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Title: Notes from Arizona Author: Chris Date: September 2, 2008 Language: en Topics: Arizona, reportback, Bring the Ruckus Source: Retrieved on March 14, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20190314161028/http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/58
Chris is a member of Bring the Ruckus who lives in western
Massachusetts. He recently spent six weeks in Arizona, offering support
in any and all forms to folks on the ground who are engaged in
immigration struggles with a radical bent. These are notes from his
first three weeks there.
On Saturday the 14^(th) of June, I landed in Phoenix. I was promptly
greeted by my Arizona Bring the Ruckus comrades, and we drove off to
meet with several other immigrant rights activists. Exhausted but
excited, I sat down with them over tacos and burritos to discuss the
coming six weeks. What followed was a meet-and-greet where I got a
general idea about what was happening and what the local groups Iâd be
working with are doing: militant work against white nativists and
anti-immigrant politicians in Phoenix. They laid out what was coming and
where â an action at the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, a Know Your
Rights Campaign kick-off, a protest against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe
Arpaio at a signing for his new book Joeâs Law, and plenty of meetings
planning for future actions.
For summer in the Valley, there seems to be a lot happening. The attacks
on immigrants continue almost unabated, but there are dedicated groups
of people willing to fight back. Beyond the notorious Sheriff Joe, there
are anti-immigrant politicians such as Andrew Thomas, the County
Attorney, and Russell Pearce, a candidate for Arizona State Senate and
member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Thomas is the chief
defender of the Sheriffâs actions and is known for having the editors of
the New Times, a local news weekly, arrested for allegedly printing
public information (the Sheriffâs address), for which he apologized the
next day. Pearce is a friend of such noted white supremacists as Chris
Simcox of the Minutemen and âBuffaloâ Rick Galeener of United for a
Sovereign America, as well as the architect of the most infamous piece
of anti-immigrant legislation, Prop. 200, which requires proof of
citizenship to receive public assistance or to vote. It also requires
officials to rat out people who cannot produce these when they attempt
to get benefits or vote, or face misdemeanor charges.
Despite how deep this hateful sentiment runs, there are people willing
to lend their efforts to fight the Sheriff and the people who pull his
strings, and right now those people believe that they can win.
Immigrants with and without documentation are being drawn into this
struggle as they live with fear for their lives and the lives of their
loved ones while simply trying to work, to provide for them. After mere
minutes, Iâm drawn into this too. Thatâs hitting the ground running.
On Tuesday, I ended up doing phone calls to turn people out for the
protest at Sheriff Joeâs upcoming book signing. I called folks all
afternoon, got comfortable with my space and the neighborhood, and
talked a little with a couple activists. Thursday began with an action
at a meeting of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, the agency that
controls the budget for Maricopa County, and specifically the money that
runs Arpaioâs Maricopa County Sheriffâs Office (MCSO). Over 300 people
turned out, enough that they had to put some people in a food court
where they could watch the meeting on TV, mostly the red-shirted ACORN
members who were singled out to be excluded from the proceedings,
probably because of their numbers and their easily identifiable shirts.
(As one speaker rightly pointed out, not allowing everyone to be
present, picking and choosing who made it in and who was relegated to
the food court, really did not bode well for the democratic character of
these meetings). Speakers at the meeting included organizers, community
members, ACLU lawyers, and even young kids who had been affected by the
lack of money for social services. All were demanding accountability for
the money that had been eaten up by the Sheriffâs huge budget. The
speakersâ impassioned delivery moved the audience; by the time the
speakers were finished, people were cheering and shouting at the
Supervisors, calling for Arpaioâs resignation. The energy was so high I
thought people were going to stay and have at it with the supervisors.
When the Sheriffâs opposition finally filed out of the Board of
Supervisors meeting, they formed a large protest outside.
Later, I found myself at the coffee shop that would become my surrogate
office space for the next six weeks. I was called by a local organizer
and asked f I could start compiling a list of places that could be
contacted to hold Know Your Rights forums. Veggie burger in one hand and
laptop in the other, I plowed through the various types of spaces in
heavily Latino areas of Phoenix where a Know Your Rights forum would be
most effective. It was not only an opportunity to be helpful, but also a
way to get more acquainted with the geography of greater Phoenix. The
best way to get know the city, however, was by riding the bus. The
public transportation is not that bad in Phoenix, and I rode it as much
as possible. Phoenix is divided into smaller cities, each with its own
mayor, like Mesa, Scottsdale, and Tempe. The demographics break down
along these city lines within the metro area pretty neatly, too. For
instance, Mesa is a heavily Latino city, with a high Mormon population
(so high that all live music must end at 10 pm sharp every night), and
Scottsdale has the deserved reputation of being a mostly white,
upper-class city. Guadalupe, a majority Latino city, almost erupted into
a riot when anti-immigrant counter-protestors tried to instigate
violence from the immigrant rights protestors at a rally against the
Sheriff during one of his raids. The Latina mayor of Guadelupe refused
to allow the Sheriff to return to her city. You canât see this from the
windows of a Valley Metro bus, but you can see the people and places
that shape these events.
