The Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles equates Arizona’s immigrant trespassing law to something that would be done in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

Archbishop Roger Mahony said in his blog Monday that Arizona Senate Bill 1070 include techniques and provisions that smack of a police state.

The bill would require Arizona police to arrest illegal immigrants for trespassing; require immigrants to carry work papers and other identification proving they are in the U.S. legally; and make it a crime to transport any undocumented migrant, including day laborers.

The Arizona Legislature has approved the trespassing bill twice and could give it the final OK on Monday

Read more: LA archbishop says immigrant trespassing bill is a Nazi or Communist technique -http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2010/04/19/daily7.html
Now what does this same LA archbishop have to say about these tactics The officers detained those inside the house and observed an assault rifle with two taped magazines in plain view. The individuals inside the drop house stated they had been at the residence between four and 15 days, and when they arrived, their property, identification, shoes and belts were taken from them by the "coyotes." They all indicated that the original smuggling fee of ,000 – ,500 was raised to ,800 – ,300 per person. The illegal immigrants were held at the house by use of force and fear and were not to be released until their family members were able to pay the increased smuggling fee.

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recovered several items in the house, including a MAK-90 assault rifle, a 9-mm FEG pistol, two rifle and one pistol magazines, a knife, one set of handcuffs and several cell phones. Some of the weapons were loaded with ammunition. Agents detained a total of 36 individuals in the stash house and determined that 31 of the individuals were illegal immigrants being held against their will. Agents determined that the other five individuals, Victor Sauceda-Parra, Jaime Figueroa-Lopez, Martin Chavarrin-Serrano, and Jesus Manuel Quinones-Camacho, all co-defendants, were responsible for holding the immigrants hostage and were caretakers of the drop house.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/human-smuggler-found-guilty-for-role-in-holding-31-illegal-immigrants-hostage/

Phoenix, Arizona: Based on 2007 criminal conviction statistics:

Illegal immigrants account for 34% of the drug convictions; 44% of forgery; 96% of smuggling; 85% of false ID; 50% of crimes related to “chop shops”; 36% of kidnappings; 21% of crimes committed with weapons; 13% of aggravated assaults; 13% of robberies; 13% of stolen cars; 10% of sex crimes; 11% of murders and 20% of the felony DUI convictions in the Phoenix area. Illegal immigrants make up 19 percent of those convicted of crimes in Maricopa County and 21 percent of those in county jails.

Illegal immigrants only make up an estimated 9 percent of the county’s population.

It is estimated that each violent crime cost citizens ,000, and each property crime cost citizens 63 per offense.

All the more a concern is research that finds the likelihood of an illegal immigrant being incarcerated grows with longer residence in the United States and that the U.S. born children (considered citizens) of illegal immigrants are dramatically more likely to be involved in crime than their illegal immigrant parents. For instance, native born Hispanic male high school dropouts are eleven times more likely to be incarcerated than their foreign born counterparts.

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2008/10/04/news/ doc48e723fee4491262298552.txt

http://www.mcaodocuments.com/press/20081002_a.pdf

PHOENIX — As the days tick down until the Arizona immigration law takes effect, the state stands as a monument to the anger over illegal immigration that is present in so many places.

The anger has been simmering for years, and erupted into a full-blown fury with the murder of a prominent rancher on the border earlier this year. The killing became a powerful rallying cry for immigration reform and the sweeping new law set to take effect Thursday, barring any last-minute legal action.

But it does not tell the whole story about how Arizona got to this point.

Turn on the evening news in Arizona and some report reflecting the state’s battle with illegal immigration will likely flash across the screen.

A drop house crammed with illegal border-crossers smack in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Traffic patrols and workplace raids that net the arrest of dozens of illegal immigrants, often in heavily Hispanic communities. Politicians speaking venomously about border violence and the leech of immigration costs on the state treasury.

Along the streets, Arizonans see day laborers near Wal-Mart and Home Depot parking lots, waiting for work. In some Phoenix-area neighborhoods, Spanish is so predominant both in spoken word and signage that residents complain they feel like they’re in a foreign country.

Then rancher Robert Krentz was gunned down in March while checking water lines on his property near the border. Authorities believe — but have never produced substantive proof — that an illegal immigrant, likely a scout for drug smugglers, was to blame.

Almost immediately Krentz came to symbolize what’s at stake with illegal immigration. Politicians quickly connected the dots, but everyday folks also spoke with anger and fear about the rancher’s death.

"You can’t ignore the damage and the costs to the taxpayers and the disrespect that comes with it and those who think they have a right to break our laws," says Russell Pearce, the fiery state senator who wrote Arizona’s new immigration law.

