Arizona Violent Crime Down, Except Under Tough Anti-Immigration Sheriff

First Posted: 07/14/10 03:34 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 06:05 PM ET 

A chart circulated by a leading immigration reform organization makes a basic, but compelling case that the new law passed -- though not implemented -- in Arizona could cause an increase rather than a drop in crime.
The non-profit group America's Voice sent out a chart on Wednesday, documenting the change in violent crime levels in various Arizona police jurisdictions from 2002 through 2009. The numbers tell two interesting stories.
The first is that, by and large, crime is down across the board. In Arizona as a whole, it has dropped 12 percent in the past seven years. But in major Maricopa County cities with their own police forces -- Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale and Tempe -- the rate has dropped even faster. (The group measured within Maricopa County because it is the epicenter of the immigration debate. But in Tuscon, which is not in the county, there has also been a drop in the crime rate since 2002, according to law enforcement statistics).


ArizonaCrime


Those findings alone suggest that the systemic violence often cited as the compelling argument for stricter border laws may be overblown.
But the more telling number may be the crime statistics for the portion of Maricopa County that is under the purview of controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to data compiled by America's Voice, crime in that area has actually increased 58 percent since 2002.
Arpaio is considered something of a visionary among conservatives with respect to his approach to immigration. Many of his reforms, indeed, have served as a basis for the law that Gov. Jan Brewer tried to implement statewide. But he has clashed with other sheriffs over his methods, with some complaining that such broad anti-immigration policies put an overwhelming burden on law enforcement officials while producing social friction rather than safety.

America's Voice's chart isn't perfect. For one, Arpaio's domain is much smaller than those of the major cities within the county. Crime as a whole remains lower under his watch than, say, in Phoenix (only it's increasing as opposed to decreasing over time). Moreover, not every factor responsible for the violent crime level can or should be tied to immigration.
But the group's underlying point is that the discussion around immigration policy both in Arizona and the United States at large needs to be reoriented. And the raw percentages of violent crime statistics shown in the chart have that effect.

 

Sam Stein stein@huffingtonpost.com

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Ann Coulter: Still Racist

The Huffington Post  |  Posted: 11/14/2013 9:03 am EST



Rightwing columnist Ann Coulter continued vilifying immigrants as criminals Wednesday in a column poking fun at people with “comically foreign” names.
The column attacks the Obama administration for allowing the federal government to hire health care “navigators” without requiring them to pass a criminal background check. The navigators are charged with taking down applicants’ personal information when they apply for health care through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.
Riffing on the theme of health care and criminality, Coulter presents a list culled from Justice Department press releases of people recently convicted of health care fraud.

Do you notice anything that stands out about the list of convicts? Would any of their names have sounded strange to Ben Franklin? Of 22 people convicted of defrauding American taxpayers by fraudulently billing Medicare or Medicaid, at least 17 have almost comically foreign names.

It is generally not clear from the list of names or the Justice Department press releases whether the people are foreign or American. Spanish surnames have existed in what is today the United States for nearly a century longer than English ones.
Nevertheless, Coulter points the finger at U.S. immigration policies.

None of the scammers should be foreigners! We can’t do anything about our native-born crooks, but why are we importing them? Enormous, unwieldy corrupt government programs run by arrogant bureaucrats would be bad enough in 1950. But after decades of our Third World-only immigration policies, one can't help noticing that Medicare and Medicaid are beckoning Disneylands for foreign-born thieves.
The problem isn't their complexion, it's their culture. In America, we think only dumb people become criminals. That's not true in the Third World!

Crime rates are lower among immigrants than the native born, according to a study cited by Pew last month. Crime rates rise among second-generation immigrants to levels comparable to the native born, the study says.
Coulter has continually raised alarms about the possibility of reform including a pathway to citizenship, saying it would create a primarily Latino underclass of welfare recipients that deplete government resources.
In fact, Latinos use less than their fair share of government benefits. A study released last year by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of entitlement benefits. Latinos, on the other hand, made up 16 percent of the population but received 12 percent of the benefits.
Check out more wrong things Ann Coulter says below.

Immigration reform will destroy the economy

Coulter doesn't just think immigration reform will hurt the economy -- she thinks it will be the "end of America." But economists generally agree that immigration reform will boost the overall economy, though it will likely increase labor competition in some sectors.