Later that night I traveled by bus to the Know Your Rights campaign
meeting. A group of folks from various groups met to discuss the
logistics for thee upcoming kick-off for the forums. There was a sense
that people were looking for something that would address the larger
problems, which would be proactive rather than reactive. If the people
most at risk of arrest and deportation could protect themselves from
being bullied by the MCSO into giving up their rights, perhaps some of
the pressure to react would be alleviated as the effectiveness of sweeps
and raids would decline. The constant pressure of responding to the
sweeps burns people out and sucks up resources. A sustained Know Your
Rights Campaign could function to build the base a movement needs to
sustain itself. On the other hand, it could also be subsumed as more
insidious and brutal tactics are adopted by the Sheriffâs Office and
local cops.
Saturday was the protest against the Sheriff at his book signing at a
Barnes and Noble in Scottsdale, one of the generally more affluent
suburbs of Phoenix. It was 112 degrees and sunny (the usual temperature
in Phoenix this time of year â I can count the days on one hand that it
was different). Not the perfect weather to stand out on a street corner
with signs, but it could have been worse. All the local media outlets
were present interviewing and videotaping both the protestors and the
event inside, and the actual coverage was surprisingly favorable to the
protestors. Even though there were no local anti-immigrant organizations
counter-protesting, a few lone representatives showed up just to hear
Sheriff Joe speak or get a book signed. Maybe 112 is too hot for the old
farts of United for a Sovereign America and the Minutemen? Though that
may be true, rumor has it that these groups are trying to âre-imageâ
themselves as responsible citizens, well above showing up at a protest
and screaming and threatening immigrant rights demonstrators. Workers at
one of the restaurants in the shopping plaza parking lot, Uncle Samâs
(whose parking signs read âPatriot Parking Only: All Others Will Be
Deportedâ), brought protestors water and pizza in an attempt to either
a) get free advertising from protestors, or b) be nice people. When some
of us moved to another entrance to the plaza, the manager of an adjacent
Applebeeâs confronted us because he thought the picture of the Sheriff
on one of the signs was a picture of him; he thought we were protesting
him. While these protests make the Sheriff look like an idiot (not a
terribly difficult task) and give voice to those who oppose the white
supremacist policies of the Maricopa County Sheriffâs Office, they also
give an aspiring politician like Arpaio a hell of a lot of face time.
Besides, heâs been looking the fool to people for years and the folks
who continue to elect him eat that up.
That weekend I went to my first meeting of another group, one attempting
to take the fight to anti-immigrant forces rather than waiting for them
to strike. The meetings focused on an upcoming action, and planning for
the sweeps which we had heard were coming next week. The so-called
âcrime suppressionâ sweeps usually take place over the course of two or
three days, starting on a Thursday and lasting until Friday or Saturday.
The MCSO sets up a substation in the area they will be operating in
(usually an area of a few square miles around the substation) in order
to quickly process the people they are arresting. Usually the protest
and the counter-protest are also located here, though it looks like many
of the anti-immigrant groups have backed off in order to appear more
âresponsible.â The protests at the sweeps draw large crowds and media
coverage, and the volunteer citizen patrols, a model based on Copwatchâs
patrol model, prevent as many folks as possible from being swept up in
the Sheriffâs dragnet as well as gather information on the legality of
the operations, information that could be used for future lawsuits
against the Sheriffâs department.
A couple days after the meeting, I headed off to learn about how the
citizen patrols are conducted, so I could participate. In the days
before the sweeps, people were able to spread the word to residents to
stay off the streets and stay out of Mesa if possible so with any luck,
the city would be deserted. It would look like a general strikeâ no one
shopping, people not working, the city of Mesa grinding to a halt â
while the Sheriffâs people would try in vain to build the numbers of
âillegalsâ for the 11 oâ clock news.
In the run up, the chief of the Mesa police department expressed concern
that he did not know exactly when the sweeps would be taking place,
putting his officers at risk, and that the media knew that they were
taking place before he did. Even the police union spoke against Arpaio
(of course against his methods, not the ideology that drives him). These
disputes between city and county law enforcement serve to plaster
Arpaioâs face all across the print news and TV, the most important goal
of anyone looking to fill higher offices than sheriff in the future. Not
only that, but the Mesa police are left looking like the protagonists,
honest cops just trying to do their jobs fighting the real criminals of
Mesa. This is a much-needed boost in image for the Mesa police, seeing
that the arrival of the MCSO is viewed as a sign that the local police
are failing to halt âcrimeâ in their jurisdiction. (This became apparent
to me at the end of Fridayâs sweep when the Mesa police were out in full
force against young Black folks at the water park and on the streets.
