Arizona Reports for the real news (2010 to 2020)

 by Oscar Leon February 2, 2019 for TRNN

In Tucson, Arizona, a US Magistrate handed guilty verdicts against  four No More Deaths activists, who were leaving water for border  crossers, along the US-Mexico border. The activist group calls the  decision a retaliation for releasing an incriminating report about the  Border Patrol. A fifth activist faces an upcoming trial and potentially  decades in prison

NARRATOR: As  part of the Trump administration’s ramping up of prosecution and anti  immigration enforcement push, on January 18, four “No More Deaths”  activists were found guilty of different charges. They were detained for  being on Cabeza Prieta, a protected 860,000-acre refuge without a  permit, and for trying to leave water for immigrants crossing the  desert.
OSCAR LEON: We are outside the federal court building in Tucson, Arizona, where 4 NMD activists were prosecuted.NARRATOR: The group’s driver, Natalie Hoffman, was declared guilty of operating a  vehicle in a wilderness area, entering federal land without a permit  and abandonment of property, while Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and  Zaachila Orozco-McCormick were found guilty of two of those charges.The defendants, who are still awaiting sentencing, face a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $250 fine each.CATHERINE GAFFNEY: The  prosecution’s call into question both the right to receive humanitarian  aid, which everyone has the tight to, regardless of your documentation  status. Everyone has the right to medical care and to food and water. “NARRATOR: Catherine Gaffney is an activist for No More Deaths, a multifaith  coalition group and a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of  Tucson.She came as a volunteer and saw so much death  and suffering that she moved to Tucson on 2011 to be a permanent  volunteer for the organization.CATHERINE GAFFNEY: Doesn’t  matter if you’re an immigrant or not. And it’s an attack on the right  to give humanitarian aid, which is not only a human right, but it’s a  principle of faith for people around the world.NARRATOR: Activist Scott Warren, who is an Arizona State University instructor,  awaits trial for charges involving harboring undocumented immigrants,  which is considered a felony.His detention happened just hours after the release of the videos of border patrol destroying water jugs.CATHERINE GAFFNEY: There  is a pattern of targeting No More Deaths. These latest prosecutions  really kicked off when we really started a report documenting thousands  of incidents of border patrol destruction of water in the desert. So we  believe there’s a pattern of retaliation here.
NARRATOR: Dan Millis, a former No More Deaths volunteer, was also found guilty of  littering in 2008. The ruling was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court  of Appeals in 2010.DAN MILLIS: Max and I and  a couple of different volunteers with No More Deaths, we were  approached by federal law enforcement officers. And they said, “What are  you doing here.” We said, “Well, we’re leaving water for people in  need.”They said, “You can’t leave water because that’s  littering.” And we said, “Littering? We’re not littering. We’re actually  picking up garbage. If we find any garbage or trash on the ground we  pick it up, and we put out fresh, clean bottles of sealed water and we  keep track of it all. We write it down, we come back and check on it.  And every time there’s an empty, we put a new one out and take the empty  and recycle it.”NARRATOR: No More Deaths  began in 2004 as a coalition of community and faith groups trying to  stop the deaths in the desert, which have been documented to be as high  as 160 a year.DAN MILLIS: In 2005, when  Shaunti and Daniel were accused, they brought felony charges for again, I  think it was a year and a half, two years. Those charges were finally  dropped. Then I got prosecuted. My friend, Emeris Stanton, got  prosecuted. Then Catherine Fergusson, who has since passed away.
NARRATOR: A third group of volunteers awaits for their trials on February 26. Caitlin Deighan, charged with driving in a wilderness area, along with Zoe Anderson, Logan Hollarsmith, and Rebecca Grossman-Richeimer, all charged with entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit.CATHERINE GAFFNEY: It’s  simply not possible to carry the amount of water that you would need.  There are no natural water sources in that desert. There’s two or three  wildlife stock tanks with pretty polluted water that isn’t very healthy  to drink. Often leads to diarrhea and GI problems.And on the  day that the four volunteers were stopped by Fish and Wildlife, it was  110 degrees. So walking in 110-degree heat for three to five days with  no natural water, it’s clear that that will mean death, if people aren’t  able to find water to keep going.NARRATOR:  Anybody who has been around the Sonoran Desert understands how deadly it  is. Not only does it have extreme weather in day and night, but also a  great number of cactus that can make your life very difficult. You can  get lost or you can fall into a ditch, hurt yourself and be left to die.The main danger is the heat, and its chief assassin is a severe heat stroke.DAN MILLIS: In  2008, when some No More Deaths volunteers and I were walking through a  remote canyon in The Arizona – Sonora borderlands, we came across the  body of someone who had died trying to cross the border.And  this person was actually very young. She was only 14 years old when she  died, and her name was Joseline and she had been crossing from El  Salvador, trying to reunite with her mother in LA.She had  already traveled through Central America, through all of Mexico, and had  come to the point in her journey where she was walking across the  border with her little brother who was, I guess, 10 years old at the  time. And they were being led by the coyote.She became sick,  she couldn’t keep up with the group. She told her little brother to keep  going and to reunite with their mother, which he was able to do. But no  one ever saw Joseline alive again that we know of after that.We  have actually been victorious in the courts in defending our  humanitarian aid, since 2005, so we are going to continue with that  success.Not only are human rights being violated but people  are being killed. Whether they’re dying in our deserts, dying in  detention, dying after they’ve been deported and delivered back into the  hands of the gang members they’re trying to escape. It’s just murder  and it’s wrong, just like slavery was wrong.CATHERINE GAFFNEY: What  we saw this week was criminalization of being able to put out water in  the West desert in a corridor where hundreds of people have died and  countless more disappeared in the last five years.We’re  really concerned by the judge’s ruling that seems to prohibit being able  to put out water in an area where people are dying of thirst.We  think that there should be respect to the preservation of life put  ahead of targeting of humanitarian need by government. And what we’ve  really seen in the West desert is a clear pattern of targeting with No  More Deaths, specifically we saw them re-write their permit in 2016 to  forbid human humanitarian aid on the Cabeza Prieta refuge.The  policy of prevention through deterrents, which is the official border  policy of the United States. It was adopted in 1994 when NAFTA was  enacted and the strategy is to make the crossing through the border so  deadly that it will deter people from migrating.It had not in  any way deterred people who are fleeing for their lives from crossing  through the desert. One of No More Death’s core demands is for an end to  prevention through deterrents. It is the cause of the thousands, more  than 7,000 lives lost on the border. 

OSCAR LEóN: The verdict seems to confirm what many  had feared: that the Trump administration is using the Arizona desert as  a weapon. Deterrence by death.

For The Real News, from Tucson, Arizona, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon June 19, 2019 for TRNN

In Arizona pro-immigrant and voter registration activists are being  intimidated, both by the state and right-wing white-supremacy groups

NARRATOR:  In Arizona, pro-immigrant and voting registration activists are being  intimidated by both the state and right-wing white supremacy groups.TOMAS ROBLES JR, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LUCHA: They chase us around and say we don’t belong here, they called us  illegals, they said we are terrorists and traitors. We have gotten  anonymous letters, from people who are too cowardly to write their names  down, but will say that we are evil, that we are terrorists. We even  had people call our phones, our private lines and say the same things.NARRATOR:  Tomas Robles is a co-executive director for Lucha, an acronym for  Living United for Change in Arizona, an NGO focused on constructing  community political power.TOMAS ROBLES JR: So this has never happened under president Obama ‘s watch, it has all happened under 45’s administration.You  could talk to the Obama Administration, you could plead to them. And  you could create policies that could help some immigrants. Deferred  Action for Childhood Arrivals is one of them.With Trump you  are seeing the opposite, you are seeing the caging of kids, 7 children  have died in captivity, now he is ruining schools and English classes,  and then he will turn around and say immigrants won’t learn English.NARRATOR:  In the context of the Trump administration’s “war on immigrants,” the  pressure has grown to new heights in many ways, and not only coming from  the state of Arizona. This is Sebastian del Portilla, a young Community  Organizer from Phoenix, Arizona.Sebastian del PortillaCommunity Organizer LUCHASEBASTIAN DEL PORTILLA: What  we do every day, acting against our government and in the best interest  of our community. It is dangerous, you are putting yourself out there.  For authorities to come and beat you. Right? To be arrested to be  harassed by white extremist groups.That type of people, right extremist groups have come by our offices before. With guns, trying to intimidate us.NARRATOR: Arizona’s sanctuary churches and Latino rights NGOs, volunteers,  guests, and staff, have been verbally assaulted by right wing activists,  who many times were trespassing on private property armed with guns.STEPHANIE MALDONADO, ORGANIZING DIRECTOR, LUCHA: I’ll  say that under the Trump administration what we have seen is an  increase in the ability to be bold. On the other side, we have seen lots  of hate, we have seen individuals coming out, directly being racist  towards communities.NARRATOR: Stephanie Maldonado is the Organizing  Director of LUCHA. Her mother self-deported in 2012 under the shade of  the infamous SB1070 law and the crude enforcement of similar laws that  followed.Stephanie then felt the need to join with  like-minded individuals and defend the local Latino Community, many of  whom like her had lost so much, due to this now ramped-up “war on  immigrants.”STEPHANIE MALDONADO: I think  that when Obama was president, I mean, that was happening, but it wasn’t  as acceptable to say “go back to your own country.”What changed more so now is that individuals feels a sense of privilege, to be able to be racist towards communities of color.NARRATOR:  These are serious threats, so much that the Southern Law Poverty Center  and a large group of local churches, many of them sanctuaries, filed a federal lawsuit against the AZ Patriot Movement and AZ Patriots, 2 white supremacist groups, which have been classified by the center as hate groups.According  to the lawsuit, these anti-immigrant organizations have trespassed into  churches and sanctuary churches, posing as media or volunteers, to  confront, harass and disturb immigrants, church staff and volunteers.The  lawsuit names several members of each group as responsible for  defamation, trespassing, invasion of privacy, discriminatory  interference with property, and conspiracy to violate their civil  rights. One of the defendants, Antonio Foreman, even attended the  infamous “Unite the Right” Rally in Virginia, where Heather Heyer was  killed by a white nationalist, and many more were injured.TOMAS ROBLES JR: We see mass shooting everywhere. It is always a white man. It is almost  always a white man. And we see these groups like the AZ Patriot  Movement, they are all white Americans who terrorize young brown  Americans. And have no kind of shame in doing so. These are terrorist  groups.You could see another thing that happened in Oregon a  couple years ago, where they held a government building hostage with  guns, and they got no jail time. Whereas you had seen any black or brown  people doing that, they would have been shot and killed.NARRATOR: The U.S. Government has also increased its efforts against activists, from the leaked Homeland Security Secret Database, tracking not only pro immigrant activists, but also lawyers and journalists.To the  charges against Dr. Scott Warren, seeking 20 years of prison, for  allegedly feeding and giving water to groups of immigrants crossing the  deadly desert. In Warren’s trial, the jury was not able to reach a verdict, according  to The Tucson Sentinel, it was declared a “hung jury” and prosecution  reserves the right to star over with a new trial.The pressure has increased across the board nationwide. In  Texas, Teresa Todd, a county attorney for Jeff Davis County, who saved  the life of 3 siblings in extreme distress, was charged with harbouring  illegal aliens, and like Dr. Warren, she also faces 20 years in prison.Both  cases respond to a Trump administration directive to focus on the  “harboring status,” which is applied broadly, even in extreme cases,  such as this one, where Todd was allegedly following one of the most  basic human impulses: to save the life of 3 children.SEBASTIAN DEL PORTILLA: What has happened with Scott Warren, him facing 20 years, and the fact  that there is, you know, militia groups out there in the same area doing  what knows what to immigrants in the desert, sends a clear message that  our government clearly does not prioritize people of color and  immigrants in our communities.Our current political  environment and the history of politics here in Arizona, has been one  full of white supremacy and with inequity. So for folks that are mixed  status, living here undocumented, there is a huge fear in our community.NARRATOR: Stay tuned with The Real News for more on the issue.