Image: Demonstrators rally for immigrant worker rights on May Day, May 1, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Thousands of people are participating in seven May Day immigrant rights protest

There are 20 million undocumented immigrants in the United States

Wrong. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there were about 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country as of 2011. Migration from Mexico, the largest sending country of undocumented immigrants, now stands at net zero or less.

Image: People gather at South Alvarado Street and West 7th Street, an area with high density of

Latinos are lazy

Wrong. In fact, the Hispanic community is highly entrepreneurial. Latinos opened twice as many businesses as the national average in the 2000s, according to U.S. Census data cited by Businessweek. Furthermore, Coulter usually makes these comments in the context of the immigration debate. Undocumented immigrants often work grueling jobs, for long hours, with fewer benefits than the native born and documented immigrants. What's lazy about that?

 

 Undocumented immigrants want to live here illegally in order to receive government benefits

 This statement is ridiculous. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are not legally eligible for most government assistance, though many households have members who are both citizens and undocumented.

Anyone who has reported on the topic knows the vast majority of undocumented immigrants would prefer to regularize their status than run the risk of winding up in detention and deportation proceedings

 

Hispanics become poorer over time

That’s not what the research shows. In fact, each generation of Latinos tends to do better economically than the generation that preceeded it, according a 2011 study by the Migration Policy Institute.

 

Image: Adriana Sanchez, who was brought from Mexico to Central California as a 12-year-old, teaches a math class at the Adult School in Fresno, Calif., on Monday, May 21, 2012. Despite a lack of proper immigration documents, the 24-year-old graduated in May from California State University, Fresno with a Master's degree in International Relations, a full time job and zero loans to pay back. (AP Photo/ Gosia Wozniacka)

Latinos are government-dependent

Untrue. In fact, Hispanics use less than their fair share of government benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Latinos make up 16 percent of the population, but receive 12 percent of benefits. Non-Hispanics whites, by contrast, account for 64 percent of the population

Latinos will automatically vote Democrat

Not if past experience is a guide. There are many absolutes in Coulter's mind, but reality generally plays out with more nuance. The Latino vote tends to lean liberal because Hispanics, in the aggregate. Latinos tend to favor a larger government that provides more services and -- conservative talking points notwithstanding -- they tend to lean more liberal than non-Hispanic whites on issues like abortion and gay marriage. ion, but receive 69 percent of entitlement benefits.

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The Endless Search For John Boehner's Balls

By Charles P. Pierce at 4:15PM

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

They're still buried in a Mason jar somewhere on the continent of North America, and only Eric Cantor has the map.

Boehner repeated his long standing opposition to the Senate-passed immigration bill and his pledge the House would never vote on it, but he went a step further, drawing a bright line: "I'll make clear we have no intention ever of going to conference on the Senate bill." Last week the third ranking House Republican, GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-California, told immigration reform advocates that there wasn't enough time left this year for the House to take up immigration reform. The House is in session 15 days between now and the end of the year.

So that's it. Thank you all for playing, and for being such incredible suckers, all you people who lined up after the last presidential election and predicted that the Republican party would have to moderate its stand on immigration or else face a demographic cataclysm over the next half-century. Here is the thing. Modern conservatism cannot exist without a strain of outright bigotry in its general politics, and the modern Republican party cannot exist without modern conservatism, so there we are. Absent that dwindling, but noisy, remnant of race-baiters in the party's base -- a group of people a more sensible party would have told to piss up a rope decades ago -- modern conservatism, and the Republican party that is its vehicle, would dry up and blow away on a gentle breeze. They can no more move on this issue than they can tap-dance on the moon. If you want further evidence, consult the recent impotent blathering from the only guy in the party who sings in a more pleasant soprano than the Speaker -- obvious anagram Reince Priebus, the titular head of the Republican party.

"Something significant is going to happen because obviously mass deportation is not an option. I don't think doing nothing is an option. And I believe most people would agree that something significant needs to take place. Now what that is, I don't get to make that decision," Priebus told Bloomberg's Al Hunt in an interview set to run Friday evening on "Political Capital."

Last March, Priebus was singing in a register so high only dogs could hear him.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gave a blistering assessment of the GOP's problems on Monday based on the results of a months-long review, and he called on the party to reinvent itself and officially endorse immigration reform. Referring to the November election, Priebus said at a breakfast meeting: "There's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; and our primary and debate process needed improvement." "So, there's no one solution," he said. "There's a long list of them." Among the report's 219 prescriptions: a $10 million marketing campaign, aimed in particular at women, minorities and gays; a shorter, more controlled primary season and earlier national convention; and creation of an open data platform and analytics institute to provide research for Republican candidates.

