Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona! Congratulations!
This week, having already done everything imaginable to turn himself into a national right-wing celebrity by terrorizing undocumented immigrants, Sheriff Joe turned to the unimaginable. For a pre-arranged media circus, he paraded -- that's right, paraded -- undocumented immigrants wearing humiliating old-fashioned prison uniforms and shackles out of the county jail to a "tent city" where they are now being held and awaiting court. Just as Arpaio rounded up immigrants in the county through widespread racial profiling, he has carried that racism to detention by segregation -- and singling out -- Latino immigrants.
Arpaio claims the measure was a cost-saver, but it's worth noting that in 2005, he moved 700 prisoners from one prison to another wearing only pink underwear and flip-flops (the prisoners were, that is, not Arpaio). Outraged Maricopa County politicians say the cost-savings are negligible and merely a red herring. "He's trying to justify this as a 'budget savings,' and I'm just appalled," said County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. "It's just another publicity stunt."
Of course the idea that gross violations of human rights might possibly be justified by cost-benefit analyses (see, e.g., the death penalty) or efficiency (see, e.g., torture) has been repeatedly repudiated mathematically. Let alone the moral calculus that apparently is beyond Arpaio's grade level.
The most noteworthy thing about the photos from the orchestrated show is that the antiquated prison costumes all say "UNSENTENCED." According to Stephen Lemmons, over 70% of people under Arpaio's control are all still awaiting trial. What better way to welcome immigrants to America, where everyone is supposedly innocent until proven guilty, than march them in chains to a temporary concentration camp encircled with a high-voltage fence. That will teach you to seek low-wage working picking our vegetables to feed your own family!!!
The "UNSENTENCED" labels in the midst of the "we're doing everything to portray you as dangerous and guilty" pageantry is the ultimate irony -- despite Arapaio's best attempts, the men he is trying to dehumanize remain human, fathers, brothers, sons trying to pursue the same dreams dangled in front of generations before.
Still, hats off to Sheriff Arpaio who, while he could be spending his time pursuing fraudulent mortgage brokers or mini Madoffs, is doing his part to whip up anti-immigrant furor among those who truly have bigger problems but find scapegoating immigrants much easier than imagining a new economic paradigm of justice for all. What better way to ignore your own shackles than to shackle others. Sheriff Arpaio is a real trailblazer in the right-wing shell game of denial.
How about Edward Chisman 88 years old took a day trip across the Mexican border with his grandson who was in need of dental work.
Mexican police arrested the pair Jan. 8 on pornography charges after Gary Chrisman took a photo of two fully clothed young women in a convenience store in Algodones, Mexico.
After Gary Chrisman's dental work, the pair stopped at a convenience store. Edward Chrisman waited in the car while his grandson went to buy a soda. Gary Chrisman said he asked a family in the convenience store if he could pay them $25 to take their photos. He'd been taking photos of Mexican culture all day with a new camera.
The mother granted permission and took his money. He snapped headshots of her two daughters, 17 and 18, and left the store.
The elder Chrisman never got out of the car.
Local police arrested both men a few minutes later. Their money, passports and other belongings were taken. The pair were placed in a holding cell in Morelos. The charge: "intent for pornography."
The ONLY thing that will stop this man's endless string of human rights abuses is federal intervention. The local media serves no other purpose than to serve Arpaio's need for self-aggrandizement at the expense of others.
http://www.truthinimmigration.org/Myths.aspx
http://www.breakthrough.tv/product_detail.asp?proid=130&id=7
Also check out www.homelandgitmo.com
We have enough problems in this country taking care of our own citizens.
We are at war with an idea, an intangible concept that our court appointed President gleefully worked into a shooting war for profit!.
These immigrants are looking for a better life, not for violence and mayhem! Lumping them in with terrorist is just ignorant.
Be vigilant not fearful!
Illegals that get caught should not be subject to humiliation anymore than anyone else.
That is what Arpaio is, a sadist that found a whole class of helpless people to abuse for his own enjoyment.
I have seen his smug, ridiculous justifications of his outdoor jail and pink underwear and they fall very short of plausible. This is a county jail, not a supermax! He charges inmates for their food as well. They must work on chain gangs which contribute thousands of dollars of free labor to the community. The male chain gang, and the world’s first-ever female and juvenile chain gangs!
Inmates are not paid for work they do, but they are charged $2 for meals, (That cost less than a dollar) which are baloney sandwiches and only received twice a day. They are also forced to pay for their own medical care while in Arpaio's jail.
There is tough on criminals, then there is dehumanizing them for personal gain.
We might want to rethink the whole immigrant laborer issue. I'm sure there is some sort of a fair solution.
Know-nothings telling you the immigrants themselves are the problem are attempting to exploit your fears to get you to vote for them so they can keep subsidizing and shielding the corporations responsible for the real problem.
Who do you think washes the dishes, does the laundry cleans the rooms and runs the fryolater at the casinos?
When they these Latinos commited crimes they were arrested. When it was determined they were not in the United States legally they were segregated from the American population. Humiliation is the least of their problems. They deserve more than that. Although I feel sorry for their plight, the United States cannot be the destinaton for thes poor and uneducated people of Mexico. It is not our reponsibility to fix their problems. The Mexican government should be held responsible even if that means reduced relations with that country.
The reason they are 'illegal immigrants' is because, in the 1950s, the laws were changed to make them so. Prior to that, we had an open immigration policy in the Americas: citizens of countries in North and South America were free to immigrate to the US without restriction. This created the illegal immigration problem of today, because it created an illegal workforce exempt from labor laws and minimum wage because they did not officially exist. This has greatly benefited American business.
Undocumented immigrants work in agriculture, in restaurants, in hotels, in meat-packing, in domestic housekeeping. Corporations and wealthy Americans profit from them and know-nothing politicians attack the immigrants rather than the reasons for the problem. No one is locking hotel owners in concentration camps for employing undocumented maids, they are locking up the maids for taking the job.
Think about that.