 by Oscar Leon September 15, 2019 for TRNN

ITohono O’odham Nation Members voice their objections to  Trump’s border wall and the disruption of the lives of the people and  animals that have lived there for centuries

VO:  President Trump’s border wall appears to be moving forward, at a great  cost to many. One group that is bearing this cost are the members of  O’odham Nation. They are calling attention to the disruption of their  lives, of their sacred places, and of animal migration routes that have  been in use for centuries.According to a Federal Government’s lawsuit to oppose delays in the completion of the  border barrier, 44 miles of the 30-foot high border wall will be  constructed in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta  National Wildlife Refuge, and San Pedro Riparian conservation area,  which are Unesco-recognized biosphere reserves.To find out  how this project will affect native border communities and the  ecosystem, we visited the town of Ajo, South Arizona. From there, a  group of local native activists guided us to a small pond called  Quitobaquito, inside the Tohono O’odham Nation in the Organ Pipe Cactus  National Monument, an area where the border wall is currently being  upgraded and expanded.Oscar LeonTRNN“This is the Quitobaquito area in Ajo Arizona. That right there, it’s Mexico.And  this right here is the old wall. They have, as we can see, it’s just a  vehicle barrier. So trucks and cars can’t cross. But it does allow for  animals to go under, across the border, for example to that water source  we saw over there.”VO: Quitobaquito is an oasis in the  middle of the Sonoran desert, where people and animals have stopped, to  drink from the pond and refresh in the shade, for centuries. It is a  place where temperatures easily average 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more  during the day, and as we later measured, 100 degrees Fahrenheit at  night.Amber OrtegaTohono O’odham Nation“Right  here is where we have the border, the border barrier between the United  States and Mexico, and right here is Quitobaquito.So, this  is 150 yards, this land that you see, the space you see is what they  want to clear, in order to create this renovated wall and it would  interrupt the life of the spring.And it also like, the fear  that we Hia Ced people have, is that it would not only interrupt the  natural spring, but it would deplete, the drilling of… the drilling for  the wells to complete the wall, would definitely interrupt the natural  flow and life of this spring.And us as Hia Ced people, we  will not be alive we would not be here, if it had I’ve been for this  spring, this spring is what provided the people, [with] water to  irrigate their crops.It’s what provided the people with water to build.”VO:  That could be a reason why, in this area, the border wall was just a  small fence that allowed for people and animals to cross the border. The  local wildlife includes javelina, coyotes, mountain lions, pronghorn  sheep, owls, hawks, and 270 other species of birds and plants, including  the magnificent Saguaros cactus.Ortega and David both  contend that to bulldoze a 150-foot corridor next to the wall, could  irreparably affect the ecosystem of the area.Nellie Jo DavidO’odham Anti-Border Collective, Juris Doctorate“This particular body of water is a sacred spring, for Hia Ced O’odham water is life and this spring has been the life, for plants, animals, all desert life and Hia Ced O’odham people.It’s how our people survived out here and you know this very dry land, this is the one source of water that we would have.But even drilling anywhere near Quitobaquito springs, it is a desecration to us, as Hia Ced O’odham people and to the land.”VO: In fact, in this map provided by the Center for Biological Diversity, we can see the importance of Quitobaquito.It  is the only source in the area not only for water, but also for fish  and potential hunting grounds, catching animals that are trying to  drink.For a nomadic group this would be the center of daily  life. Now the area will be literally cut in half and all the animals in  the southern area may face dire consequences.Nellie Jo DavidO’odham Anti-Border Collective, Juris Doctorate“We saw, you know, before we came here, we saw plenty of footprints of animals.And so it’s still very apparent that all of this all of the animals around here depend on this spring as as its life source.And  with Trump’s imminent wall, they started over in Lukeille and they’re  working their way down here as we speak. And they’re not you know,  though they’re not there yet.But even drilling anywhere near Quitobaquito springs, it is a desecration to us, as Hia Ced O’odham people and to the land.”Amber OrtegaTohono O’Odham Nation“It  is frustrating to know that this is part of colonization and the  classification part of genocide. This is part of corporate America.You  know, for us here, it is not about the next president. It’s not about  policies, it’s about the land, it’s about the people. It’s about the  history. It’s about the future, our future generations.”VO:  Ofelia Rivas is an elder of the Tohono O’odham Nation. She lives a  couple hundred yards from the border, so she has seen the buildup of  border enforcement up close.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“you  know, the, because of Trump and really fast tracking the border,  putting up the wall, and his all the funds that’s been diverted to build  this wall. It affected us in a way that all these areas can collapse.In  part 2 of this story, we’ll review the ultra modern surveillance system  being used at the border. Stay with The Real News for more on this  issue.

By Oscar Leon, August 12, 2019 for TRNN


After a week that featured an anti-immigrant massacre and a  large-scale ICE raid, which fractured hundreds of families, the latino  community is experiencing anger, fear and uncertainty


OSCAR LEÓN This week the Latino  community was shaken by two acts of terror. The first was the massacre  at El Paso, on Saturday Aug the 3rd. When a gunman opened fire and  killed 22 people. Purposely targeting “Latinos”, according to his own  words. 
But the shock and awe for the Latino  Community did not end there. On Wednesday August 7, Immigration Customs  Enforcement, or ICE conducted raids on six different cities in  Mississippi, leaving a distraught community in its wake.
MAGDALENA GOMEZ GREGORIO I need my  dad by me. My dad didn’t do nothing, he’s not a criminal or something.  Immigration took him. Please let him free (cries).
OSCAR LEÓN The anger at the various images of broken families and traumatized children quickly spread.
JASON COOKER Nobody’s safer in  Mississippi. Nobody’s better off. What happened with these raids  devastated hard working families that are trying to do their best.
FATHER JERRY TOBIN This is  unconscionable. We have an agency that was created after 2001, called  ICE. It reminds me of the Gestapo. I’m old enough to remember the  Gestapo. We got it here now. This is unacceptable.
OSCAR LEÓN Yet among the community  of undocumented immigrants, more than anger it was fear that spread.  According to an anonymous source, from a popular store among Latinos,  business has been running slow all week, and fear seems to be the  culprit.  We spoke with several members of an unidentified community: 
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN I don’t think the community is more united now. I think it’s the opposite. They have hidden even more to avoid going out.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN The raid and  massacre do influence people from Mexico and with Mexican blood. We are  thinking twice before going to a store after what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2 After what happened this week, we do feel insecure. After such a week, now you go shopping and can’t be sure if you are safe.
OSCAR LEÓN They also told us about a new wave of discrimination, by emboldened Trump supporters.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2 If we speak  Spanish to each other, for example at work, they stare at us like,  “What’s up with these two?” I mean, you can tell when people give you a  racist stare.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN As a matter of  fact in my school they have treated me bad because I spoke Spanish, and  since I can’t speak english that good, sometimes I feel scared to speak  Spanish. I fear they’ll bully me or tell me something mean because of my  accent.
I try, but it feels ugly, because I have  other classmates that are scared to speak english, because they think  they will get bullied as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN 3 It feels bad,  because there is discrimination. I also feel insecure, you can’t go  shopping in peace. Imagine it, if you go to a store, there are not  supposed to be any guns there. They think we are stealing their jobs,  but I don’t think so. We are doing the jobs they don’t want to do.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2 I was at  work, there they told us “we don’t want for you to speak Spanish”,  because we were two Mexicans and we spoke Spanish to each other. We  replied, “What are we supposed to speak. We only speak Spanish. We are  learning english but we just got to this country.”
OSCAR LEÓN Follow The Real News for more on the issue.

 by Oscar Leon December 20, 2019. for TRNN

The U.S. government wants to put a border wall through land that belongs to the Tohono O‘Odham Nation. Oscar Leon reports.

 by Oscar Leon August 6, 2019. for TRNN

Immigrant communities and people of color in the US are highly  suspicious of the Democratic Party. However, there is a group of young  democratic politicians from members of these communities who are giving  hope

by Oscar León  November 29, 2018 for TRNN

In  the midst of a prolonged drought, Arizona’s cities have found ways to  adapt to low water reserves and put tight water management programs in  place, in order to ensure future reserves

NARRATOR: Climate change is most likely to impact us in many ways. Giant storms,  fire, heat waves, floods, and droughts are some of the most visible  threats. Southwestern states like Arizona are hit especially hard.  However, city officials are finding ways to address the problem.

Currently, southwest states such as Arizona are in the midst of a prolonged drought. Amid an 18-year drought, the Colorado River’s water level is sinking and can no longer supply major urban areas. 

According to  the U.S. Drought Monitor,  which started in the year 2000 as an interagency mandated effort to  coordinate all related information into a single system, “Since 2000,  Arizona is currently experiencing the longest duration of drought  (D1-D4), which as of October 30th, 2018 has lasted 481 weeks beginning  on August 18, 2009.”

KATHRYN SORENSEN: The scientists are telling us that because of climate change and rising temperatures, the Colorado basin is aridifying, it is becoming more arid. And we can expect in the future that the flows of the Colorado River will be diminished. That is not good, that is a really dire situation.

NARRATOR: The city of phoenix gets 60 percent of its water from the Salt and Verde rivers, but 40% of the city’s supply comes from the Colorado River. 

KATHRYN SORENSEN: What we are doing now is that we are actually preparing not just for shortages on the Colorado River, because we know that is coming. We are preparing for worst case scenarios on the Colorado River.

NARRATOR: This is a paragraph from an official document from the City of Phoenix:

“The  Colorado River is overallocated. The Lower Basin states of Arizona,  California, and Nevada, as well as the Republic of Mexico, take more water out of Lake Mead than is returned to the system, creating a structural deficit.”

NARRATOR: According to the Bureau of reclamation, up to 40 million people depend on the Colorado River. It is estimated that a collapse of the system would affect almost 1 in every 8 inhabitants of the United States.  This has even created some tension between a number of counties and cities, due to ever increasing demand, while Lake Powell Dam keeps hitting historic low water marks.

KATHRYN SORENSEN: I want to be clear about this: the Colorado River is in serious trouble. We know it is overallocated. We  know we are in year 18 of a drought. We don’t know if it’s year 18 of  an 18-year drought, which is what we hope, or if it’s year 18 of a  100-year megadrought, but we have to plan as if we are in it for the  long haul.

NARRATOR: According to the City’s report: “The most recent Bureau of Reclamation  projections show a 57 percent chance of shortage in 2020, rising to a 70  percent chance by 2022, and a 14 percent chance that Lake Mead will  fall below elevation 1,025 feet, the third tier of shortage, by 2023. 

Most  alarmingly, the Bureau of Reclamation recently presented a chart that  shows Lake Mead could hit 985 feet in elevation within four years.  Elevation 985 feet constitutes deadpool in Lake Mead; below this  elevation water cannot be released from the dam.”

Rose Davis, spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation, explains the importance of Arizona’s artificial water reserves.

ROSE DAVIS: Well, Hoover Dam was way ahead of its time in the 1930s, and it created Lake Mead. And later, Glen Canyon Dam created Lake Powell. And between these two reservoirs, they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to in this long drought. They’ve  captured the water from the good years before 2000, and this is what  we’re living on, basically. If we didn’t have these dams in place, there  wouldn’t be any runoff for the last couple of years and river would be a  trickle.

