Migrants dropped off at bus stations in Arizona

Chron
By Astrid Galvan

By the time the women arrived disheveled and hungry at the Greyhound station in Phoenix, they had already spent weeks traveling thousands of miles with young children in tow.

Ranging from months old to adolescents, some of the children were sick and lethargic. Others played gleefully at arcade games in the crowded waiting room of the bus station.

The families were apprehended in Texas, flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

It was signal of a shift in immigration that has seen the Rio Grande Valley surpass Tucson as the leader in border apprehensions, overwhelming border agents in Texas. The trend is being driven by a huge increase in the number of immigrants from Central America.

Yet while the number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley vastly surpasses those in the Tucson sector in Arizona, the area has fewer agents. From October 2013 to May 17, agents in the Rio Grande Valley made more than 148,000 arrests, compared with 63,000 arrests in the Tucson sector. But the Rio Grande Valley has about 1,000 fewer agents than Tucson. Read more. 

Near the Border, a Few Deputies Are Outnumbered by Drugs and Bodies

“It’s hard,” he said. “I stop these guys and they pull out their wallets. I see the pictures of their kids and I think about my own kids. I realize I’d probably do the exact same thing if the situation was reversed.” Deputy Brad Gill, Ajo, AZ

I find that consistently local law enforcement officers, forced by recent laws to treat immigrants as criminals, are far less convinced of their task and far more compassionate than lawmakers in Washington or the state capital. As the "border security" hype heats up in the context of immigration reform, legislators should pay more attention to our own "boots on the ground" and less to the defense lobbies that roam the halls with stuffed pockets, selling the tragically false equation of immigration=national security threat. 

We'll be putting out a series on recent reports on immigration in Arizona and Texas on www.cipamericas.org this week. They document the high death rate and massive human rights violations that should shame a nation committed to justice. They also reinforce the deputy's view here that the multibillion-dollar plan of building a total wall is useless and a gigantic waste of tax dollars.

NYT. June 11, 2013 AJO, Ariz. — On a recent morning, Lt. Bill Clements, commander of a remote sheriff’s department substation here, sent his deputies into the sun-blasted Sonoran Desert to recover a body — the fifth in five days. Hours later, back at the station, a deputy unzipped a white body bag, revealing the corpse of a man who had died making the brutal crossing from Mexico, his lips shrunken, either with dehydration or from being partly eaten by wild animals, the deputies said.

Pima County sheriffs moved the body of a person who had apparently died crossing the border.

Out here, life expires suddenly and without dignity. The Ajo district station recovered 18 bodies last year. As of late May, the station had recovered eight, and the summer sun was still a few weeks away.

Read More...

U.S. Image Rebounds in Mexico: Fewer See Better Life North of the Border, but 35% Would Migrate

PEW Research Global Project 
April 29, 2013

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit to Mexico, the United States is enjoying a resurgence of good will among the Mexican public, with a clear majority favorably inclined toward their northern neighbor and more now expressing confidence in Obama.

A national opinion survey of Mexico by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 4-17 among 1,000 adults, finds that roughly two-thirds (66%) of Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. – up from 56% a year ago and dramatically higher than it was following the passage of Arizona’s restrictive immigration law in 2010, when favorable Mexican attitudes toward the United States slipped to 44%.  Read more. 

Border Patrol agents hope program will stop teens from working with cartel

ABC15 CASA GRANDE, AZ - Border Patrol agents are hoping a program called Operation Detour will teach teens to say no to the cartel.

The program is similar to D.A.R.E., Drug Abuse Resistance Education, an earlier program also targeted at teens.

In the case of Operation Detour, teens are being warned not to do any work for the cartel.
Cartel members are believed to be targeting teens who can drive to transport drugs across the border for thousands of dollars.

In 2008, the Tucson sector Border Patrol arrested 111 teens connected to trafficking.  So far this year 371 teens have been arrested.

"Kids think they can get some easy cash. But what they are getting is either time in jail or a death sentence, if they work with the cartel," said Border Patrol Agent Shelton McKenzie.  Read more. 

Arizona Immigration Law Survives Ruling

New York Times: By Fernanda Santos. TUCSON — A decision by a federal judge on Wednesday paved the way for the most controversial section of Arizona’s sweeping immigration legislation, requiring the authorities to verify the status of people who they suspect are in the country illegally, to finally take effect.

In denying a request by a coalition of civil rights groups to bar the provision, commonly referred to as “show me your papers,” Judge Susan Bolton of United States District Court in Phoenix adopted the same wait-and-see approach suggested by the Supreme Court in June, saying that the measure could be challenged “as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect.” Read more.

