what

Immigration in the 2016 Election

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“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” This has been our nation’s promise to countless numbers of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island and the United States in general from the world over since 1886. However, even as a nation of immigrants created for the freedom and safe-haven of other immigrants, we have polarized our beliefs about who should be here, how to manage their intake and what language they should speak as well as who should not be here and how to keep them out. As a result, the 2016 presidential election and party primary candidates have a tremendous focus on immigration and border security, with GOP front-runner and Washington outsider Donald J. Trump proposing to build a border wall, make Mexico pay for it and deport all illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

Arizona

Launch: on community participation

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Community participation. It’s become such a catch phrase that making it solidify when you stop to really look at it can be tricky, like trying to see synergy or social networking. Yet it was an excitingly tangible part of the event I covered Saturday, the official launch of the Colibri Center for Human Rights which included the Tucson premiere of Who is Dayani Cristal? More than 400 people showed up – more than double the number that attended the award winning documentary’s New York premiere. But a crowd alone doesn’t mean community.

Arizona

Stirred up and shut down: what it’s like to cover protests

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(a post event coverage from The Tucson Sentinel 16 October 2013 piece Border activists declare victory after protest at closed Phx ICE HQ)

Protests, rallies, marches – they’re all different ways of describing a big public event with passionate people. And that means a big, loud, exciting mix of challenges and opportunities for reporters trying to cover what’s going on. Sometimes there’s also the people who disagree so strongly they’ll come out and counter protest. This can be a great way to get a mix of viewpoints – or to get caught between two groups shouting. As my professor for 20th century media and entrepreneurship (real class) says, someone yelling from one side and someone yelling from the other side doesn’t make balanced reporting, it makes two people yelling at each other.

Arizona

Connections: extra articles on raids, immigrant families, SB 1070 and conventions

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This post contains extra reading material, articles and other resources, related to recent blog posts including Planning for the unexpected: community advocates urge immigrants to prepare for raids and Faith and Phoenix: Convening in Arizona after SB1070 (a series about how faith based groups with national conventions scheduled in Phoenix responded to Arizona’s image crises during and after the passage of SB 1070. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 for the full story.)

Articles on Sheriff Arapio’s immigration raids

• Arpaio raids Car Wash – on 14 June 2009

• Joe Arpaio Arrests Four Cleaning Ladies in 74th Immigration Raid – Phoenix New Times on 9 August 2013

• Arpaio Fires Up Hispanic-Hunting Raids, Going After the Smallest Fish He Can Find – Phoenix New Times on 25 July 2013

• As Feds Slow Deportations, Arpaio Continues Ariz. Raids – New America Media on 23 July 2013

• Joe Arpaio Retaliates Against Katherine Figueroa, Hits Uncle Sam’s with Immigration Raid – Phoenix New Times on 18 July 2013

• Joe Arpaio B-Day Bomb: Judge Wants Monitor in Melendres – Phoenix New Times on 14 June 2013

• Judge Finds Violations of Rights by Sheriff – The New York Times on 24 May 2013

• Melendres vs. Arpaio Decision – Judge Murray Snow via Fronteras Desk on 24 May 2013

• Federal Judge Rules Against Arpaio’s Agency On Racial Profiling Issue – Fronteras Desk on 24 May 2013

• Cut ties between Maricopa County and ICE – Politic365 on 20 March 2013

• U.S. Finds Pervasive Bias Against Latinos by Arizona Sheriff – The New York Times on 15 September 2011

• Arpaio raids Car Wash – on 14 June 2009

Articles on the August federal raid at Danny’s Family Car Wash

• Former Danny’s Family Car Wash employees say company violated labor rights – ABC15 on 22 August 2013

• Danny’s Family Car Wash Raid by ICE and Minuteman Richard Malley Doing Same Job? – Phoenix New Times on 20 August 2013

• Former Danny’s Family Car Wash employees say undocumented workers stole their identities – ABC15 on 20 August 2013

• Car-wash managers accused of rehiring illegal immigrants – The Arizona Republic on 20 August 2013

• Carwash Managers Held in Immigration Raids – The New York Times on 19 August 2013

• Dreamers growl at Obama – The Arizona Republic on 19 August 2013

• Danny’s raid won’t inspire confidence – The Arizona Republic on 19 August 2013

• Feds: Danny’s Family Car Wash helped fake ID’s, rehired illegal workers – ABC15 on 19 August 2013

• ICE agents raid Arizona car wash chain – CNN on 18 August 2013

• Danny’s Family Car Wash locations raided by federal agents – KTVK on 17 August 2013

• Feds: 14 arrested in Phoenix-area car wash raids – KPHO on 17 August 2013

• Federal agents raid Phoenix-area Danny’s Car Wash locations and photos – The Arizona Republic on 17 August 2013

• Federal agents raid 16 Danny’s Family Car Wash locations in criminal investigation – ABC15 on 17 August 2013

• ICE Raids Danny’s Family Car Wash – Arizona Dream Act Coalition on 17 August 2013 (also United We Dream Condemns Massive ICE Raid in Arizona, Demands Release of Those Unfairly Detained and End to Out-of-Control Immigration Enforcement)

• Joe Arpaio-Fave Danny’s Family Car Wash Raided by ICE – Phoenix New Times on 17 August 2013

Articles on separated families & Katherine Figueroa

Both of Katherine Figueroa’s parents were working at the same Peoria car wash when it was raided in October 2009.