NARRATOR: Six U.S. states and the north of Mexico receive water from these dams. A  collapse to this system could cause unthinkable consequences.

In  Phoenix, a city in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, the pressing need  for water conservation defeated all political games long ago.

KATHRYN SORENSEN: You can’t live through one summer here in Phoenix without understanding at a very personal level how important water is. It is literally a matter of life and death. People who live in the desert value water, so it has been relatively easy for us to ensure that people take the steps they need to take.

NARRATOR: Among  all the cement and the asphalt you still see green areas, green golf  courses and parks, which are very hard to maintain at extreme  temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Having a grass area can  turn into a luxury. Not only that, but KATR News reported that out of the top 7 cities with most pools nationwide, six are cities that are part of Phoenix Metropolitan area. 

BILL TURNER: In the Phoenix Metropolitan area, vegetation has a cooling effect, especially during the daytime.

NARRATOR: Professor Bill Turner II is an American geographer, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and scholar at ASU.

BILL TURNER: For each individual household in the city, on average 70 percent is for outdoor usage, so that is to water your vegetation, or a swimming pool, or some combination thereof. It is using a great preponderance of water on average per residence in the metropolitan area.

NARRATOR: The City of Phoenix started working in the ‘80s on two main fronts. The  first includes education, and the second is an economic negative  incentive in the form of higher prices in the summer. 

The  City’s numbers show that back in 1970 grass was very common, in up to  75 percent of family homes. Today, according to the City’s Water  Management Office, that number is close to 14 percent–a significant  trend apace with the steady drought experienced by the state. 

KATHRYN SORENSEN: Before  we can allow growth, we have to prove to the state that we have a  hundred years worth of water that is physically, legally, and  financially available to us.

We cannot mine our groundwater supply. We have to find renewable water supplies, reuse our waste water, conserve.

NARRATOR: Phoenix has learned a lot about how to manage their water resources and  preparing for future droughts, and can be a learning lesson for other  cities that sooner rather than later will have to cope with the effects  of climate change.

KATHRYN SORENSEN: Other  cities that don’t have this kind of outlook are relatively less  prepared for extreme events. Here in the desert we have long understood  the value of water, we have long understood what it means to go without,  so we have taken preparation after preparation, plan after plan to  guard against that.

It  would be easier and less expensive to move a relatively small amount of  water from were it is today to where it needs to go in the future to  meet demands in a desert city than it would be to move unbelievable vast  amounts of water from places on the coast and river systems, were  [flood water] has insidiously invaded.

NARRATOR: Just a few days after the recording of Ms. Sorensen’s interview, Hurricane Florence devastated many counties, pushing dams and water reservoirs to the brink.

Maggie Sauerhage, Environmental  Protection Agency spokesperson, reported that during the crisis in  North Carolina, 16 community water systems completely shut down, in  addition to several publicly owned treatment plants that were  nonoperational due to the floods.

In addition to the economic and infrastructure loss, in many cases the victims of the megastorm had no access to tap water.

KATHRYN SORENSEN: Other  cities need to start looking at climate change in these terms. What are  some of the worst things that can happen? What do we need to be  prepared for? How can we make sure that we are building the right  infrastructure? The right mindset, the right culture of conservation?

NARRATOR: It is clear that planning and resource management can get results, as  evidenced by the desert city of Arizona, which is restricting water use  by price and also culture, has reduced or controlled demands that would  normally would be far greater.

This is a testimony to the effective management of underground water, imposed by these cities in their area of influence. It  is also a testimony that with effective management and planning we can  counter some of the scheduled climate-caused damage we seem to be  heading towards.

by Oscar León  October 1, 2019  for TRNN

In addition to the border wall, the federal government has set up an  entire system of ultra-vigilance which can record and forensically  review everything that happens in the border area, presenting serious  concerns for members of the Tohono O’odham nation.

NARRATOR:   The U.S. Government’s Border Security build-up, has been going on for  18 years now, affecting not only the Latino community, which has had to  deal with the separation of families, the criminalization of  communities, and with racial profiling, but it has also affected native  American border communities.We spoke to Ofelia Rivas, a Tohono O’odham Elder, who lives in the area of Ajo, Arizona.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“The  powers that be, the government, can and will just waiver, any rights  that we have today, and do what they want to do, which is to build a  vehicle barrier, build a wall and build an Integrated Fixed Towers [system] on O’odham lands and sacred lands that we have.”NARRATOR: To  compliment the border wall, the federal government has gradually  constructed an entire system of ultra-vigilance, with different kinds of  mobile sensors, cameras, radar units, microwave systems, surveillance  drones, and an  Integrated Fixed Towers Surveillance network, or ITF, patrolling the  border region around the clock and feeding information to a control  center. By  using mobile high definition cameras, sensors and radar stations, the  system can detect and track movement from many places simultaneously,  giving its control room the ability to guide many ground teams at the  same time and to use a host of technological resources and special  cameras to track many subjects at the same time.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“When  the Border Patrol proposed these towers, they were calling them  originally communication towers, oh, we can’t communicate with each  other. So we’re going to put these towers up. And originally they were  200 feet tall and because of airplane regulations they reduced them to  180 feet tall, and they proposed 15 towers on O’odham nation land.”NARRATOR: Elbit Systems is installing the surveillance system on O’odham land. The Israeli company was awarded a $145 million contract to construct 53 ITF towers in Arizona’s southern border in 2014. According to the Jerusalem Times:“[It]  will ‘be able to detect a single, walking, average- sized adult’ at a  range of 5 miles [8 km.] to 7.5 miles [12 km.] during day or night,  while sending close to real-time video footage back to agents manning a  command post.” Jerusalem Times, March 2, 2014.Popular Mechanics describes the system’s accuracy:“Elbit’s  system is so specific that it can determine whether an individual is  carrying a backpack or a long-arm weapon.” Popular Mechanics, Jan 28,  2016In Ajo, Arizona, we spoke to a group of native community  activists and inhabitants of the border area. According to most of them,  this net of intensive surveillance has radically changed their lives in  many ways.Adrian VegaAjo, AZ, local inhabitant“The  border has changed, you know, used to be, you know, it has always been  very open. When I was born and raised here, we used to jump in my  grandfather’s struck, everyone’s kids. We’d go down to Mexico. And it  was no big deal crossing the border. You know, it’s like normal stuff,  like family.”NARRATOR: Everything changed  after 9-11. The border became a national security issue, with all the  might of the Federal Government behind it.Nellie Jo DavidTohono O’odham environmental activist“after  9/11 we saw the increase of checkpoints. We cannot enter or leave our  lands without going through a checkpoint and being questioned on who we  are and where we’re from. It’s ironic because a lot of the people doing  the questioning are outsiders to our homeland, and yet the people that  are originally from there are often harassed and questioned the most..”NARRATOR: Rivas, a Tohono O’odham Elder, described being attacked on the way home  from a wedding, for refusing to speak english or to show her papers.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“Since  9-11, there’s been a great difference, very aggressive, and attacking  people. To to the point of, you know, injuring people, and killing  people.”“I spoke in my language, so he pulled his pistol, and  he put it at my head in front of my daughter, and my grandson and said  that I would have to say whether I was a US citizen or a Mexican  citizen. And I said I am Tohono O’Odham Nation.”NARRATOR: There have been many reported instances of violence that the border patrol has committed, including the running over an O’odham nation tribal member. This,  along with constant surveillance, has damaged an historically cordial  relationship between members of the O’odham nation and the Border  Patrol.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham ElderThe  international border impacts our people, we are impacted by the  policies, immigration policies, We are not immigrants ourselves, you  know, in our, our oral history, we’ve been here since the beginning of  time. But these policies have been violating our cultural rights, and  our human rights. “NARRATOR: The Border  Patrol has installed sensors all over the border area and is patrolling  it using surveillance drones. Some locals told us that they were  followed when they were taking a walk with their dogs. They also pointed  out that they are required to carry their identification papers  constantly, to avoid being detained or even deported.The  ITFs are just one of many surveillance tools that the Border patrol  uses. There are also Remote Video Surveillance Systems, Mobile  Unattended Ground Sensors, Unattended Ground Radars, Mobile Vehicle  Surveillance Systems, Agent Portable Surveillance System, surveillance  drones, planes, helicopters and even high tech surveillance blimps.All  of these systems can network and form a “virtual fence”, which, even if  you manage to cross the wall that is being built in the area, would  make it impossible to pass undetected, Many of these  integrated systems can also record all the information in its coverage  area, process it, identify subjects and retroactively review where they  have been and who they have been with.According to a written assessment directed to congress by the Department of Homeland Security:“Wide  area persistent surveillance camera systems, have the ability to  surveil a specific region, in order to increase the opportunity to  detect and observe activities, identify entities involved, and track  events forward in real time or backwards forensically.”Speaking  to The Real News Network, Bill Parrish, a reporter who wrote a story  about the O’odham nation and Border Patrol for The Intercept, describes  how this “virtual wall” affects border towns and neighborhoods.Bill ParrishReporter, The Intercept“Some  are located right next to residential areas. So basically anything that  anyone is doing living in those areas is going to be captured by these  integrated fixed towers, which pipe images and other data back to Border  Patrol command centers in southern Arizona.They have a back  in time feature, sort of like a TiVo meets Google Earth kind of feature,  where basically all the images and data are stored and can be pulled up  across time, so the Border Patrol agents are able to monitor people’s  movements over time, which is essentially what persistent surveillance  means.”NARRATOR: During the production of  last week’s report about the new border wall and the local ecosystem, a  Real News team visited Quitobaquito springs for several hours. We filmed  right next to the border, but until we got to a checkpoint, we weren’t  approached or searched.It is very probable that the agents in  charge of the surveillance system in the area, who were notified of our  presence beforehand, knew exactly what we did, with whom and where.This  kind of “omnipresence”, entails great power over the populations it  covers. As a result, it presents many questions, especially if the  government expands its use. Bill Parrish, writing for The Intercept,  quotes Bobby Brown from Border Protection at Elbit Systems as saying:“Over  time, we’ll expand not only to the northern border, but to the ports  and harbors across the country,” Bobby Brown from Border Protection at  Elbit SystemsDespite  numerous voices of opposition within the O’odham nation, a March 22,  2019 meeting, of the Tohono O’odham council approved the construction of  the towers, as a sign of support for Border Patrol, the War on Drugs, and, as reported by The LA Times, in the hope the wall will not be constructed in certain areas. This hope, however, seems misplaced, since the wall is scheduled to cover all of Arizona’s southern border.Rivas  believes that something larger might also be at play. She describes a  worldwide trend of taking native land and displacing native nations as a  very real danger for the Tohono O’odham people.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“They continue to funnel people through here, maybe it’s because they want the land of O’Odham nation.Trump  did say that He was going to privatize all Indian lands. And that takes  years of steps before they can get to that point to privatized all  Indian land. And they’re also playing with the word of eminent domain.  eminent domain.”Adrian Vega also of O’odham nation, born in Ajo, told us that there is a consistent rumor about eminent domain.Adrian VegaAjo Native“That’s  always a question with the native lands in America, is, you know, is  because the government feels they gave it to them, they probably feel  they can take it back. And that’s a huge concern, you know, to native  nations around here.”NARRATOR: Rivas finds  the current situation of Central American immigrants to be similar to  the infamous boarding system, which the US government imposed on native  communities all over North America.Ofelia RivasTohono O’odham Elder“I  don’t listen to the news because of the children dying in prisons, and  the women getting raped or, you know, all this displacement of families,  you know. And I mean, it reminds me of the boarding school system.My aunt who was probably 12, was removed from home and got sent to New Mexico early on, when boarding school happened.I  was taken to Nevada for boarding school, so that … we understand that,  and that is all we can do, send our prayers, because we know how the  system works and what has happened to indigenous people here on this  land.”NARRATOR: Stay tuned with The Real News Network for more on this issue.