Funniest thing ever.

Read more: John Boehner No Immigration Reform - The Endless Search For John Boehner's Balls - Esquire
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Kids Talk with Speaker Boehner

Carmen Lima, 13, of Arizona, and Jennifer Martinez, 16, of Washington state, confront Speaker Boehner at breakfast. Carmen, who hasn't seen her father since she was ten, and Jennifer, whose father was detained for several months by ICE, tell Speaker Boehner how our broken immigration system affected their families and ask for his support on immigration reform.

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Parker: Can the Republicans handle prosperity?

Parker: Can the Republicans handle prosperity?

By Kathleen Parker

| The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In spite of everything — the GOP’s internal scrimmages, the government shutdown, the party’s transparent attempts to derail Obamacare — Republicans keep getting second chances.

The question is, can they handle prosperity? Do they even know what to do with it?

With the myriad problems besieging Obamacare, from the non-rollout to the minuscule number of enrollees in the health insurance exchanges, this is no time for gloating. Rather, it is time for Republicans to get very, very busy with their own ideas for across-the-board reforms.

The party of "no" must become the party of "we can, too!" This doesn’t mean sacrificing core principles, though some could use a little shelf time. It does mean picking battles Republicans can win and avoiding skirmishes that further alienate centrists and minorities.

Forget building a larger tent, which increasingly looks like a pup for two white guys and a flashlight. Ditch the tent and build a coliseum. Install Doric columns, if you like, and grab an obelisk on your way to redemption. At no extra cost, here’s an inscription for the keystone: Waste not, want less. Waste not this moment; want less than perfection and aim for the possible.

This was always House Speaker John Boehner’s battle plan, but he finally concluded that leading his conference where it wanted to go was preferable to inciting a civil war. In a recent interview, Boehner told me he thinks at least some of the better-death-than-compromise caucus had come around to understanding that attaching Obamacare to the continuing resolution, resulting in the government shutdown, was the wrong tactic.

Even so, "at least some" may not be enough. And who knows what Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has up his sleeve as new deadlines loom for budget and debt-ceiling negotiations early next year?

In the meantime, House and Senate Republicans have a small window, while Obamacare is hugging the shoals, to show why their ideas are best. Americans frustrated with Congress and disappointed by the president are primed for someone to pick up the bullhorn and say, "We hear you."

It’s too bad "compassionate conservatism" has become tarnished because compassion is what is needed in today’s GOP playbook: Compassion for the hungry whose food stamps House Republicans excised from the farm bill; compassion for 11 million immigrants who are prisoners in illegal limbo; compassion for gays, lesbians and others seeking protection against workplace discrimination.

These are not such difficult choices in the scheme of things. How to guarantee that Iran can’t weaponize its nuclear capability? That’s tough. Not so tough: Helping the poor feed their families, finding a path for citizenship along with other immigration reforms, extending equal protections to individuals whose sexual orientation should not be a firing offense.

The Senate also has passed a comprehensive immigration bill with the help of 14 Republicans that contains a relatively strenuous path to citizenship that includes paying back taxes and fines, and getting in line behind others seeking citizenship. Hardly a giveaway. Even so, some Republicans aren’t on board with the path to citizenship. Although Boehner told me he hopes to get an immigration bill to the House floor next year, others say 2014’s midterm elections make this unlikely.

Phooey.

What’s really not likely to happen is a Republican White House — ever — without Latino voters. There’s only so much Republicans can accomplish when they control only half of one-third of government. Consider that the biggest states with the largest concentrations of Hispanics — Florida, California, Texas and New York — also convey 151 of the 270 electoral votes needed to be elected president.

Appealing to Latinos doesn’t mean Republicans have to pander or bow to President Obama’s wishes. It means doing the right thing. Even though a slim majority of Americans (53 percent) think most immigrants here illegally should be deported, according to a Reuters/Ipsos online survey last February, a more recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 65 percent favor a path to citizenship if it requires essentially what the Senate bill proposes.

The draconian option of deportation would be an unlovely sight. Not only would families be torn asunder, but America’s crops would wither on the vine, as they did in Alabama after that state’s crackdown prompted a sudden, mass exodus. Yet again, unyielding principle prevailed over common sense and survival.