Arizona

Faith and Phoenix: Convening in Arizona after SB1070, Part 2

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These are articles and resources related to Faith and Phoenix: Convening in Arizona after SB1070, a series about how faith based groups with national conventions scheduled in Phoenix responded to Arizona’s image crises during and after the passage of SB 1070; check out Part 1 here. “I personally was of the opinion that it was a real opportunity for us to shed light on the issue nationally by going,” said Unitarian Universalist President Peter Morales. He told the local congregations and advocacy groups, “I need for you to invite us; that will break the boycott.” And they did, allowing the 2012 Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations convention to take place from June 20 to June 24. “That’s what made the whole thing work because of what we did because it was clearly the most effective public witness we’ve ever done was on this issue, that we committed to working in close partnership with local people.

Arizona

Faith and Phoenix: Convening in Arizona after SB1070, Part 1

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This is the first part of Faith and Phoenix: Convening in Arizona after SB1070, a series about how faith based groups with national conventions scheduled in Phoenix responded to Arizona’s image crises during and after the passage of SB 1070; check out Part 2 here. Several years ago when the largest Anabaptist organization in the U.S. picked Phoenix for the location of its biannual conference in 2013, they didn’t anticipate that the state would be a hotspot for national debates on immigration and border issues – or that they’d be attempting to produce a denominational statement about immigration there. Yet, Arizona’s attractions as a tourist and convention destination seemed smashed when the 2010 passage of a controversial immigration bill, SB 1070, sparked intense national debates including issues border violence and racism in the state. Local community advocate James Garcia, who works with Promise Arizona, said that the news coverage affected everybody’s perceptions, whether they supported the SB 1070 bill or not. “Suddenly 24-hour news channels for six months straight, all they hear about is the words coming out of the mouth of the governor and Russell Pearce which claimed that the state is being overrun by words of immigrants and everybody is somehow physically endangered,” Garcia said.”So that negative representation was stamped into the brains of America and brains of America include all the people who are part of these conventions.”

Arizona

Planning for the unexpected: community advocates urge immigrants to prepare for raids

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(a post discussing sourcing with examples from backgrounding work I did on The New York Times 19 August 2013 piece Carwash Managers Held in Immigration Raids)

“We’re asking all the families to please prepare in case of these emergencies to know that they have the right to see an attorney, they have a right to a call and of course at every moment it’s so important to have an emergency plan for when things like this happen,” ACLU Arizona Immigrants Rights Project Coordinator Dulce Juarez told reporters at a rally in front of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Phoenix field office Monday afternoon. I’d heard the message before at a school assembly for parents last fall when community organizers gathered parents, pastors, and politicians to discuss how to protect children of undocumented immigrants, sometimes U.S. citizens and sometimes undocumented themselves, in a situation where anything from a workplace raid to a traffic stop for a broken tail light or speeding can throw the family into every kind of limbo with no warning: undocumented immigrants should have emergency plans in place to protect their children and their assets because it may be too late to make arrangements once they’re apprehended. “We’re asking all the families to please prepare in case of these emergencies to know that they have the right to see an attorney, they have a right to a call and of course at every moment it’s so important to have an emergency plan for when things like this happen,” said Juarez. This isn’t the story I was assigned to cover – but it’s another side of living here. Organizers from Puente Arizona and National Day Laborer Organizing Network had gathered protestors to support 30 workers still in detention after federal agents raided 16 Danny’s Family Car Wash locations in Phoenix on Saturday morning to make arrests in a criminal identity theft investigation and also detained 223 people, most of whom were quickly released, on immigration status checks.

behind the scenes

Family through a fence

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A bittersweet reunion lets three young immigrants see – and reach for – their deported mothers through a fence. Read more here in the June 11 The New York Times piece: Immigrants Reach Beyond a Legal Barrier for a Reunion

As a young man and two young women approached the border from the Arizona side, a cry rang out through the bars of the border fence. Waiting for their children in matching turquoise t-shirts on the Mexican side were their mothers, separated for years since their deportations for being illegally present in the U.S.

The six came together, reaching through the spaces between the thick metal poles, with sobs and laughter under the watchful (and not always dry) eyes of organizers, reporters, Border Patrol, and Mexican Federales last Tuesday – the culmination of days of travel and two months of planning. All three children are in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which gives qualified applicants the ability to go to school, work and in some states get drivers licenses while they wait for a more permanent resolution to their legal status limbo. It’s a way for participants to start coming out of the shadows.

behind the scenes

Searching for Andy at PCOME: Database debut leads to Tucson travels

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A publicly accessible website went online one week ago that provides maps and data based on the location where bodies presumed to be migrants have been recovered in southern Arizona. The Arizona OpenGIS for Deceased Migrants is “the result of ongoing partnership” between the humanitarian group Humane Borders, Inc. and the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME). And so I ended up in a southbound car with New York Times reporter Fernanda Santos and freelance photographer Joshua Lott to learn about how the database works. In the years since the first time I visited PCOME, many things have changed. Dr. Bruce Parks, whom I interviewed for Unidentified dead common on the border, retired in the summer of 2011 and Dr. Gregory Hess is now the medical examiner.

Andy

The trip that never was

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Eddie and his wife Monse had planned to drive down in February to look for her missing brother Andy along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona. But, energized by the words of the psychics they consulted, her family developed other plans. “All of the sudden Monse’s family is getting excited they want to go look for them,” Eddie said at the end of January. “Every time Monse and I we want to do something they get, the family gets excited and they start some activities.”

Eddie and Monse had planned to talk to radio stations and visit shelters. “Monse and I, we meet these people so Monse can tell her story here what’s going on with the brother,” Eddie said.