by Oscar León  August 28, 2019  for TRNN

In the first part of this series we looked into how heatwaves place  outdoor workers at extreme risk, in temperatures for which the human  body is not prepared. Part two takes a closer look at a group that is  most affected by heatwaves: homeless people

Homeless in the Heat Wave / PhoenixOn  the first chapter of this series we looked into how heat waves affect  workers who perform outdoors, and the potential dangers for those  working under extreme temperatures, for which the human body is not  prepared. In chapter two, we will look into the group that is most  affected by heat waves, homeless people.By Oscar LeonDuring  the second week of August 2019, temperatures broke records worldwide,  with forest fires raging from the Amazon to Siberia. Also, ice melted at  a record pace in Greenland, and there were intense heat waves in the  U.S., Europe, and Asia.July was the hottest month ever recorded.Cities  such as Phoenix, Arizona, account for hundreds of heat related deaths  every year. Last year 182 people lost their lives in heat-related  incidents. This summer, (2019) by the end of June, with 2 more months to  go, (according to Maricopa County) there have been 160 heat related  deaths, and the count is still open.However, most heat-related deaths, around 40% of the total, are of homeless people, the group most at risk.Cpt. Danny GilePhoenix Fire Department“The  homeless are a big issue, in Phoenix we have a large population, and  like I said if you have no place to go, no place to live, and you are  out in the hot asphalt, the hot concrete all day, it just expands on the  problems we talked about, so it makes heat very difficult to deal with,  as a homeless person here in Arizona.They struggle.”On  August 21st, I visited downtown Phoenix. As I approached the city,  temperatures went from 104 fahrenheit at 9:45am, to 108 at 10:30am, to  114 at 3pm.In cities around the world, when heatwave alerts are declared, they warn of temperatures often in the 90’s.The  human body is designed to work at an internal temperature of 99 degrees  fahrenheit. If the body reaches over 100 degrees, it should be  considered Hyperthermia, which can lead to a number of consequences, including heat stroke, and should be treated as a medical emergency, to prevent disability or even death.SamHomeless, 50 years old“If  you stay here you have to be kind of used to, but if you are not used  to and you come here, it will just drop you. One day is ok, the next  day, you just feel like, I don’t know like all the water has been taken  out of you. You drink water all day and you don’t go to the bathroom,  you just sweat.”“Sam”, asked for us to protect his privacy, He told us how hard and cruel life in the streets can be.SamHomeless, 50 years old“I  have a friend, he was… everybody thought he was going crazy, but it was  the heat. And next thing you know, they said he died of cancer, I  thought there was something wrong with him, next day he couldn’t wake up  and he was dead. A lot of people die out here because of the heat, they  can’t get no water.”To think that human beings, designed to  work at internal temperature of 99 degrees, have to endure 110+  fahrenheit degrees of temperature, for weeks at a time, it is  mind-boggling, especially because it feels unbearable, even for a few  minutes.Oscar LeonTRNN“I  was doing a number of interviews in there, at 11am, at 109 fahrenheit,  my camera overheated and stopped working, and that just goes to show how  extreme the conditions are here.”VO: On 11th Avenue in  downtown Phoenix, there are two shelters across the street from each  other, providing relief to many people in need. Both shelters provide  cool environments and showers, as well as hot meals, for those seeking  refuge from the heat wave. Ash UssAdvocacy & Partnerships Cord. Andre House of Hospitality“In  one of our more recent surveys, we found out that 50% of people that  come here for dinner every night, leave here to go and sleep on the  street.”We visited Andre House of Hospitality, and spoke to Ash Uss, media representative and Advocacy & Partnerships Coordinator.Ash UssAdvocacy & Partnerships Cord. Andre House of Hospitality“There  are a lot of ways that the heat manifests, we see people being  extremely irritable, with very short fuses, people who are normally so  kind and patient, who are just exhausted by the heat.”“Unfortunately we have seen a fair share of people that we know and love, who have passed away, directly due to the heat.”Outside  the shelter we met Joseph Johnson, a native american from the Phoenix  rural area. He has been on the streets for more than 5 years and despite  being accustomed to the heat, he let us know how much it still affects  him every day.JosephHomeless, 50 years old“The  effects are so very bad, the heat, some people are so exhausted, they  want to get a shade, there is not enough shade around, yet they survive,  they have to handle the heat with no shade, but we survive. But it does  affect a lot … we have to go through these heat waves.”We  spoke to Darlene, originally from Chicago; she came to Phoenix with a  boyfriend that spent all of her money and then disappeared, leaving her  desperately searching for him but also living on the streets.DarleneHomeless, 53 years old“It  affects you a lot, I mean the heat exhaustion, you need to drink a lot  of water … you have to make sure you get your supplies, it is hard work,  it is a constant thing all day long, just to stay cool.It is  important to get a shower, you know, keep your skin clean, and stay  healthy, eat right, good food, you know … Andre House, we wouldn’t  survive without this place out here, they give us our toiletries, our  showers a place to stay cool during the day.I know that when I get back on my feet, I’ll get back here to help, because they really need it.”According  to Darlene, heat fatalities deeply affect the morale of surviving  homeless people. She said that the worst part for her, is to meet fellow  homeless who had given up, because after that is almost impossible to  help them survive.Ash UssAdvocacy & Partnerships Cord. Andre House of Hospitality“The  average person does not know that there have been 20 people in this  immediate area that have passed away from the heat. Simply because they  were experiencing homelesness. Since July, July 1, so it has been a  little over a month, that is 20 lives that are gone forever, you know,  because of the heat.”DarleneHomeless, 53 years old“We  get to have a lot of deaths this time of the year, I mean we had 6 in  one weekend, from heat exhaustion, from [absence of] water, from  dehydration. It is crazy, when there is so much water around us.So  people, if they don’t deliver [water], I mean look across the street,  there is handicap people, they can’t move around, so if they don’t get  to medical services, they end up dying out here, we had a lot of young  people, we had a 31 year old lady, who just died of heat exhaustion.”Joseph JohnsonHomeless, 50 years old“You  try to sleep, you toss and turn, it is hot, but morning comes quick  though, and it is still kind of hot in the morning, and it is going to  be another hot day, and you know in your head it is going to be another  hot day, and people know it and they realize what the next day it is  going to be.”Beyond the tragedy of death, there is the  tragedy of dehumanization. According to several sources, despite the  fact that access to water is mandated by state law, homeless people are  denied water all the time.DarleneHomeless, 53 years old“When  you do go out in public, people tend to look at you like you are a  contagious disease, carry a backpack and walk downtown for an evening,  and people won’t give you service, they won’t give you water, by law  they are supposed to in the state, but in restaurants, or in hotels, you  know, they won’t give it to you, because you are homeless.”Stay with The Real News for more on the issue.

by Oscar León  June 21, 2018  for TRNN

TTrump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents  and holding them in cages is sparking a wave of public outrage

OSCAR LEON: The world is enraged, but the cages are not new. A once silent crisis, brewing for a decade, now is boiling.

Despite the more than 4 million immigrants deported by Obama, his  successor faces a wave of refugees crossing the US-Mexican border to  escape poverty and violence.

The steps that President Donald J. Trump and Attorney General Jeff  Sessions have taken to address migration have enraged the country, the  last of which broke on Thursday June 19 by AP. “Baby jails” were being  set up to house unaccompanied minors of “tender age,” as they call them,  in other words, immigrant babies.

The next day, the pressure was simply too much, and Donald Trump  announced signing an executive order to stop the separation of families.  But let’s look at the buildup that led to this moment.

The news had quickly spread around the world. The United States of  America was separating children. Over the last month and a half, an  estimate of 2000 minors who were unaccompanied have been put in  detention centers, whether they had crossed illegally or had surrendered  in ports of entry, in many cases in groups of people who were seeking  asylum, escaping poverty and gang violence in Central America.

Even the U.N. called on the United States to stop separating families

RAVINA SHAMDASANI: There is nothing normal about detaining children.  As I said, detention is never in the best interest of the child and  always constitutes a child rights violation. On this being a criminal  offense, as I said, this should, the, you know, entry into a country  without the right papers, should at most be an administrative offence  and it certainly does not warrant jailing children.

OSCAR LEON: Headlines like: “Children separated from their families  crying in cages,” “The Bible is used to justify the separation of  immigrant families in United States,” “Frightened children are being  ripped from their parent’s arms and taken to overflowing detention  centres, which are effectively cages.”

The reference by General Attorney Jeff Sessions to Saint Paul’s  Romans 13 letter. in which he made a call to follow Roman law and avoid  immigrating to the capital, ignited outrage in both Christian and  Catholic communities, with many congregations of all kinds having  meetings to discuss what to do, facing the horrible reality Erika  Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas Director described as  “Nothing short of torture. The severe mental suffering that officials  have intentionally inflicted on these families for coercive purposes,  means that these acts meet the definitions of torture under both US and  international law.”

Children were separated from their parents and put in cages inside  temporary detention centers awaiting its transfer to facilities like  this former Walmart, in Brownsville, Texas. Their relatives will be sent  to federal prisons like Eloy and Florence in Arizona. According to the  Trump administration’s own words, there is no system in place to reunite  these families.”

In Phoenix, Arizona, inclusive and progressive churches are working  with grassroots organizations to spread awareness and raise their voices  of disapproval.

REV. JAMES PENNINGTON: Personally, I kind of understand it as a fear  of brown skin or black skin, anybody outside of white anglo. So to me  i’s also an issue of race, it’s an issue of justice, it’s an issue of  economics. It’s an issue of power, who has power, and who is really  considered human and inhuman. This is our way to tell you to stop coming  across our border, because we’re going to take your children.

OSCAR LEON: Rev. James Pennington is a Senior Minister at the The  First Congregational United Church of Christ in Phoenix, Arizona; by all  definitions, an inclusive church.

REV. JAMES PENNINGTON: We have received several individuals in  sanctuary. And also, two years ago we started a immigration legal  clinic, that was sponsored by and run by the church.

OSCAR LEON: This time the church had called for a town hall, where a  panel of legal and social workers shared their expertise on the matter  to an outraged public.

Patrick Helling, Managing Attorney for the Florence Project, an NGO  that provides legal assistance to migrants, confirmed what had been  reported. Children have been separated from their parents, and  eventually placed in custody in facilities different than those of their  relatives, who, according to the latest anti-immigrant laws, are not  entitled to bail, and will remain incarcerated until they are deported.

More temporary detention facilities are being erected, like this tent  city jail in Tornillo, Texas, designed for housing families and  children until further processing and eventual transfer.

The immigrant kids that turn 18 and have not being reunified with a  sponsor will be sent to general prison population. Carmen Smith-Estrada  from The Florence Project confirmed this.

“There are a number of kids that arrive just before they turn 18 [who  will] be transferred to detention centers for adults. If no one claims  them, or they don’t qualify for a bond, or if they can’t pay the bond  given to them, they will face a dire choice: sitting in jail until its  case sorts itself out, or choose being [deported] back to their  countries.”

The panel did notice that there is a way to help for those who are  willing to. To join and support groups like The Phoenix Restoration  Project and others. Doing hospitality work and claiming those minors  before they are surrendered to the general prison system.

