Who’s going to neuter Arpaio?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., remained defiant in the face of another court order this week that he will probably just ignore. As The New York Times reported it, judge G. Murray Snow of United States District Court “strongly rebuked” Arpaio for not following the court’s previous order and for mocking the judge:

Ten months ago, Judge Snow ruled that Mr. Arpaio and his deputies had systematically profiled Latinos, targeting them for arrest during raids at day-laborer gathering spots and detaining them longer than other drivers during traffic stops. The subsequent order from the judge, who found that the sheriff’s office had violated the constitutional rights of Latinos, came with several requirements, including the appointment of a monitor to field complaints and oversee compliance.

But at the hearing on Monday, Judge Snow said that Mr. Arpaio and the chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, had blatantly flouted his order, pointing as evidence to a video of a briefing that the two men held in October for a group of rank-and-file deputies who participated in a crime-suppression operation in southwest Phoenix. In the video, Mr. Sheridan called Judge Snow’s order “ludicrous” and “absurd,” and compared the restrictions the courts had placed on them to those imposed on the beleaguered New Orleans Police Department, whose officers, he said, “were murdering people.”

“That tells you how ludicrous this crap is,” Mr. Sheridan of the judge’s order, as a videocamera recorded his every word.

Mr. Arpaio spoke next, telling the deputies, “What the chief deputy said is what I’ve been saying,” adding, “We don’t racially profile, I don’t care what everybody says.”

Arpaio said nothing during the hearing, but told the press, “We’ll be appealing this case anyway. Stay tuned.” Rather than hitting Arpaio with a penalty at this hearing, Snow told the sheriff that if his department committed more violations, he would impose restrictions like forcing Arpaio to hire more monitors to ensure compliance. Snow already ordered that one monitor be brought in to serve as a check against discrimination.

To underscore his points, Judge Snow asked that the lawyers on both sides of the case prepare a summary of his order and that Mr. Arpaio and his deputies use it as a training tool, ideally to make sure none of it was misinterpreted. He also asked both sides to sign a letter attesting to the intentions of the order, which Mr. Arpaio’s lawyers said they would have to discuss before accepting.

So in essence, Arpaio is going to more or less continue his hack campaign against Hispanics in his own county, while his lawyers talk about whether to accept Snow’s order. How broken is our legal system when attorneys get to converse over an order before accepting it? What happened to a judge making a ruling as the final authority and forcing compliance, or else be held in contempt?  After learning that Arpaio and his deputies remain defiant and probably have no intention of carrying out his order, why was Snow so lenient? Why did Snow just “strongly rebuke” the sheriff and not hold him in contempt? Arpaio needs to be taught the  lesson that no one is above the law.

Andrew Cohen, with The Atlantic, made as strong a case as any for Arpaio to be held in content and fined until he complies:

If you or I behaved like this, if we violated a court order so defiantly after a case about willful disobedience of the Constitution, we would be held in contempt. And that’s what should have happened to Arpaio Monday. None of this patient deference to officials of another branch of government. None of this separation-of-powers politesse. The sheriff should have been held in contempt, and fined, until he was willing to publicly apologize (to the judge, at least) and also to convince Judge Snow that he understands at last that the Constitution belongs not to him but to all of the people he serves.

It’s not that he doesn’t get it. It’s that he gets it and still doesn’t care. The more the feds press him, the more the constitutional violations pile up, the more he’s able to lament to his supporters that he is the real victim here. This lawsuit, this court order,  surely will be a talking point when Arpaio finally runs for governor. The real victims, of course, are the citizens of color in Maricopa County who still suffer under his yoke. To them,  the contents of that ugly videotape aren’t a revelation. They’ve been living with that attitude for years. And if Arpaio wins his next race perhaps all of the citizens of Arizona will get to experience it, too.

