We win one in Arizona

Yesterday was a rather amazing day here in Arizona. Enough Republicans joined minority Democrats to defeat Senate President Russell Pearce's bills that would have:

* denied citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants
* required hospitals to check if people coming for help had papers
* kept undocumented people from registering their vehicles
* made it a crime for an undocumented person to drive in the state
* kept anyone who could not prove citizenship or legal residency out of universities and community colleges
* made cities and towns evict all residents of any public housing unit if even one person was undocumented
* required parents to show proof of citizenship or equivalent papers to enroll their children in school

Part of the reason behind the No votes was pressure from over 60 Arizona CEOs (including those of hospitals and construction companies) and the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. (Long ago César Chavez showed us the power of the boycott. He was right then and he is right today.)

Of course the Pearce gang will not give up. They will probably take these same bills to the voters in whom they continuously instill senseless fear, and they still hope the July 28 federal court decision against the infamous, racial-profiling SB 1070 will be reversed.

In the meantime, Pearce has cut our Pima Country sheriff off from new funds to fight border crime. The senator had a fit when Sheriff Dupnik linked the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords to crazy right-wing rhetoric and called Arizona "the mecca of prejudice and bigotry."

Pearce is not going to give up. But yesterday was big.

Mind-boggling government waste

Last month the National Immigration Forum published a devastating report on the federal government's record-breaking and profoundly wasteful spending on immigration enforcement. The ongoing failure of Congress on immigration is costing taxpayers an incredible amount of money. Here is a summary of the forum's findings:

* The government spends $23,000 to deport each undocumented immigrant. Last year they deported 197,000 immigrants with no criminal record. That means hitting taxpayers for more then $4.5 billion a year (while the government deports people who otherwise would be taxpayers.)

* The average yearly budget INCREASE for the Border Patrol is $300 million, despite the fact that since 2005 the number of undocumented border crossers has been going down.

* The government spends $7,500 for every apprehension at the border. That is a 500% increase since 2005.

* Keeping 1,200 National Guard troops on the border costs taxpayers $300 million per year. When they were deployed, the border crime rate was already down and many border communities were among the safest in the country. (They still are.)

* The wasteful, flawed 287(G) program (which partners state and local police to Immigration and Customs Enforcement) costs taxpayers $68 million each year.

* More and more immigrants are being held in private prisons. These companies try to influence immigration policies in order to maximize the number of prisoners sent to them by the government. (One company contracted by the federal government is the Corrections Corporation of America. It was involved in drafting Arizona's infamous SB 1070, which would greatly increase their number of prisoners. They also gave money to Arizona lawmakers who backed the legislation.)

Overall, billions of dollars appropriated by Congress are wasted each year on deeply flawed immigration enforcement. In the meantime, funds for ports of entry (where an estimated 90% of illegal drugs enter the US) have increased only 17% from 1993 to 2010, while the Border Patrol budget increased almost 1,000%.

To read the whole mind-boggling report, paste this URL into your browser:

http://immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/
2011/ImmigrationEnforcementOverview.pdf