Jessica Brown, social worker with the Florence Project, who works  with the actual children in detention, confirmed the severity of the  trauma experienced by the caged children.

JESSICA BROWN: Not only the trauma experienced back home, but the  trauma throughout their journey up to the U.S., and then arriving here  and being ripped from their family, the protective care that has been  with them, and then not knowing, really, what is going to happen.

OSCAR LEON: Through the two hours of the town hall meeting, people  kept relating to the immigrant families and comparing the caged children  to their own, even a group of mothers was formed to take direct  peaceful actions in the matter.

VERONICA MONGE: I know that this has been happening for a long time,  but seeing a lot of pictures in the news and the videos of the actual  children has really inspired me to want to stop this, like right now.”

ERIN TAMAYO: As a mom I have a 2-year-old and a four-year-old, and  they’re both of Latino descent. So every time I see the reports in the  news of children being ripped away from their mothers, from their  fathers, it just makes me so I can’t even sleep at night.

LEAH SARAT: One thing that we are facing with this issue of family  separations is that is an acute form of state violence. And it is not a  violence that leaves physical marks upon children, upon families, but  the violence that is does to those attachment bonds, to the parent-child  bond, can leave lasting, lasting traumatic effects upon these  communities.

So I think that we are creating a problem that is going to have  effects for generations to come. They are being placed in an institution  at a very tender age. This reminds me of the institutionalization of  Native Americans in boarding schools. Not very far past in our nation’s  history. Does that mean that they’re going to be taught that their  parents were, indeed, criminals?

OSCAR LEON: Speaking on Laura Ingraham’s show, General Attorney Jeff  Sessions, or General Sessions, as she called him, struggled trying to  explain the difference between today’s United States and 1940s Third  Reich Germany.

Laura Ingraham: Nazi Germany, concentration camps, human rights  violations. Laura Bush has weighed in, Michelle Obama has weighed in,  Rosalynn Carter. You got all the first ladies going back to Eleanor  Roosevelt. She’s apparently weighed in, as well. General Sessions,  what’s going on here?

JEFF SESSIONS: Well, it’s a real exaggeration. Of course, in Nazi Germany they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.

by Oscar León  July 21, 2019  for TRNN

In contrast to the unwavering support that conservative and  evangelical religious groups give President Trump, progressive churches  and synagogues are fighting on the front lines against the  administration’s anti-immigrant policies

NARRATOR: The  United States’ religious right has been a hotbed of support for   President Trump. Influential conservative mega church leaders have  thrown their weight behind him. One is Paula White, a pastorwho runs a megachurch in Florida She claims to be on a divine mission, to help Trump hear “what God has to say”.In early 2018, 1000  theatres played a  movie called “The Trump Prophecy,” which claims that  Trump was chosen by God to restore America’s moral values, Others like Pastor Tom Horn have even called Trump the new incarnation of “The Messiah”.You can now attend churches that portray the president as a biblical figure or buy Bibles that mention him, including some painting him as a leader, heading a bible-like apocalyptic fight.The Manhattan billionaire has gained the unshakable favor of many mega churches and conservative institutions.  He has done this mainly by advancing their agenda, from anti abortion  laws, to a conservative supreme court, that could eventually favor them  when key issues reach the highest authority. Also by routinely claiming  that Christianity is under attack.The Trump administration has embraced the support of the religious right. According to The Christian Post, in August 27, 2018 the White House held a  “state like” dinner for hundreds of Evangelical Leaders.DONALD TRUMP: As  you know in recent years, the government tried to undermine religious  freedom, but the attacks on communities of faith are over. We’ve ended  it.The support you have given me has been incredible but I  really don’t feel guilty because I have given you a lot back — just  about everything I promised.NARRATOR:  Vice President Mike Pence, a born again evangelical Christian, recently led a media tour through the detention camps and declared: “even the most hardened criminals in our criminal justice  system are not treated like that, death row inmates don’t live in  conditions like that.”Yet many pastors and spiritual leaders  of the right, recently provided moral arguments to justify the  separation of families and caging of children, such as pastor Robert Jeffress who openly praised Trump’s political action or Pastor Mike Jones who said that “Trump Putting Babies in Internment Camps is God’s Will – Or Fake News”RABBI DR SHMULY YANKLOWITZ: I  think any religious institution, which diminishes suffering that is  happening among the vulnerable populations, is living with religious  hypocrisy.NARRATOR: This is Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, an Open Orthodox rabbi, author and human rights defender.RABBI DR SHMULY YANKLOWITZ: They  have abandoned their texts, because as someone who has studied various  religions and have been exposed personally to them, I know that the core  of every religion is compassion, it is mercy upon vulnerable people.And  for [conservative religious groups] to say that they support the  current administration, and policies that marginalize, and target the  vulnerable, [they] are living with religious hypocrisy. No matter if  they are Jews, Christian, Muslim, or have no faith at all.NARRATOR: But  other religious organizations and leaders oppose the Trump  administration. Even in evangelical organizations, some Trump-supporting  pastors face disapproval from other members of their congregation One  is David Platt, a pastor from a church in Virginia, who publicly apologize for praying with Trump, after the president paid him an unannounced visit.Last  week hundreds of people took to the streets to oppose the  administration’s harsh treatment of asylum seekers in detention centers.  Here’s Father Andrew Barreras from the Reform Catholic Church.FR. ANDREW BARRERAS: Christ  never talked against, he was for the immigrant. If we follow Christian  values we should support them, help them, not mock them, not locking  them up in cages, separate them, or abuse them, mentally, physically.NARRATOR: Some  of the groups, working on the ground to relieve the suffering of ailing  immigrants and asylum seekers, are religious organizations. OSCAR LEON: The activist group No More Deaths is a  voluntary faith organization which is a ministry of the Unity  Universalist Church of Tucson.NARRATOR: No  More Deaths is a coalition of community and faith groups trying to stop  immigrant deaths in the desert. For 15 years now, the group has worked  at the border, providing humanitarian relief while risking detention  and, as of late, persecution, by the Trump administration.Nine  of the group’s activists have been detained and prosecuted in recent  months, but they are not alone in their view. Many local groups form a  network to support asylum seekers. These are small Latino and inclusive  progressive churches, trying to reflect their interpretation of the  gospel.FR JAMES PENNINGTON: Over the past  four years we have been working pretty intently on immigration issues.  And about two years ago we announced that we are a sanctuary church.NARRATOR: Father James Pennington leads the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Phoenix Arizona. They’re a  member of United Church of Christ congregations, which according to  their site has 5.000 churches and about a million members worldwide. Their  progressive platform includes environmental issues, LGBTQ protections,  minorities and immigrant rights, even sexual education.FR JAMES PENNINGTON: This issue of family values, and especially the current administration  and administrations before that, which where talking about family  values, that is not a family value.And then especially the  statements that are heinous and say that -this is our way to tell you to  stop coming to our country, we are going to take your children, and we  are going to put them in some detention for children or Child Protective  Services, that is just outrageous. And it is so anti anything that I  understand as gospel and humanity.NARRATOR:  First Church UCC, Phoenix provides shelter to undocumented immigrants  who face deportation, and runs an immigration legal clinic.GORDON STREET: We  are here to speak out against this moral injustice, going against the  families and kids. It is not the right Christian thing to do. It is not  the right human thing to do.NARRATOR: Commissioned Minister Gordon Street is an example of an “inclusive” new wave of faith.GORDON STREET: I  think the more conservative right wing church forgets about,the basic  human things that Jesus thought about. He hung out with people [like  the] ones in here, speaking out against the establishment and what is  human and right to do.NARRATOR: Father Pennington questions the values and consistency of conservatives religious groups.FR JAMES PENNINGTON: It is really hard to understand that kind of closed system of  Christianity, which is a more conservative Christianity, which says we  value families, and we don’t think we should abort a child. But once the  child comes into the world, it’s like we don’t want to provide social  services. We are going to pull them from their parents arms at the  border.Like it is a total … it seems like to me, irrational. It is irrational.NARRATOR: Rabbi Yanklowitz thinks the time is now to exert change from within.RABBI DR SHMULY YANKLOWITZ: So  we see in every religious group that binary happen, those who are  resistant and pushing back against policies of hate, or those who are  submitting to them because some archaic religious dogma. And each of us  within our own religious camp have an obligation to speak up, and  challenge people in our own religious communities, to realign themselves  with our own ancient traditional values.NARRATOR: Father  Pennington says to address these splits, there must be dialogue among  both the left and right wings of the US’s religious communityFR JAMES PENNINGTON: And  this is not just Christian, but it’s Muslim and it’s Jewish, and it is  the three Abrahamic faiths that have this whole understanding of peace  and equity and justice, and that we are all given the same rights as  humans. Yet in each of those Abrahamic faiths we’ve had our times when  we needed reformation, and we needed to be transformed and change our  own narratives.So for me it has been really difficult to have  those conversations. It is easier to have them with like-minded people,  but we need to have them.NARRATOR: Stay with The Real News for more on the issue.