Pearce, in fact, is the godfather of anti-illegal immigration sentiment in Arizona and author of many of the tough laws.

He regularly depicts illegal immigration as an "invasion." He can tick off the names of police officers killed or wounded by criminals in the country illegally.

One of those names is that of his son, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Pearce, who survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen from an illegal immigrant in 2004 while serving a search warrant in a homicide case.

That might explain Pearce’s indefatigable effort against those entering the country illegally, but he says he held tough views before his son was shot. He insists that his frustration centers more broadly on the crime that immigrant smugglers bring into the country and the financial stress that illegal border-crossers put on communities.

Between 40 percent and 50 percent of all immigrant arrests each year on the U.S.-Mexico border are made in Arizona, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

And the annual costs? About 0 million for educating illegal immigrants at K-12 schools, more than 0 million for jailing illegal immigrants convicted of state crimes and as much as million that hospitals have to eat for treating illegal border-crossers, according to figures provided by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Gov. Jan Brewer’s office and the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

At Copper Queen Community Hospital, 4 miles north of the border in Bisbee, the emergency room sees one or two illegal immigrants every shift. Dr. Daniel Roe, the emergency-room medical director, says many come in with broken bones from jumping the 15-foot-tall border fence, others suffer from walking for days in the desert with little to no water, and others have been involved in car accidents.

"It’s very much part of our normal flow," he says. "But it demands resources. So it affects the operating budget."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/7124062.html

The weekly immigration protest circus outside an east Phoenix furniture store needs to come to an end.

The ultimate point behind the dueling demonstrations has been completely lost in the back-and-forth shouting and increasingly bitter political signs appearing each Saturday across the street from M.D. Pruitt’s Home Furnishings. This private business has unfairly been caught in the crossfire, and the potential for violence appears quite real after an immigrant rights protester was arrested Dec. 15 for allegedly shoving a prominent agitator from the other side of the debate.

Blame for a situation that has escalated badly falls squarely on Phoenix resident Salvador Reza and fellow activists who are campaigning for the right of day-laborers, presumed to be illegal immigrants, to loiter in and around Pruitt’s parking lot. A second group of demonstrators is showing up each Saturday only to offer a counter message of strict immigration enforcement.

We are sympathetic to Reza’s larger concern that a rising level of hate in this country is interfering with the public’s ability to rationally discuss workable solutions to our flawed system of immigration and foreign employment. But we are baffled by this strategy of targeting a family-owned furniture store because it acted to protect its private property.

Reza never has disputed that dozens of day-laborers would descend on Pruitt’s parking lot, sometimes creating traffic jams as they waited to be hired and generally discouraging potential customers from coming in. Reza launched the protests after Pruitt’s hired off-duty law enforcement officers to serve as security guards empowered to chase away anyone who didn’t have legitimate business with the store.

The immigrant activists claim they are protesting an immoral slight to Hispanic day-laborers because of their skin color or nationality. But these protesters are the ones who have injected racial bias into the Pruitt’s situation, as we expect the store owners would have reacted the same way if the day-laborers happened to be European, Asian or even Martian.

Such protests would make far more sense if they took place outside of the government offices, businesses or homes of those people with the power to actually affect the outcome of the immigration debate. A small group of immigrant rights protesters moved in this direction Thursday when they marched from Pruitt’s to Phoenix City Hall.

These protesters should continue down that path instead of disrupting the livelihood of a small business that simply wants to provide a comfortable environment for its customers to shop.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/105067

More than 800 law enforcement agents swooped down on a massive human smuggling ring in Arizona early Thursday morning, delivering what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called a "serious blow" to a criminal network that helped shuttled illegal immigrants all around the country.

Thursday’s strike is the largest coordinated action ever led by ICE, which partnered with eight other federal, state and local agencies to arrest 47 suspects in Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales and Rio Rico, Arizona.

"Alien smugglers are a scourge," ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton said. "They violate our borders … [and] profit at our expense by knowingly breaking our laws, day in and day out. Today we turned the tables on the smugglers."

ICE agents targeted four Tucson-based shuttle van services they believe have ferried thousands of illegal immigrants from southern Arizona to Phoenix, providing fake ride receipts for passengers and even coaching them on how to answer law enforcement agents if the buses are stopped at immigration checkpoints along the highway.

ICE alleges that the businesses are part of a larger smuggling operation that carries illegal immigrants over the border from Mexico From there the illegal immigrants were left at drop-houses or brought to shuttle services that offer rides to destinations all over the West Coast.
The owners and operators of Saguaro Roadrunner Shuttles, America’s Shuttles, Guerro’s Shuttles and Nogales Express Shuttles were all targeted in the raid, as were the operators of a fifth shuttle company in Phoenix, Sergio’s Shuttle.