There could have been as many as a dozen cruisers out, all of which had
Black youths with their hands in the air in the water park parking lot
or their faces in the curb on the street.) The harmfulness of this
activity by local police seems absent from the immigrant rights
discourse, though it is acknowledged by individuals.
That being said, local immigrant rights activists across the city
mobilized quickly and effectively in response to the sweeps. Lawyers
were recruited to keep tabs on civil rights violations and racial
profiling by the Sheriffâs officers. People were ready with an organized
response when the brown-shirted deputies of the MCSO hit the streets.
On Thursday morning, Arpaio announced that the sweeps would start at
about 4 pm. In the streets, it seemed like the Maricopa County Sheriffâs
Office began to round up brown-skinned folks for âminor violationsâ,
such as mechanical failures (cracked lights, windshields, lights out,
etc.), rolling stops, and expired tags, around 2 pm in the city of Mesa.
I went down to help out with the volunteer patrols. I rode with anyone
who had a car, from lawyers to students, radicals to concerned liberals,
a whole spectrum of political motivations and persuasions. Most of the
stops we witnessed involved at least one person, in all cases except two
an obviously Latino male, being arrested by the MCSO. Among those
detained were landscapers, families, a man selling puppies (who managed
to produce his papers and was eventually free to go), and various other
individuals, most of whom were already in the process of being arrested
when we arrived on the scene. In pairs, armed with video cameras and
incident reports, we documented these stops and arrests in hopes that
what we caught on tape could be used to prevent jail time or
deportation, and add fuel to the many pending lawsuits against the MCSO.
The patrols were carried out all day on Thursday and Friday, in
conjunction with a larger protest at the Sheriffâs sub-station, where
arrestees are brought in and booked. The sweeps were supposed to end by
10 p.m., but continued until almost 11. The best way to keep your
numbers up is to say youâre going to be performing a sweep between 4 and
10, but in reality have it last from 2 until 11. Over the course of
those two days, sheriffâs deputies rounded up folks who could not afford
to stay off the streets, and all save one were Latino. In Maricopa
County, if you have brown skin, you are a target for the sheriff. Like
the pass system in apartheid South Africa or slaves being hunted under
the fugitive slave laws, you need to prove that you are a citizen, that
you are âfreeâ, or else you will be shackled and chained and sent back,
like a piece of property that had the audacity to claim its humanity in
the face of the state. It is important to note that even though there
were organized patrols, we saw many Latinos out videotaping and watching
the Sheriffâs men independently. One individual said that it was just
the natural thing to do when you knew that you, your friends, your
neighbors or your family could be the next folks nabbed by the MCSO.
By the end of the day on Thursday, the Sheriff was ready to concede to
defeat for the MCSO. They could no longer use the multiple sub-stations
they had set up in order to confuse protestors and patrollers, and had
to book people in downtown Phoenix, which added an hour to their
processing time for arrestees. The Sheriff declared that the sweeps
failed as the result of a leak from his department; the sweeps canât
possibly be effective if the targeted communities have time to respond.
In the words of an activist who was on the ground that day:
âLast I heard, Arpaio was claiming he had made over 50 arrests, and 16
or so of the people were undocumented. The number of arrests on Friday
fell to half of Thursdayâs total, and there were only 3 undocumented,
compared to 13 on Thursday. Apparently people got the message not to go
out after Thursday. The media were also reporting a huge drop in
business in the area.â
Winning a battle in the war against the Sheriff felt great. I felt as if
our side was really winning against the anti-immigrant forces. The hate
groups and the state both had to fall back and change their tactics, a
direct reaction to the victories of the forces fighting for immigrant
rights. Despite the massive plastering of his image across the nightly
news, Arpaio truly looked like an idiot and the marked absence of United
for a Sovereign America or the Minutemen or any others made them look
ill-prepared.
The following week, the Know Your Rights Campaign held their press
conference on July 2^(nd) as planned. It took place in Cesar Chavez
plaza in downtown Phoenix and a good number of people turned out. It was
presented in both Spanish and English by individuals involved in the
campaign and a lawyer from the ACLU. It was covered on the major Spanish
language channels (the local Univision and Telemundo affiliates) and one
talk radio station. They also have the resources of the ACLU (lawyers,
materials, meeting space, etc.) at their disposal. The mayor of
Guadalupe wants a forum as soon as possible, and there are already a
couple of other groups ready to host. At this time, there are two forums
scheduled already and plans and places to move many more along. This
could be the base-building tool that Phoenix needs to get people moving
and to get more people plugged into the struggle not only against the
MCSO, but also against the white supremacist ideologies that underlie
all anti-immigration groups and politicians, and the ideologues who
profess it.
Right now it remains to be seen what will happen nextâŠ