Time is of the essence if Republicans hope to refresh their image in the public square. Picking battles wisely, acting compassionately, creating rather than negating is the only way forward. Jar the hardwoods, campers, there’s daylight in the swamp.

Kathleen Parker’s email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.

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Arizona's 'Sheriff Joe' Arpaio Threatens To Punish Unpatriotic Inmates With No Food

By myfoxphoenix.com

Published November 08, 2013

Fox News Latino

 

 See the Video Here:

 PHOENIX –  Just in time for Veterans Day: Patriotic jails, courtesy of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
U.S. flag stickers have been placed in cells housing 8,500 inmates around Maricopa County — and inmates who mess with the stickers will find the sheriff messing with their food.
MCSO says it employs over 600 men and women who are U.S. military veterans. This campaign is to honor them and anyone who disrespects Old Glory in a MCSO jail is looking at a lot of indigestion.
Any inmate ripping or defacing these American flag stickers is looking at what the sheriff calls a bread and water diet.
Actually, it's Nutri-Loaf, a punishment for bad behavior, disgusting by all accounts, including the sheriff's.
"Hate to tell you it doesn't meet my criteria," he said.
We visited an area where the worst inmates are housed. Sure enough, flags have met with some resistance.
In the special management unit of the 4th Avenue Jail, an inmate in a one cell has been repeatedly tearing down a flag decal, resulting in him being on a bread and water diet through January 26th.
Ten inmates currently slapped with what the sheriff's news release calls a  bread-and-water penalty for defacing the flag.
The American Civil Liberties Union says quote, "We're looking into the constitutionality of whether prisoners can be punished for defiling the flags (which would be considered public property)."
The sheriff says he's just promoting patriotism, plain and simple.
When asked if this is a publicity stunt, he replied, "Well if it is, everything I do is a publicity stunt.  No, it is not and yet in a way it is.  I don't run a CIA secret organization the public should know that I put flags on..."
And not just flags, there will be patriotic music too. "God Bless America" and the National Anthem will be ringing out over the jails' public-address system. The sheriff's news release says quote, "For all inmates, regardless of national origin, to hear and sing along."
Seven days on bread and water for each flag sticker violation, the sheriff says.
We spoke with professor Steven Gonzales of Arizona Summit Law School. He said he believes the sheriff's flag policy looks constitutional on paper. The question is whether it will be enforced fairly.
Back to the veterans theme: the sheriff's office says there are plans to house all inmate-veterans together, in honor of their service.

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Racine women closed Street sat in middle of road front of Paul Ryans office

Protest. Racine women closed Street sat in middle of road front of Paul Ryans office

Protest shuts down Sixth Street

  •  By Aaron Knapp

Twelve women hold hands Friday afternoon, November 8, 2013,
as they block Sixth Street during an immigration reform
protest outside Congressman Paul Ryan's office in
Downtown Racine. /
Gregory Shaver gregory.shaver@journaltimes.com

RACINE — Twelve Racine women effectively closed a block of Sixth Street for an hour Friday afternoon after they sat in the middle of the street in front of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s office, 216 Sixth St., to push him to take action on immigration reform.
Police blocked off the street at Main Street and allowed the women to address a crowd of several dozen that gathered in front of the Racine office for Ryan, the Janesville Republican who represents Racine County in                                                                                            Congress.

The women-led protest, organized by the Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, called on Ryan to work for speedy immigration reform and stop deportations.
Police wrote down each woman’s information and told them that they would be cited for the incident, according to Joe Shansky, a representative of the organization.

Cecilia Anguiano, right, talks about her
family's struggles with immigration, as
she and her mother, Sofi Anguiano, center,
and her grandmother, Luz Maria Hernandez,
left block Sixth Street with other women
during a immigration reform protest Friday
afternoon, November 9, 2013, outside
Congressman Paul Ryan's office in Downtown Racine.
Gregory Shaver gregory.shaver@journaltimes.com

One of the women, 77-year-old Racine resident Luz Maria Hernández, said some of her children have been waiting in Mexico for 17 years for their visas to be approved.
“I have no fear because I’m fighting for my children and for many families who also suffer and are saddened,” said Hernández, who has nine children, 31 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Hernández, her one daughter who has been able to move to Racine, 57-year-old Sofia Anguiano, and her granddaughter Cecilia Anguiano were three of the women cited during the protest.
Hernández and her granddaughter were arrested together in a protest in Washington, D.C., in September, but Sofia Anguiano said that Friday was the first time she has ever been ticketed in the United States.
Another protester, Luisa Morales, 25, said that deportations are of particular concern for her because she was raised in Racine by two parents who were
                                                                               always at risk of being deported.

