving the largest federal law enforcement agency, and one that operates with few if any accountability mechanisms, is that it is a recipe for civil liberties abuses, and seriously risks further erosion of Fourth Amendment rights,” says James Duff Lyall, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. Mr. Lyall notes that the areas involved constitute a sizable portion of the country; if you consider land and coastal borders, this 100-mile zone encompasses approximately two-thirds of the United States population…[Dunn cut some for space reasons]

Two oversight offices within the Department of Homeland Security have already received hundreds of complaints of rights violations, including beatings and Taser shootings, at the border. In the last three years, Border Patrol agents have killed at least 15 people along the Southwest border. Whether or not the immigration bill passes, the militarization of the border and the disturbance it causes people like Stewart Loew suggest it is time to look seriously into how we might better police the agencies that police the border.

Todd Miller is the author of the forthcoming book “Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Homeland Security.”

‘Bodies on the Border’

By MARC SILVER

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/opinion/bodies-on-the-border.html?ref=sunday

Published: August 17, 2013

This summer, as discussions have advanced around a comprehensive immigration reform bill, I traveled to Arizona to film some people who have a unique perspective on border security. I followed Dr. Bruce Anderson, a forensic anthropologist with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, who has worked to identify the remains of some 2,200 people found dead in the Arizona desert since 1990 — undocumented migrants who attempted to cross illicitly from Central America and Mexico into the United States. And I followed Robin Reineke, a University of Arizona doctoral student in anthropology who founded the Missing Migrant Project, a nongovernmental organization that helps families look for their missing relatives.

My goal was to better understand the impact that President Obama’s and Congress’s proposed security measures might have on migrant deaths along the border. I’ve been exploring this issue for the last four years while making a feature-length documentary, “Who Is Dayani Cristal?” (That film follows the discovery, identification and repatriation of a migrant found dead under a cicada tree 20 minutes south of Tucson.)

There has been a dramatic increase in such deaths since 2000. Over that time, particularly after Sept. 11, 2001, the government has added thousands of guards and constructed fences along the border. This policy has had a grim consequence: since most remaining gaps in the border are in remote and harsh terrain, migrants now attempt increasingly dangerous routes into the United States.

Some may argue that the latest proposals for tighter border security could save lives — by flooding the border with guards, cameras and drones that could spot and help intercept migrants in dangerous areas. Yet recent history shows that even when border security is tightened, people will still find a way to cross — as long as there is a demand for low-wage jobs. Even as fewer people are believed to be crossing the border illegally, the number of migrant deaths has remained high (the remains of at least 116 people have been found this year in Arizona), and a greater proportion is likely dying… [Dunn cut rest for space reasons]

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/08/16/opinion/border-opdoc-chart.html?ref=opinion