by Oscar León August 23, 2017  for TRNN

TRNN speaks to some of the thousands gathered to protest Donald Trump in Phoenix

Oscar Leon: Thousands of people gathered on Tuesday, August 22nd when  President Donald Trump held his first rally after the violence in  Charlottesville. Inside the Phoenix Convention Center speaking to  thousands of his supporters, US President Donald Trump. Donald Trump: The media can attack me, but where I draw the line is when  they attack you, which is what they do when they attack the decency of  our supporters. Oscar Leon: Outside the convention center people also gathered, mostly  to protest Donald Trump. Also among the anti-Trump crowd we saw some  Trump supporters too, challenging the protestors. And militiamen armed  with assault rifles, who refused to make any statements. These are some of the voices we heard. Genevieve Rice: I’m here to protest Trump. I’m not happy that he’s in  our city and I hope that he doesn’t try to pardon Arpaio. Teresa: We can’t go back in time. Everybody deserves equality  regardless, and if you aren’t standing against all of this fascist  racism, then you’re for it. Michelle: I really think that having a peaceful protest to show how  displeased we are and how we do not stand by Donald Trump’s rhetoric of  racism, where he equates the KKK and white nationalists to other groups  like ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter. Crowd: Our streets. Who’s streets? Our streets. Who’s streets? Our  streets. Who’s streets? Our streets.  Zaira Libier: We’re here to defend our people. Joe Arpaio terrorized our  community for 24 years and Trump’s promise to pardon him is a slap in  the face. It’s devastating to a lot of family members here in our  community. Sabrina Buttler: The direction that they’re leading our country is  fascist and obviously he doesn’t have a problem with fascism, the KKK,  white supremacists, and it’s disgusting. And I’m here to stand with all  these beautiful people that want to save our country from this disaster. Melissa: But I think for our country, the biggest issue right now, is  the healthcare. He’s trying to take away all of our healthcare, and  that’s not okay. Crowd: Black lives matter, black lives matter, black lives matter, black  lives matter, black lives matter, black lives matter. Tash: I believe it’s very important for us to exercise our rights to  assemble peacefully and to protest against the kind of bigotry,  xenophobia, Islamophobia, hatred, intolerance, that Donald Trump stands  for. Tasha: My name is Tasha [Burell] and I’m here because I have black  children, point blank. Carmen: So I’m an immigrant. I am from Mexico and I have been in this  continent longer than any white folks that have been here in this  country, and I think that that’s one the issues, that this nation was  built from immigrants from many different nations, not just one. So this  country belongs to many people, not only white folks. Rashad: Yeah, I mean. You know the Trump administration, through its  policies, through the rhetoric of the campaign, has really brought to  the surface the worst aspects of American racism, and he has been  explicitly involved. Hiring and working with Steve Bannon. Evoking age  old racist stereotypes, and he has really brought neo-Nazi’s and white  supremacists who hid in the dark regions of the internet, out into the  public. And we saw that in Charlottesville.  Oscar Leon: So these are some of the voices we heard outside the Phoenix  Convention Center in what turned out to be an anti-Trump rally right  outside a pro-Trump rally. Police stood in riot gear on Montrose Street between protestors and  Trump supporters. As one group walked into the convention center, the  two crowds had two barriers and the street between them. The protestors  boo-ed the Trump supporters as they walked inside the convention center. Crowd: Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on  you. Ralph Buttler: I mean essentially those are Trump supporters man, and  everyone’s just going ahead and letting them know that they’re not okay  with, as she said, white supremacy, with the idea of a corporate America  that shoves fascism down your throat, an obviously militarized police  force that’s going to subjugate already oppressed peoples, and just the  continued downward spiral of America. We’re all here to lift each other  up.   My grandpa didn’t fly halfway around the world to beat the Nazis so we  could let them come back here and do this, dude. Crowd: Whose America? Our America. Whose America? Our America. Whose  America? Our America. Whose America? Our America. Oscar Leon: Initially, as the rally first got underway, Phoenix police  said there had been no arrests or significant incidents. This quickly  changed and chaos erupted outside the Phoenix Convention Center. Police  said in a statement to the press, that they were forced to deploy pepper  balls and tear gas into the crowd because people were throwing rocks  and bottles at them. The tear gas dispersed the crowd in the area.   However, we contacted Reyna Montoya from Aliento, one of the organizers  of the demonstration. She had a different version of what happened. “The march was completely peaceful. The violent ending was not  expected. Apparently one woman threw a water bottle to a police officer.  Without a warning or anything, I saw the tear gas. It started to burn  my face, my eyes and I was coughing. I literally had to run from the  gas. We are really disappointed at the Phoenix Police Department at how  they tear gassed peaceful protestors without warning.” Puente. Another local NGO involved in the march also issued a  statement. “After refusing to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville last  weekend, Trump came to Phoenix to rally them. He’s not too sure if Joe  Arpaio is the latest sign of the white supremacy that is governing the  white house.” And while Donald Trump so far has not pardoned former Sheriff, Joe  Arpaio, inside the building the President of the United States blamed  the media as the responsible for the climate of political division in  the country. Donald Trump: But the very dishonest media, those people right up there  with all the camera’s. These are truly dishonest people, and not all of  them, not all of them. You have some very good reporters. You have some  very fair journalists, but for the most part, honestly, these are  really, really dishonest people. And just so you know from the Secret  Service, there aren’t too many people outside protesting, okay. Oscar Leon: For the Real News from Phoenix, Arizona, this is Oscar Leon. 

by Oscar León June 15, 2014  for TRNN

As the harsh conditions faced by children in overcrowded immigration   detention  centers dominate headlines, The Real News looks at the  policy that  created these  conditions

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: Over the last week, images showing  hundreds of detainees have dominated the headlines across the country.

Right wing website Breitbart.com published images showing the  dire conditions in which undocumented immigrants where being held before  being transferred by bus to other facilities.

Law enforcement later acknowledged that about a thousand children  where held in a warehouse in Nogales, AZ, which was being used as an  [improvised] detention facility. The images of children sleeping on the  floor, wrapped in shining emergency blankets, have circulated widely. 

PETER BIDEGAIN III, SPOKESPERSON, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION:  The Border Patrol is making all the apprehensions. They had problems  with bed space.

LEÓN: Peter Bidegain III, Customs and Border Protection’s spokesman, talked to us over the phone.

BIDEGAIN: We wait on–the office of refugee and resettlement, is the  office that ultimately takes in unaccompanied minors that arrive at the  U.S. So what’s happening is, as they lack bed space, we didn’t had the  ability to transfer the unaccompanied minors out to them. So what’s  happening is there’s a backlog in the processing of these individuals.

What we basically did is we started to transfer with DHS, Health and  Human Services, and a couple of other agencies, we started to transfer  unaccompanied minors from the Rio Grande Valley over to the Tucson  sector to assist with processing.

LEÓN: Ray Ibarra is an experienced immigration attorney in Phoenix. He’s indignated about the response of authorities.

RAY IBARRA, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Yeah, I mean, what’s happening  right now on the U.S.-Mexico border is certainly a humanitarian crisis.  Our immigration system should be set up to deal with situations like  this, where people fleeing countries where their lives in danger. And  we’d have better responses in putting people in small cramped rooms,  lots of juveniles included, and really [inhumane] situations. To be  busing them from one state to another state in the summer where it’s  110-plus degrees and not having food, water, or shelter available when  those people get released is a complete injustice and not what the  United States of America is supposed to be about.

LEÓN: So who are these kids and families detained in such conditions,  overflowing Texas’s capacity to process? And why is there an overflow  of detainees in the first place?

TONY BANEGAS, CONSUL OF HONDURAS FOR ARIZONA (SUBTITLED TRANSL.):  When I got there last Saturday I met with 936 children in there, 236  from Honduras and the rest from Guatemala and El Salvador.

LEÓN: We spoke with Tony Banegas, Consul of Honduras for Arizona,  who, along with the consuls of Guatemala and Nicaragua, are the only  ones allowed to visit the minors.

BANEGAS: They are sleeping in plastic containers, covering themselves  with aluminum blankets and using portable toilets. They are now  installing showers; on Sunday they installed two, and they offered 60  more over the course of the week. So the kids can clean themselves,  because many of them haven’t showered or changed their clothes for weeks  now. They are awaiting toothbrushes and toothpaste, because they  haven’t brushed their teeth in days.

LEÓN: Banegas says that the children, who were eating frozen  burritos, are growing in number, and that in general the conditions they  where detained where not good.

Parallel to the children transferred to the warehouse in Nogales, the  news of hundreds of families released under parole on Greyhound  stations, took first stage as well.

NEWS PRESENTER, FOX 10: Immigration offices can’t handle these cases. They’re being shipped here to Phoenix.

LEÓN: Here we are outside the Greyhound station in Phoenix, Arizona,  where hundreds of immigrants have been dropped off as a transit point.

After being detained for immigration violations and processed by law  enforcement, these families were being released under parole, and they  were on their way to meet their relatives all over the country. Lacking  space to hold them, Border Patrol gave the order to appear before  immigration courts in 15 days and dropped them off at Greyhound stations  in Phoenix and Tucson.

Republican governor Jan Brewer, known for passing SB 1070 in Arizona,  criminalizing undocumented people, declared: “I am disturbed and  outraged that President Obama’s administration continues to implement  this dangerous and inhumane policy”. She urged president Obama to,  quote, put a stop to the “dangerous and unconscionable” practice of  shipping illegal immigrants out of Texas and dumping them in Arizona.

CINDY WHITMORE, THE RESTORATION PROJECT: I think there are a lot of  politicians that maybe are really unfamiliar with what’s happening in  their own backyard. 

Cindy Whitmore from the Restoration Project in Phoenix, a nonprofit organization in Phoenix devoted to help these families:

WHITMORE: Everybody seemed very shocked that people were being  released from ICE custody at the Greyhound. And it happens all the time.  It doesn’t happen in those numbers, and certainly not with that many  children at a time, but this happens all over the country, everywhere  there’s a detention center; they’re transferred to the nearest  Greyhound, and from there they are on their own.

LEÓN: The attention by the media have highlighted the conditions in  which thousands of people are detained for immigration crimes.

WHITMORE: As we got to talk to these families and we learned about  the conditions that they were being held in, we realized that they were  being held for days and days, some reported as long as eight days, in a  holding area that was really only designed for a few hours.

LEÓN: On June 12, The Washington Post published a leaked video  showing women and children sleeping on concrete floors in 90 degree  heat at the McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol processing center. We can see  that the sick are separated of the rest by mere yellow tape. The room is  evidently overcrowded. And we also see crying babies and expectant  mothers. The newspaper reported that these detainees wait for days in  such conditions, this after the turn themselves in. The report quotes:

“Every day, hundreds of Central American migrants, in  groups as large as 250 people, are wading across the muddy Rio Grande  and turning themselves in to the Border Patrol as helicopters and  speedboats with mounted machine guns patrol the river.”

Michelle Brané, director of Migrant Rights and Justice Program of the  Women’s Refugee Commission, thinks many of the families and people  crossing the border should qualify as refugees.

MICHELLE BRANÉ, DIRECTOR, MIGRANT RIGHTS AND JUSTICE PROGRAM, WOMEN’S  REFUGEE COMMISSION: A lot of these children are violence refugees.  They’re fleeing violence. They’re fleeing a situation on which their  lives are at risk. They’re being persecuted I think, really. And the  governments of the countries they live in are unable to protect them.

LEÓN: The main problem for Border Patrol and Customs Border  Protection is that many of these immigrants are not for Mexico but from  Central America and they cannot be simply dropped off on the Mexican  side of the border.

Peter Bidegain III confirmed that there is an increase of migrants from Central America apprehended at the border.

BIDEGAIN: Well, the majority of the unaccompanied minors that we’re  seeing are from Central America. So they’re from El Salvador, Honduras,  and Guatemala.

LEÓN: The Real News have reported about these issues for years now.  Back in 2013 in one of our stories, Gene Valee, a founder of No More  Deaths, had told us that now the majority of immigrants are from Central  America, not Mexico.

GENE VALEE, FOUNDER NO MORE DEATHS: These are the things that have  changed: there are certainly fewer Mexican people coming into the United  States, and there are more people from Honduras, where there’s been a  lot of violence in the last couple of years. And there’s still a  continuing large number of people from Guatemala who are coming in for  the same reason. 

LEÓN: The University of Arizona found that “economic conditions in  Central America, coupled with increasing violence there, is pushing more  Central Americans to migrate north”.

VALEE: What’s been happening is that the percentage of people dying has gone up in the last two or three years.

SILKY SHAH, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF DETENTION WATCH: There are  probably about 34,000 people detained at any given time in detention  centers around the country, and the conditions are fairly bad.

LEÓN: Silky Shah from Detention Watch Network argues that the  immigrants’ detainees rights are routinely violated by law enforcement.

SHAH: So ever the course of fiscal year 2012 we saw 478,000 people be  detained over the course of the year. That’s an all time high. It’s  been higher than ever before under the Obama administration. And we  currently actually have a quota system that requires at minimum 34,000  people being detained. And this quota system is in place in  appropriations, so it’s a part of how Congress funds Immigration and  Customs Enforcement.

LEÓN: Beyond the fact that by law there have to be 34,000 people  detained, Shah also argues that the U.S. is prioritizing law enforcement  while not providing the detainees with adequate care.

SHAH: The majority of facilities that are used are outsourced. ICE,  Immigration Customs Enforcement, has no real mechanisms for oversight.  So some of the conditions that we’ve heard about are people, you know,  not getting the medical or mental health care that they need. A lot of  times people are inside detention for 23 hours a day, don’t even get to  go outside. Sometimes it’s just a window in a room that makes it seem  like they’re, you know, getting some outside air, but they’re not  actually getting to go outside. There’s a lot of use of solitary  confinement. A lot of complaints about the food, really terrible food,  people not getting enough food a lot of times, and so they have to spend  money at the commissary, which is very expensive.

A lot of the times what happens with detention is that the priority  is to make money in some way, whether it’s for profit or for your  county, as opposed to care.