Racine police gather information from twelve women
Friday afternoon, November 8, 2013, as they block
Sixth Street during a immigration reform protest
outside the Congressman Paul Ryan's office in
Downtown Racine. /
Gregory Shaver gregory.shaver@journaltimes.com

“I feared everyday in my childhood because they came to this country undocumented,” she said. “I had to grow up much sooner than most kids.”
Shansky said that the organization has held similar protests in front of the offices of Ryan, Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson in the past to spur action on immigration reform.
The protest began at about 3 p.m. and lasted for about an hour, until the women concluded the protest and willingly moved out of the street.

 Journal Times, 212 Fourth St. Racine, WI

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How Ted Cruz's Father Shaped His Views On Immigration

by

June 20, 2013 3:01 AM

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/06/20/193585553/how-ted-cruzs-father-shaped-his-views-on-immigration

 As the Senate debates a massive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, one of its newest members has emerged as a leading opponent of the bill's most controversial feature: a path to citizenship for millions living in the country unlawfully.
The views of that freshman senator — Texas Republican Ted Cruz — have been significantly colored by the saga of his own father, an immigrant from Cuba.
"In my opinion, if we allow those who are here illegally to be put on a path to citizenship, that is incredibly unfair to those who follow the rules," Cruz has said.
And the example he frequently points to is his father, 74-year-old Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
"I came to this country legally," Cruz's father says. "I came here with a legal visa, and ... every step of the way, I have been here legally."
In an interview near his home outside Dallas, the elder Cruz says that as a teenager, he fought alongside Fidel Castro's forces to overthrow Cuba's U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. He was caught by Batista's forces, he says, and jailed and beaten before being released. It was 1957, and Cruz decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the University of Texas. Upon being admitted, he adds, he got a four-year student visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana.
"Then the only other thing that I needed was an exit permit from the Batista government," Cruz recalls. "A friend of the family, a lawyer friend of my father, basically bribed a Batista official to stamp my passport with an exit permit."
The Rafael Cruz that his son Ted portrays is a kind of Cuban Horatio Alger — arriving in the U.S. with only $100, learning English on his own and washing dishes seven days a week for 50 cents an hour.
"Since he liked to eat seven days a week, he worked seven days a week, and he paid his way through the University of Texas," Ted Cruz says of his father, "and then ended up getting a job and eventually going on to start a small business and to work towards the American dream."
Only he did that in Canada, where Ted was born. His father went there after having earlier obtained political asylum in the U.S. when his student visa ran out. He then got a green card, he says, and married Ted's mother, an American citizen. The two of them moved to Canada to work in the oil industry.
"I worked in Canada for eight years," Rafael Cruz says. "And while I was in Canada, I became a Canadian citizen."
The elder Cruz says he renounced his Canadian citizenship when he finally became a U.S. citizen in 2005 — 48 years after leaving Cuba. Why did he take so long to do it?

Ted Cruz talks with his father, Rafael, on the day of the GOP primary election in May 2012 at the campaign's phone bank in Houston.

Pat Sullivan/AP

"I don't know. I guess laziness, or — I don't know," he says.
Peter Spiro, a legal expert on U.S. citizenship at Temple University, says Rafael Cruz followed "sort of a zigzag path to citizenship." Spiro says Cruz's multicountry odyssey did not follow traditional models for immigration.
"Ted Cruz himself seems to be an advocate of those traditional immigration models," Spiro says. "Maybe he should be a little more tolerant of the nontraditional versions, given his own father's history."
And yet Ted Cruz wants to change the immigration bill with an amendment removing the path to citizenship.
"The 11 million who are here illegally would be granted legal status once the border was secured — not before — but after the border was secured, they would be granted legal status," he says. "And indeed, they would be eligible for permanent legal residency. But they would not be eligible for citizenship."
And they would thus be ineligible to vote. Such immigrants would most likely vote Democratic — and Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa says that's the real reason Cruz opposes a path to citizenship.
"All these specious arguments that are being made about, 'Whoa, my dad got in here the right way and, therefore, everybody else should' are just — are bogus and everybody knows that," Hinojosa says.
Speaking Wednesday with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz said that by promoting what he called "amnesty" for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Senate Democrats are indeed hoping to get a lot more Democratic voters — but not among immigrants who did things the right way, like his father.

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