Europe’s immigration dilemma mirrors our own

France, under the directive of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration, began expelling hundreds of Roma this summer, claiming that they were in the country illegally, and today, thousands have come out in protest of the government’s new policies, the immigration issue being just one of them. Another contentious issue is Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and to cut spending.

Credit: Council of Europe via The Economist

According to this Reuters article,

Critics see expulsions of Roma gypsies as part of a drive by Sarkozy to revive his popularity before 2012 elections and divert attention from painful pension reforms and spending cuts. ((http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68316V20100904))

… As if to say to his fellow countrymen: “Sorry about the economic measures I’m taking. Here, let’s expel some immigrants to make up for them.” This tactic doesn’t seem to be working terribly well.

As it happens, although Romania experienced a period of economic growth between 2003-08, the economic recession did not miss that nation either, and beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008, economic activity decreased significantly. Here’s a summary from World Bank. ((http://www.worldbank.org.ro))

As their native country continues to struggle from economic stagnation, Roma are scattered throughout portions of Western and Eastern Europe, as the map to the right shows.

We can, I think, point to various similarities between the dilemma of Romanian emigration across Europe with that of Mexicans and others Latinos seeking to come to the U.S.

First, and perhaps most obvious, is the issue of discrimination and human rights. This article from The Economist addresses some of those concerns regarding Romania:

An ingrained underclass, Roma are the victims of prejudice, often violent, at home in eastern Europe. Thousands have migrated westward to seek a better life, particularly as the expansion of the European Union has allowed them to take advantage of freedom-of-movement rules. Yet although conditions may be better in the west, the reception has rarely been friendly and politicians like President Sarkozy have ruthlessly exploited hostility towards the newcomers. ((http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/08/frances_expulsion_roma?page=6))

This “exploitation” of newcomers we know all too well here in American. From the near 400-year struggle of blacks to integrate as free people in America, to the denigration, and in some cases, dehumanization of Irish immigrants in the 19th century, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the denial of citizenship to Chinese residents already living in America at the time, our history is rife with a near ubiquitous hostility toward newcomers.

Second, as an astute reader of The Daily Beast wrote, Roma exodus across Europe is most likely economically driven, not cultural, for it makes little sense to claim that Roma or Hispanics or any other immigrant would prefer another culture to their own. Immigration is almost always driven by a) economics or b) oppression or nearly unlivable conditions in the homeland. This applies to European immigrants as well as those who seek to come to America from Mexico or elsewhere.

Whipmawhopma had this to say in response to The Beast article on Roma immigration:

I am under the impression that generally speaking most (worldwide) are economic immigrants rather than cultural ones, and bring their own culture and keep it, while making some adaptations. Many only stay for a while and then once they have made enough of a fortune (relatively speaking) they then go home. Many like the hybrid cultural they live in and stay. Some adopt the local culture. Some hate the local culture – meaning how they are treated – so much that they set fire to cars and make much riot if they happen to be in France.

Last week’s The Economist had an article on this. President Nicolas Sarkozy is very unpopular and he’s playing the anti-immigrant card to make himself less unpopular, which isn’t really going to work since the real uproar is about the mild austerity program he’s attempting to put in place.

Third, and perhaps most profound, immigrants, by and large, will do whatever it takes to attempt to escape the economic trappings of their homelands, if it means a better life for their families and their progeny.

Here’s how The Economist article sums up the issue Roma dilemma:

Europeans would be swift to condemn the plight of the Roma were they in any other part of the world. However, eastern European governments are unlikely suddenly to tackle a problem that dates back centuries just because Brussels tells them to. Perhaps self-interest may prove a more powerful motivator. Roma families are far larger than those of the mainstream population: the pool of deprivation is only going to grow. In addition, a recent World Bank study estimates the annual cost of the failure to integrate Roma in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and the Czech Republic at €5.7 billion ($7.3 billion). As the report notes: “Bridging the education gap is the economically smart choice.” If humanitarian arguments fail to carry the day, perhaps economics and demographics might.