On the surface the vans appear like any other shared-ride shuttles, taking about a dozen passengers around southern Arizona. But ICE officials told FoxNews.com that the companies relied almost entirely on criminal activity — and all were part of a larger network of smugglers who help illegal immigrants cross the border from Mexico, travel north into the U.S. and escape the watchful eye of border agents.

ICE dubbed the investigation "Operation In Plain Sight" because of the "brazen" nature of the alleged smuggling scheme, which carried illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central America and even China deep inside the U.S.

"The defendants wrongly believed they could operate with impunity by hiding behind the veil of legitimacy these businesses provided," said Morton, adding that ICE has "dismantled these transnational organizations and literally seized the engines that were driving the criminal enterprise."

ICE officials said the smuggling group was not believed to be violent, but they stressed the far-reaching implications of its alleged crimes.

"This isn’t a mom and pop enterprise. Human smuggling is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise that breeds crime, violence and heartbreak," Morton said.

"The smugglers care about only one thing: money. They aren’t concerned about the human cost or the toll smuggling takes on our quality of life, the integrity of our borders or our nation’s security."

Law enforcement agents dozens of search and arrest warrants as far away as Tennessee on Thursday, culminating an investigation that ICE said has lasted more than a year.

Officials denied that the timing of the raids was tied to the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, who was gunned down on his own property on March 27. Officials investigating the killing believe an illegal immigrant was probably responsible for the killing, which occurred near Arizona’s border with Mexico.

The raids — long in the making — had been delayed multiple times, ICE officials said.

Thursday’s actions involved agents from nine law enforcement agencies: ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, Customs and Border Protection, Arizona’s Department of Public Safety, Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Tuscon Police Department and Phoenix Police Department.

ICE officials said they were not focusing on rounding up illegal immigrants but on bringing in the smugglers themselves, some of whom are citizens and legal residents of the U.S. The agency said it would take appropriate enforcement action if illegal immigrants were encountered during the raids.

Indictments were being issued against the owners and operators of the shuttle services on charges that include money laundering, alien smuggling and conspiracy. Suspects are due in court as early as Friday.

Officials said they seized million in assets, including real estate, vehicles used for the smuggling and other property.

ICE officials predicted that the strike would put an immediate freeze on smuggling activity in Arizona, having "dismantled" the smuggling network and arrested key players in the international ring.

Though ICE predicted other groups would move in to take the place of the smugglers rounded up Thursday, the agency believes it will take a good deal of time for

Maria was drifting off to sleep on the bedroom floor. She could hear women getting raped in the next room. Except she didn’t hear screams; she heard the laughter of male guards.

The women had been drugged by their rapists, who had done the same to Maria as soon as she walked into the house. They forced her to swallow a red liquid and handed her some white, chalky pills. She drank the liquid and tucked the pills on the side of her mouth, but they were slowly dissolving.

Phoenix Police Department/Home Invasion Kidnapping Enforcement
A Phoenix drop house where coyotes held more than two dozen illegal immigrants hostage.

Phoenix Police Department/Home Invasion Kidnapping Enforcement
This "torture closet" was used to brutally abuse a Phoenix kidnapping victim whose family could not pay his ransom.
Details

The drugs were beginning to deaden her senses.

Maria had arrived at the modest three-bedroom house in west Phoenix several days earlier in the back of a white van. She was one of about a dozen other immigrants who had hired coyotes to smuggle them into the United States. They each paid the human smugglers about ,800 to guide them safely through the treacherous Arizona desert.

Their guides instead delivered them to other, more vicious coyotes. The kidnappers demanded another ,700 apiece for Maria and the 12 others, including two young boys.

The armed captors had tried to lock up Maria in the same room with the other women. She was gripped by fear as she watched one of the guards stripping off the women’s clothes.

Maria’s husband argued with the kidnappers, telling them that she was sick, that he needed to keep an eye on her. Rather than hassle with a couple of the pollos (smugglers’ slang for their cargo), the guards allowed them to stay together.

Along with the men, the smugglers stashed her in the master bedroom.

When it was safe, she pulled the pills out of her mouth and gave them to her husband. He slipped them into the pocket of his whitewashed jeans.

She looked around the bare bedroom at the men sitting on the floor. They were tired and worn. There was a large piece of plywood nailed over the window and a deadbolt on the door that locked from the outside. There was no escape.

The pollos had come from poverty-stricken towns in Mexico and Guatemala in search of a better existence. Maria says she and her husband had hoped to find work; back home in Mexico, jobs were scarce, and the lucky few who found them earned a meager 100 pesos for a full day’s work — less than .80 a day.

