Immigration Notes

* For decades, undocumented migrants from Mexico were tacitly welcomed in the US.

* We have all benefitted from migrants' work--in fields and orchards, food processing plants and restaurants, child care and housekeeping, gardening and landscaping, construction and roofing and a lot more.

* Undocumented people pay taxes: sales, income, property and Social Security (from which many will never benefit.)

* About 15 years ago, federal agents began sealing the border in populated areas. As a result, migrants--who once came north to work in spring and returned home before Christmas--became true immigrants who just stayed here and sent for their families.

* Since then, migrants have had to go out into the remote desert in order to cross. And they have died there, most often a terrible death from the intense heat. Since 2000, just on the Arizona part of the border, the bodies of at least 1,954 migrants have been found. including 111 since Oct. 1. For the whole border, the number is at least, 5,700

* In this pre-primary election period, voters are repeatedly told to be afraid. Sen. John McCain once a sponsor of immigration reform with Ted Kennedy, is now telling the country that he is "America's last line of defense." He talks of growing violence, when in fact overall violence along the border has gone down.

* Many politicians conflate hard-working migrants and drug dealers. (By the way, our 40-year-old "War on Drugs" has cost $1 trillion and countless lives, but illegal drugs are still available almost everywhere. Blame the insatiable US drug appetite for that.)

* The main person behind Arizona's racist law SB 1070 is state senator Russell Pearce, who has long had connections to white supremacists. Pearce and racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio continually try to spread fear, which then gets them votes. SB 1070 was authored by Kris Kobach, lawyer for the anti-immigrant hate group FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and a trainer of Arpaio's deputies. FAIR's head, Dan Stein, has lied on national TV about his organization, which was founded by the grandaddy of America's white supremacists, JohnTanton (who remains on FAIR's board of directors.)

* The tragedy goes far beyond Arizona. In the US, over 30,000 immigrants are being held on any given day in over 200 detention centers, costing taxpayers $1.7 billion each year. At least 104 immigrants have died in detention since 2003. Deportations constantly cause family separations, and decent immigration reform seems nowhere in sight.

More goofball legislation in AZ

Let's just face it,

Arizona has been crawling with racists for a very long time. Presently our state has 21 nativist extremist groups (vigilante groups) and 19 hate groups (12 of these are in the greater Phoenix area.)

And then Sen. Russell Pearce, Gov. Jan Brewer and their comrades in retrogressive legislation gave us us SB 1070--an open invitation to racial profiling a la Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

And now Brewer has signed Tom Horne's law.

Horne is the state superintendent of education (presently running for attorney general) who has long been having conniptions over a fine Mexican-American studies program here in Tucson that teaches about ethnic history and literature and the contributions of ethnic groups. (The school district has similar classes in African-American and Native-American studies.)

This goofball law prohibits classes that

* promote the overthrow of the US government (Obviously this one is just plain nuts...)

* promote resentment toward a race or class of people (This from a state government that is facilitating the racial profiling of brown people...)

* are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group. (This is Horne's big gripe--think about it...)

* advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals (so now solidarity is a bad word, as in the Montgomery bus boycott or the Selma marches...)

That feverish lot in Phoenix is driving our state straight to hell.

Arizona's adamant racists

The situation here in Arizona is beyond crazy.

The racial-profiling law SB 1070, approved by our state's Neanderthal Republican majority, is now familiar news to people all across this country and beyond.

SB 1070 was written by Kris Kobach, a lawyer from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. (By the way, Kobach is also a "birther.") FAIR was founded in 1979 by white supremacist John Tanton, who is still a member of its board of directors. (Tanton is the founder and/or funder of at least a dozen anti-immigrant organizations.) Here are some of Tanton's racist statements:

* “To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?”

* Tanton in 1986: "Is apartheid in Southern California's future? The demographic picture in South Africa now is startlingly similar to what we'll see in California in 2030. In Southern Africa, a White minority owns the property, has the best jobs and education, has the political power, and speaks one language. A non-White majority has poor education, jobs and income, owns little property, is on its way to political power and speaks a different language."

* In this one, he used fake Latin: "Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva if borders aren't controlled? Or is advice to limit one's family simply advice to move over and let someone else with greater reproductive powers occupy the space?"

* In 1997, he said that America would soon be overrun by immigrants coming to America "defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs."

* That same year he compared immigrants to bacteria:: "In the bacteriology lab, we have culture plates. You put a bug in there and it starts growing and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And it grows until it finally fills the whole plate. And it crashes and dies."

The state senator who has fiercely led the charge for SB 1070 is Russell Pearce, a wildly outspoken racist who has unloaded a continuous stream of lies.

Lawsuits against SB 1070 are already flying, even one by Tucson police officer Martin Escobar. Our Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik has called the law "racist," "disgusting," "unnecessary" and "crap." On May 1, 7,000 of us marched downtown to decry it; 50,000 marched in Los Angeles. It was the same story from Seattle to Washington, D.C.

But the Phoenix xenophobes remain adamant. They won't bend until they see the money go.

The Boycott Arizona movement is already on a roll.