Mexican families wiring money north?

Want a pretty good benchmark for when you know times are tough in the United States? When folks in poor parts of Mexico are actually sending money northward to assist unemployed relatives in the States.

The New York Times reported Nov. 15 the cases of several families who previously had received money from their United States-based relatives, but when those relatives lost their jobs, those in Mexico started chipping in and sending what they could north over the border via wire transfer. According to the article,

During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.

The article notes a telling fact: it’s easier to get by on very little in Mexico than it is in America. The Avendano family, living in Miahuatlán, scrape by via a kind of subsistence farming on their own land. To help with their finances, Sirenia Avendano sells chili rellenos around the neighborhood.

Sirenia Avendano wept as she spoke of sending money to her sons in the United States.

Sirenia Avendano wept as she spoke of sending money to her sons in the United States.

Speaking of his two sons, whose hours and tips were cut at the Florida restaurant in which they work, Javier Avendano said,

We have an obligation to help them. They’re our sons. It doesn’t matter if they are here or there.

An aquaintance of mine who runs, with the help of his wife and family, a Mexican grocery store and restaurant here in town once told me of his own struggles to reach America. He took the dangerous jaunt across the border many years ago, was once an illegal, and has long since gotten his citizenship. He has children in the local school district and has deep roots in the county in which I live at this point. The last time I checked, he was still sending money back home to his parents.

As I have said many times and will continue to say, stories like those of my acquaintance and of the Avendanos speak to the fact that illegal immigrants aren’t monsters, as Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh and others would have us believe. They are human beings with families and folks who love them. Should we do away with our naturalization laws and open to borders completely? Definitely, we shouldn’t do away with the laws, but enforcing the border with a 1,000-plus mile fences seems like a comic book, implausible, inhumane and abhorent solution. There is such a thing as country citizenship, in Mexico, in other Latino countries and here. Should we accept the fact that the ones who are here probably aren’t leaving unless the situation here gets worse than it is in Mexico? Probably so. The wholesale excavation of these people is completely out of the question and is absolutely, logistically impossible.

So, what do we do? First, and I hope the Obama administration doesn’t oversee anymore raids. We should stop the inhumane raids, separating children from their parents. Focus on the employers who are willingly or not, hiring illegals. If they unwillingly hire them, that is, presented the potential employee with proper paperwork and the illegal lies or presents false information, dish out a lesser penalty to the employer. If the employer willingly hires illegals because it’s cheap labor or for whatever other reason, throw the book at them.

This issue has become one cause that I’m willing to champion over and over again. For too long, I’ve heard the talking heads and folks who apparently have a cold stone for a heart, rant on and on about how immigrants are turning the country brown, that we should close the border and that immigrants are taking “real” Americans’ jobs (whatever that means), and it’s really nauseating.

Talk about nauseating. This quote is too ill-conceived to let slip through the cracks. On the supposed “brown” dilemma, check out what Frosty Wooldridge had to say about the immigration problem in California:

The brown toxic cloud strangling Los Angeles never lifts and grows thicker with every immigrant added. One can’t help appreciate the streets of Paris will soon become the streets of LA. However, Paris’ streets erupted while LA’s shall sink into a Third World quagmire much like Bombay or Calcutta, India. When you import THAT much crime, illiteracy, multiple languages and disease—Americans pick up stakes and move away. It’s an unlivable nightmare.

It’s chilling to me that viewpoints such as this ignorant drivel still persist in what was once, in its infancy, such a progressive, forward-looking country. Arguably, and regrettably from my view, we haven’t been all that progressive since the 18th century, but that’s for another debate.

But I digress. Next, I’ll look at this topic somemore, as it relates to Lou Dobbs’ recent resignation from CNN and a recent, related New York Times editorial. I am currently working on adding content to a new WordPress-powered Counting Crows site, so that would explain my lack of posts in the last week or so. But I’m back in the saddle. … I hope. 🙂