LEÓN: The American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU) and the National Prison Project released a study called Warehoused and Forgotten. The report quotes:

“Nationwide, more than half of all federal criminal  prosecutions initiated in fiscal year 2013 were for unlawfully crossing  the border into the United States–an act that has traditionally been  treated as a civil offense resulting in deportation, rather than as a  criminal act resulting in incarceration in a federal prison. This is  dramatically changing who enters the federal prison system.”

The tipping point came in 2009, when more people entered federal  prison for immigration offenses than for violent, weapons, and property  offenses combined–and the number has continued to rise each year since.

Precisely the ACLU and a coalition that includes the National  Immigrant Justice Center filed a lawsuit against CBP (Customs and Border  Protection) for widespread abuse of children. The coalition represents  over 100 unaccompanied children mistreated by Border Patrol Agents after  being apprehended at the border.

Michelle Brané says that there is no unified database to locate people detained at the border.

BRANÉ: One thing that we’ve been trying to get Border Patrol to do or  DHS to do at the border for many years now it to create a sort of  locator system. In this case, they would only have to make a contact to  say, yes, your child is here and they are okay, or they’re going to be  transferred to this location.

LEÓN: According to Peter Bidegain III, Customs and Border  Protection’s spokesman, the best chance to find a relative or a child  missing while crossing the border is precisely to contact the consulate  office of their countries of origin.

BIDEGAIN: Yeah, so if the family’s already here in the United States  and they have a relative that they think is in, you know, Border Patrol  custody or Office of Refugee Resettlement or any other government  agencies, what the family needs to do is reach out to the consulate of  their country.

LEÓN: Tony Banegas, Consul of Honduras for Arizona, say the number of children detained in the warehouse keeps growing.

BANEGAS: They are more than 1,000 by now. A lot of people have been  calling me to try to find out about a missing relative or children. They  are calling from all around the U.S. and even Honduras, knowing the  children are on U.S. soil. The relatives are anxious, but I can’t tell  them when the children are going out of detention; it all depends to  U.S. authorities. I have names and information about all of the children  I interviewed. I have information about their parents and places of  origin, even their phone numbers. 

But at the time, I am too busy. I don’t have time [to call them] or  process any of that. I am doing what I can. I have so many phone calls  that I can’t answer to all of them. And at the time, it’s only me here  [in the consulate]. Right now I was running out the door towards  Nogales. 

LEÓN: Silky Shah argues that the images of crowded jails are no more  than the tip of the iceberg, showing the face of thousands of human  beings whom trying to escape economic devastation ended up trapped in  private jails for profit.

SHAH: The problem is less that, you know, there’s overcrowding; the  problem is that there’s over-incarceration and over-detention. There’s a  mass detention system that doesn’t need to exist. The only reason  anybody is in detention is because they’re showing up to–they need to  show up to a hearing to determine their status.

LEÓN: According to the department of Health and Human Services, on  fiscal year 2013, Border Patrol apprehended 24,668 unaccompanied minors.  The numbers for 2014 are expected to rise at around 60,000.

On June 2, President Obama declared the U.S.-Mexico border under an  “urgent humanitarian situation”, acknowledging the grave conditions of  the minors. This declaration is expected to release $1.4 billion for  border agencies under the control of Federal Emergency Management  Administration (FEMA). According to federal officials, this declaration  will provide the shelters with medical treatment, food, and mental  health services.

With poverty rates and gang-related violence growing in Central  America, it is reasonable to wonder how much more money and manpower  will be needed to control this new wave of central American refugees,  which adds to the already thousands of people trying to cross the border  that separates the First World and the Third World.

Reporting for The Real News, this is Oscar León.

by Oscar León April 7, 2014  for TRNN

From the Mexico border to Washington DC, a group of families and  activists fight to reunite Jaime Vasquez and Ardani Rosales with their  families; these two fathers represent more than 2 million people  deported over the last 5 years.  The actions call on President Obama to  stop deportations.

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: The fight for the immigration reform, and  especially to stop the separation of families by immigration enforcement  in the United States, is at a crucial point. While the immigration  reform law is immobilized in Congress by intense political pressure, the  deportations continue. 

Activist and human rights organizations’ campaigns continue to gather  support for immigration reform and to exert pressure over authorities  to stop certain deportations and to even reunite some families. 

Even in Rome, Buzzfeed reported that heeding the petition by Jersey  Vargas, a 10-year-old girl, from Los Angeles, Pope Francis asked  President Barack Obama, who visited him in the Vatican, to intercede for  the little girl’s father and stop his deportation process.

This strategy apparently worked, as Mario Vargas was released the  next day from a jail in Louisiana. Vargas had a clean profile, a U.S.  native son, a daughter who qualifies under the DREAM Act, and the help  of pro bono attorney Alex Galvez.

In that context, a week of action took place, first in Arizona and eventually nationwide.

On Tuesday, April 1, a group of activists and families traveled to  the border entry of Nogales to support the return of Jaime Valdez and  Ardani Rosales, two parents who, according to their families, had been  deported by ICE as a retaliation, in the context of many weeks of direct  actions, when the family, supported by activist, was protesting outside  Immigration and Customs office in Phoenix.

LEÓN: According to these families turned activists on February 26,  2014, Phoenix Police raided them while fasting outside the ICE office.  At the same time, ICE deported Jaime Valdez, accusing him of inciting  other detainees to join the hunger strike, as Jaime told his father once  deported. He had spent three months in Joe Arpaio’s Tent City before  serving another eight months in the notorious conditions of Eloy  for-profit prison.

JAIME VALDEZ, RETURNING DEPORTEE: I’m here in Nogales in this  community center. [SUBTITLED TRANSL.] and I want to go back (to U.S.),  because I love my family.

LEÓN: For Ardani Rosales’s family it was very hard as well. His wife  gave birth while he was in jail for one year and nine months, before  being deported while his family protested outside the detention center.

NAIRA ZAPATA, WIFE OF ARDANI ROSALES (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): My husband  Ardani was detained when I was two months pregnant with my daughter. Now  she’s eight months. He was deported when we were in front of ICE,  praying for them to let him go. Sadly, they took him out the back  entrance so we wouldn’t see him, and he was deported.

LEÓN: Now the activists of Puente Arizona are promoting an active  campaign to ask Immigration and Customs Enforcement to re-open their  immigration cases. For that purpose, on Tuesday, April 1, at 11 a.m.  Jaime presented himself at the Mexican side of the border in Nogales.

ACTIVISTS: Bring Jaime home!

JAIME VALDEZ, RETURNING DEPORTEE: Today we’re going to try to get into the U.S. by the port of Nogales.

LEÓN: A group of activists and families gathered outside the border  control office to show support. He was detained upon entering U.S. 

Jose Valdez, Jaime’s father, watched from Puente offices in Phoenix as his son entered the offices accompanied by his lawyer.

That day, Ardani Rosales failed to appear in the Nogales Gate. His  son Pablito was waiting for him, accompanied by Puente activists. Naira,  Ardani’s wife, was not able to risk a trip to the border.

On Wednesday, April 2, Ardani arrived to Nogales, and after so many  months away, on the Mexican side of the border he was able to spend some  time with his son Pablito before surrendering himself on the U.S.  border in Nogales.

To support them, a group of activists initiated parallel direct  actions. A march of members of Puente and families of deportees  initiated a 70 mile walk from Phoenix to Eloy detention centers. They  walked for three days and camped outside the for-profit prisons. 

CARLOS PUENTE, EXEC. DIR., PUENTE: So right now we’re outside the  Eloy Detention Center after a three-day 60 mile march from the Phoenix  ICE offices. Right now we’re setting up camp, ’cause we’re going to be  sleeping here, having a vigil outside the detention center. And tomorrow  we’ll be having a rally outside the Eloy detention center, asking to  stop the deportations and [allow] the release of our family members.

LEÓN: Other group of activist and families initiated an even longer  trip to the capital of the country, in an effort they identified under  the hashtag #AZ2DC. Since Thursday, they demonstrated outside the White  House and in many other parts of Washington, District of Columbia. Many  more people joined over the weekend, reaching out to President Obama to  ask for an end to deportations and separations of family.

On Saturday, the protest to support this effort reached many cities,  including Phoenix, Des Moines, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.  Huffington Post reported actions planned in more than 50 cities across  the United States.

CESAR VARGAS, DIRECTOR, DREAM ACTION COALITION: So we are seeing a  great strength of coming out from people who are being affected. Well,  there’s a lot of leadership encouraged because people are no longer  afraid. So that has been an extraordinary development of really the  community coming out and saying, enough is enough, Mr. President, we  need to story this, the crisis.

LEÓN: The New York Times in a Sunday editorial speaking about the president, the editorial board, summed it up this way:
“All Mr. Obama has been saying lately is: No, in fact, we can’t, because Republicans and the law won’t let me.”

After noting that while making promises to the immigrant community  Obama has ramped up the enforcement, with over 2 million deportees in  the last five years and more than 5,000 children ending in foster care,  the editorial board of New York Times called the president up this way:

“The administration should abandon quota-based enforcement driven by  the urge to fill more than 30,000 detention beds every day. And it  should require bond hearings before immigration judges for people who  have been held longer than six months, and end solitary confinement and  other abusive conditions for detainees. Above all, it should direct the  nation’s vast immigration enforcement resources more forcefully against  gangs, guns, violent criminals and other genuine threats.

“These and other reforms should not be confused with a comprehensive  overhaul of immigration, which only Congress can achieve. But they are  ways to push a failing system toward sanity and justice.”

Back in Arizona, Jaime and Ardani are in prison waiting and wishing  to go back to their families and their lives. His lawyer explains the  case.

RAY A. YBARRA MALDONADO, LAWYER REPRESENTING JAIME VALDEZ AND ARDANI  ROSALES: So Ardani and Jaime’s cases are extremely weak. These are cases  of two individuals who have already been ordered deported, they’ve had  their day in front of an immigration judge, and immigration said,  denied, removed to your country of origin. 

Despite them being deported, they decided to come back into the  country. We presented a petition for humanitarian parole to allow them  back into the country. 

They’re now detained in Florence, Arizona. What I’ve been told by the  deportation officer: waiting for a day with the immigration judge,  which is great for both of their cases. But it is something different  that we haven’t really seen before, of people trying to come back after  already very shortly being deported.

LEÓN: Jaime and Ardani now face a complex legal battle before being  able to go back to their home and his family. However, in this battle,   now they have the backup of a community of activist and families  supporting the fight for Not One More deportation.

Outside the White House, the activists remain demonstrating and claim  they wont leave until president Obama hears their petitions and frees  Jaime Valdez and Ardani Rosales.

Reporting for The Real News, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon December 30, 2013 for TRNN

140 people died crossing the US-Mexico border in 2013

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: In 2013, Immigration and Customs  Enforcement reported a total of 369,000 removals of “illegal aliens”. A  large part of that total, 235,000, were deportations of individuals  detained while trying to enter the U.S. border. If you compare that  number to the 590,000 detained on 2004, it is clear that less people  tries to enter the south border illegally.

At the same time, in the fall, The Arizona Daily Star reported  140 deaths in the border, a number that according to ICE has remained  steady over the last decade, meaning more died on proportion trying to  cross the desert.

This is an undocumented immigrant describing the dangers of crossing the border.

UNNAMED “ILLEGAL ALIEN” (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): It took, like, 18 hours  of a real battle against the heat and then the cold. And then … God  bless we made it here [inside U.S.] I was very tired and I began to  doubt it … They tell you that “we are about to get there”, and it’s not  true–they’re still a long way. Water runs out and … you know, you get  scared of getting lost, or who knows what else can happen. As there is  no more water and you are so tired, you start to fail and to think about  surrender if they find you. It feels ugly … imagine how difficult it is  for women. Crossing the desert is a struggle. The steps feel eternal.  Walking is hard, and you are tired. It feels like you are not  progressing anymore.