The promise of making living wages is what drove Maria and the others to walk through the desert for eight days, crawl through tunnels, and move from camp to camp, car to car, and from one band of coyotes to another within the same smuggling operation. Money was also the motivation behind the kidnappers’ demands that Maria, her husband, and the other victims come up with large ransoms for their release.

The captives called their families back home, or relatives in Arizona, to plead for money they knew the families probably didn’t have. Days went by as Maria’s family worked to come up with more cash. The impatient guards threatened to beat their captives and dump their dead bodies in the desert if the money didn’t show up.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-08-12/news/phoenix-arizona-america-s-kidnapping-capital-is-brutal/1/

Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies arrested eight illegal immigrants on Saturday during a protest outside a Phoenix furniture store embroiled in a heated immigration debate.

Immigration activists have gathered on Saturdays for the past six weeks outside Pruitt’s furniture store to challenge Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s enforcement of immigration laws. Saturday was the first time deputies made arrests during the rallies. The day laborers were arrested on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

Deputies had arrested 24 illegal immigrants in the area before Saturday, but those arrests were not made during protests.

“I thought it was time to do something more about it,” Arpaio said Saturday night. “The Pruitt’s situation is getting out of hand. They are demonstrating every week and destroying this business. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Demonstrators began protesting at the store near Thomas Road and 34th Street in late October, when the store hired sheriff’s deputies to keep day laborers away from the property.

The store asked the sheriff’s office to help because they felt the presence of day laborers was hurting their business.

More than 100 protesters have shown up for the rallies, including officials from the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

The union’s legal director, Daniel Pochoda, was arrested by deputies Nov. 5 after he was asked to attend a rally to observe the interaction between protesters and deputies.http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/103196

It causes honest and decent Americans to work hard to take back what the indecent, dishonest, and treacherous office holders in Washington have ceded away without lifting a finger. But I salute the business owner and the sheriff for starting to take back this country, even it is just one furniture store parking lot at a time.

Dozens of people were arrested today in an immigration sweep that targeted vans that shuttle passengers from Mexico to phoenix.

Investigators say Tucson and Phoenix shuttle operators use their businesses to help immigrant smugglers.

About 800 federal agents, local police and deputies swarmed the streets today targeting shuttle van operators that specialize in moving people from Mexico.

They are accused of using the vans to transport illegal border crossers in an elaborate human smuggling system.

Investigators says shuttle vans mixed illegal immigrants in with regular passengers and moved them from Nogales, through Tucson, to drop houses in Phoenix.

Rick Crocker/ICE–Deputy Special Agent in Charge says, "These organizations were responsible for smuggling thousand of individuals into the country and points throughout the United States. This is really gonna set them back."

But immigrants rights advocates, Derechos Humanos call the effort far too aggressive.

Margo Cowan of Derechos Humanos says, "Today our community was attacked. We were viciously attacked by agents with automatic weapons, with masks covering their faces put up roadblocks on out streets and stopped our brothers and sisters mothers and fathers men and women and children and ask for the documents that’s outrageous."

Agents arrested 44 people. They’re looking for three more. They seized 40 vehicles and are working to seize ten million dollars worth of other property.

The operation had the support of the Mexican government. Authorities there arrested suspects in Northern Mexico.

http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12321702

But immigrants rights advocates = activists

Is this why we need an increase in low income housing in our wonderful stimulus bill?

PHOENIX — A loophole in federal law is enabling hundreds of illegal immigrants to live in homes subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, while thousands of others linger on waiting lists to get into those same units.
Those waiting lists are so long that most of them have been frozen for years, meaning people can’t even submit an application for public housing. In Arizona, hundreds of those units are occupied by people who aren’t even U.S. citizens.
The Salazar family has lived in a four-bedroom Phoenix public housing apartment for the past six years — all 10 of them.
Their rent is only 0 a month and subsidized by the U.S. government, even though both parents are illegal immigrants

http://www.kpho.com/news/18451472/detail.html

PHOENIX (AP) – Sheriff’s deputies raided two Sizzler steak house restaurants in Phoenix, arresting nine employees who are suspected of being illegal immigrants and using fraudulent documents to get jobs.
The Saturday raids were part of an investigation into whether the operators of the two Sizzler locations broke a civil law by knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says in a statement that it received a tip from a former Sizzler manager who claimed he had been fired for his refusal to hire employees without the proper documents.

A message left at one of the two restaurants wasn’t immediately returned Saturday afternoon. A manager at the other restaurant declined to provide his name and publicly comment on the raid.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GA41S80&show_article=1