Mexico laments US Supreme Court ruling upholding part of Arizona immigration law

AP: MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government says it’s disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld part of an Arizona law requiring police check the immigration status of anyone they stop.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary notes that Monday’s ruling set aside as unconstitutional three parts of the controversial law, including the ability to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.

The Mexican government has openly opposed Arizona’s immigration law since it was passed in 2010. The statement said enforcing parts of the law that were upheld by the Supreme Court would lead to violations of the civil rights of Mexicans living in or visiting Arizona. It says the law doesn’t recognize the many contributions immigrants make to their communities. Read more.

Supreme Court Allows Immigration Checks

WSJ: WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona's effort to crack down on illegal immigrants but left one key part intact in a ruling that gave both sides of the debate something to cheer.

In a 5-3 ruling, the court said Arizona in effect had tried to set up a parallel enforcement system that punished illegal immigrants more harshly and interfered with congressional authority over the nation's borders. The court rejected parts of the state law known as SB1070 that made it a crime for illegal immigrants to seek work and that authorized warrantless arrests of people suspected by state and local police of committing deportable offenses.

But the court upheld for now the law's directive that state and local police check the immigration status of people they stop when they suspect them of lacking authorization to be in the U.S. The justices observed that federal law already requires immigration officials to respond to status checks from local authorities. Read more.

Op-Ed: Death in the Desert

NY Times (Op-Ed): NO matter how the Supreme Court rules this month in Arizona v. United States, which will determine the fate of Arizona’s aggressive illegal immigration law, the national conversation about illegal immigration has shifted. As recent data from the Pew Hispanic Center and the United States Border Patrol indicate, illegal immigration is on the wane, with arrests of migrants trying to cross the United States-Mexico border at a 40-year low and with net migration to the United States at a standstill — and perhaps even reversing direction. In the eyes of many, this is cause for celebration: no more straining the resources of border states while migrants risk life and limb for a shot at a better life.

But this rosy image of “success” ignores the larger, sobering picture of which migrant death and suffering is still very much a part. Read more.

6-year-old illegal-migrant suspect arrested

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, currently being sued by the Department of Justice for racially profiling Latinos, continues to challenge the Obama administration after its announcement of a somewhat softer policy towards undocumented young adults.

AZcentral.com - Maricopa County Sheriff Office deputies arrested a 6-year-old suspected illegal immigrant Friday, the day President Barack Obama softened the country's deportation policy toward young illegal immigrants.

The girl was with 15 other people believed to be in the country illegally who were traveling to the Midwest and northeast United States, said Chris Hegstrom, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office. Read more.

Drug War: New “Narcotunnel” Discovered on U.S.-Mexico Border

Latin American Herald Tribune: A new tunnel used to smuggle drugs into the United States from Mexico was found in this Arizona border city, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday.

U.S. agents and Mexican Federal Police officers simultaneously entered the tunnel, which connected Nogales, Arizona, to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, from their respective sides of the border.

Mexican police seized 550 pounds of marijuana discovered inside the tunnel, ICE said in a statement. read more

The Border: ACTTing Out in Arizona – Where the Drug War now has a “Unified Command”

The Arizona poster illustrating this report is an image that speaks a thousand words--perhaps more.

Border Lines: "Arizona is “ground zero” in the reconfigured war on drugs.

• Numbers tell the story of the failed drug war and a misguided combat against transnational crime.
• ACCT is a paper alliance created to demonstrate Obama’s border security/transnational crime strategy.
• It’s all about marijuana and immigrants – the same old story of border control, now called border security. 
• Arizona and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands are the “ground zero in the war on drugs.

That’s the assessment of the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC), the state office that receives federal criminal-justice grants -- and which then redistributes these Department of Justice (DOJ) grants to Arizona’s multiagency drug task forces and other counternarcotics programs."

read more

Immigration Politics: Maricopa, Arizona, Sheriff’s office, known for crime and immigration sweeps, misspent $99M

We are always suspicious of self-righteousness.

County officials: Sheriff’s office, known for crime and immigration sweeps, misspent $99M - The Washington Post: "An examination in Arizona’s Maricopa County has found that the sheriff’s office, widely known for efforts against illegal immigrants, inappropriately spent $99 million from two jail funds over the last eight years to pay for other law enforcement operations — including immigration patrols.

The $99 million figure released Wednesday is an update to an estimate made in September by budget officials who said the sheriff’s office was believed to have used $60 million and $80 million over four or five years from a jail tax on other purposes. Since then, officials said they discovered that the sheriff’s office had inappropriately spent money from a second jail account.The $99 million figure released Wednesday is an update to an estimate made in September by budget officials who said the sheriff’s office was believed to have used $60 million and $80 million over four or five years from a jail tax on other purposes. Since then, officials said they discovered that the sheriff’s office had inappropriately spent money from a second jail account."