LEÓN: The guards apprehended six people out of the group we just saw on the thermal camera. Here they come.

~~~

GROUP OF DETAINED IMMIGRANTS (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): We are really sad  and tired now. Also, look at the thorns. There are so many thorns.

LEÓN (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Hard trip?

UNNAMED: We will never surrender. Never!

LEÓN: Do you think they can stop you with fences and walls? 

UNNAMED: No, never! Where else can we get a decent house, a car, a  job? We all just want to improve our lives. It is the governments’  fault. There is money here [in the U.S.] That is why we keep coming.

~~~

LEÓN: No More Deaths is an organization that works to “end death and  suffering on the U.S./Mexico border”. Since 2004 they have provided  water and emergency supplies to those in need.

GENE VALEE, FOUNDER NO MORE DEATHS: What’s been happening is that the  percentage of people dying has gone up in the last two or three years,  more than what it was before. There are more people dying per thousand  coming across because of those factors. One of them is more people are  arriving at the border without the money to hire guides to make the  trip, trying it on their own. And secondly, they are going–they’re being  pushed more by law enforcement into the mountains. These are the things  that have changed. 

There are certainly fewer Mexican people coming into the United  States, and there are more people from Honduras, where there has been a  lot of violence in the last couple of years. And there’s still a  continuing large number of people from Guatemala who are coming in for  the same reason.

LEÓN: The University of Arizona found that “economic conditions in  Central America, coupled with increasing violence there, is pushing more  Central Americans to migrate north”.

VALEE: In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a great increase in  the number of people who were picked up inland United States by ICE and  taken to the border and dropped. And those people often have family that  are United States citizens, their children or maybe their spouses. And  they’re picked up on a traffic violation, and within a couple of days  they’re dropped at the border, on the other side of the border. 

And they have no resources. So they come without money. They come  without contacts. Many don’t have any contacts in Mexico because it’s  been 20 years or so since they were there. And they’re left without  resources. So there’s been a tremendous need. And these people are often  turning right around and trying to come back into the United States.

LEÓN: Back in the summer of 2010, The Real News spoke to agent Norman  Dotti, public relations attaché from Tucson’s Boder Patrol, who on a  ride-along patrolling the border, at 105 Fahrenheit degrees, explained  the effects of excessive heat.

~~~

NORMAN DOTTI, BORDER PATROL AGENT: Yes, a gallon per hour, especially  in this environment, a gallon per hour when you’re walking in this heat  and you’re sweating profusely. And then, once you run out of water,  actually, from sweating and you can’t cool off anymore, and then the  body starts to take–serious problems are happening with the body. And,  again, they bring these water bottles that are just not enough for the  journey they’re going to be taking. And if they’re not hydrated before  they start this journey, the odds for them becoming very dehydrated is  increased.

LEÓN: But you dehydrate even under a shadow in the desert? 

DOTTI: Yeah, yes, you do. If you–once you start losing fluids by  sweating and trying to cool yourself down to counteract the heat in the  environment, once you run out it starts snowballing and you start  becoming–the body starts shutting down ’cause it can’t handle that  temperature. And even though you’re in the shade, that helps just a  little bit. It helps to take some of the heat off. 

But you’re still in the environment and the heat is still there. The  heat hasn’t gone away. I’ve seen it get 110 here. I’ve seen it get–I’ve  been out here when it’s been 112, 115. I don’t know what the top, the  peak temperature would be or what time of year the peak temperature  would be, but it does get very hot out here.

~~~

VALEE: In the same area, in the same place, really, that some of the  people were coming from the south in the 1980s, it’s been happening in  recent years. So some of us that were out there then came back together  and said, what are we going to do? And we decided, well, we’ve got to  get water into the desert. These people are dying. That’s number one. 

And from that, three organizations developed. Humane Borders, which  puts water tanks in the desert, has about 80 water tanks along the  border, and people can go to those. They see a blue flag, and they go  over and have water. And a second group, called Samaritans, that are  people that go out of Tucson and Green Valley, and they take along a  medical person and a Spanish speaker, and they look for people in  trouble, and they give them food and first aid and water and help that  way. And then we started No More Deaths, because people were still  dying. And No More Deaths stays in the desert.

LEÓN: These are the tanks full of water in the desert, and these are  distress signals for those who will need it and are lucky enough to make  it here. The desert is full of many dangers. According to Dotti, not  only all kinds of thorns, but also sudden holes and gullies are known to  cause major harm, and sometimes death, to those who break legs or even  hurt ankles.

DOTTI: You would need some help if you were to fall here and injure your leg or hit your head on a rock. 

LEÓN: After apprehending a group of people crossing the border, the  agents search through their things and try to get as much information as  they can. Dotti sends them away. And then he finds another track,  possibly another individual or group. However, these tracks seem to be  more confused and out of purpose.

I followed the agent, and we found a man badly dehydrated. He asked  me to encourage him to drink water, since the man is scared of his  uniform, and I quickly talked to him in Spanish.

The man is agonizing, coming in and out of consciousness. Agent Dotti  wouldn’t let me film at first, but after I managed to make the man  drink water, he allowed me to take these images of the man talking to  Esmeralda Marroquin, a border patrol agent from Mexican descent that  arrived shortly after.

~~~

ESMERALDA MARROQUIN, BORDER PATROL AGENT (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): You are going to be okay. 

MAN (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Just now… we just wanted to… We were just  trying … we … we were … just a bit more … And he is dead now. He is  dead. My cousin is dead!

MARROQUIN (ENGLISH): Somebody’s out there dead. Somebody died.

MAN: It is too sunny.

~~~

LEÓN: I later found out from border patrol that the man had survived  and had been deported back to Mexico after a period in jail.

Reporting for The Real News this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon January 21, 2014 for TRNN

Despite nationwide mobilization, immigrant advocates acknowledge they  have failed to reform a broken immigration system

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: In 2013, Immigration Customs Enforcement,  or ICE, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, deported  around 369,000 people from U.S., out of which 134,000 were apprehended  inside the country. Many of them are detained by ICE raiding in their  houses or picking them up at work. Over the last few years, hundreds of  thousands of families have been separated by immigration policies.

For example, according to USA Today, if we count prosecution  of illegal entry and re-entry cases, “there has been a 367 percent  increase from a decade ago and a 1,420 percent increase from two decades  ago”. By the end of 2013, the Obama administration had reportedly  deported close to 1.9 million people, according to Homeland Security’s  own numbers.

The Real News spoke to several undocumented workers.

UNDOCUMENTED WOMAN 1: I have no papers. I have worked in hotels since I got here [to the U.S.] 11 years ago.

UNDOCUMENTED WOMAN 2: Since I have no legal papers, I get scared. I  am not from U.S., and these days you can get detained driving in the  street and get deported, lose it all.

LEÓN: To get a legal work visa for U.S., it is required a set of  skills in concept unmatched by local people, as well as an employer who  will take full responsibility for the applicant, setting this  possibility away from the majority of would-be undocumented immigrants,  many of whom were brought here as a child. 

UNDOCUMENTED CHILD: I feel bad that they can detain my dad. And  [during the day] I miss him. In school I have American and Mexican  friends alike, and we all play football and baseball just the same.

LEÓN: But this clampdown on illegal immigration is not only a federal  effort. Many states have passed legislation to control illegal  immigration. In 2007, Arizona passed a groundbreaking law targeting  employers hiring illegal immigrants. Raids ensued in 2008, creating a  climate of fear among many Latino communities in Arizona. Fearing  deportation and racial profiling, life fundamentally changed for  thousands of families.

Massive demonstrations in the summer of 2008, and an injunction in a  federal court eventually scaled down the reach of the original laws,  including the propositions to turn not only cops but hospitals and  schools into immigration controls.

LEÓN: Erika Andiola is an immigrants rights activist, winner of the  2013 Freedom From Fear Award. Her life changed in 2008 when her Arizona  State University scholarship was canceled after the state passed  Proposition 300, banning students who cannot prove to be legal residents  from receiving financial assistance from the State.

Smart and outspoken, Erika quickly became an icon of the Immigration  Rights movement in Arizona, fighting criminalization of undocumented  people. She graduated from ASU (Arizona State University) and eventually  got a job as staffer for Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

But she recently left that job in D.C. to come back to Arizona and  fight her mother’s deportation. On Thursday, December 12, 2013, Andiola  announced her mother will be allowed to remain in the U.S. for another  year.

ERIKA ANDIOLA, DREAM ACTIVIST: You know, they took her and my  brother, and it was just sort of like a wake-up call. Like, you know, if  I’m going to go in there, I’m going to need to make something happen so  that at the end of the year we can have a legislation that is going to  prevent my mom from actually being deported.

But, unfortunately, when I went in there, I saw that there’s too many  games being played inside by both parties, that it’s not necessarily  now about, you know, the anti-immigrant Republicans holding everything.  It’s also about both leaderships in the House of Representatives that  are, you know, seeing this issue as something that they can win for  their own party. And that’s how I made the decision. And I want to be  able to actually speak my mind about what I saw in there. 

And I didn’t like also seeing a lot of the Democrats that were  actually, like, you know, thinking about this issue in a way that they  can get more votes in 2014, you know, by not passing something, and some  of the Republicans in the leadership that are scared of their own party  and they don’t want to do anything about it. So it’s sort of we’re  trapped into this game. And I feel like I’m more–you know, I can  actually fight better with my community outside.

LEÓN: Randy Parraz, a local community organizer and progressive  activist, believes that the diverse Latino, pro-human rights, and  pro-immigrant rights coalitions failed at their purpose to push for  immigration reform in 2013.

RANDY PARRAZ, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: Ultimately the goal was  immigration reform in 2013. It didn’t happen, so it is a failure. A lot  of people don’t want to say that. They want to say, oh, we’re closer.  But who knows if we’re closer, ’cause once we get in 2014, states start  having primaries and not many folks are going to be focused on a  landmark piece of legislation like immigration reform going into an  election year. So does that mean 2015?

So I think for the most part we have to come to the realization that  the strategies we deployed, the power that we built were not enough to  make it happen in 2013.

I think right now the Republicans are in a difficult situation  because if immigration reform was to pass right now, they would get very  little credit for it. It’d be mostly the Democrats. And if it includes a  right to vote, a pathway to citizenship, Republicans will see that’s  giving another 8-10 million more people who are going to vote for the  Democratic Party.

LEÓN: According to ICE, in 2012, 45 percent of the deportees have no  criminal record. That is almost 185,000 people. And in 2013, that number  went down to 18 percent which represents 24,000 people. This means that  over the last couple years, around 210,000 individuals who had not  committed any kind of criminal offense have been taken out of United  States and, in many cases, away from their families, with all the grave  implications this carries.

From “24-hour notice” letters demanding the person to be present at  the airport the next day and leave the country voluntarily to midnight  raids, the lives of millions are touched by the fear of that moment when  they will lose all that they have fought so hard to get.

For the Andiola family, the dreaded moment came in the middle of the  night, when immigration agents broke down the doors and stormed in their  home just a few days after her mom had been stopped while driving.

ANDIOLA: I knew it could happen, and it had happened before I was  involved. You know, my mom was raided before at work by Sheriff Arpaio.  And so there was always, you know, the fear that something could happen.

I feel the surprise came more out of the fact that I was so outspoken  that I never thought that they would target my family, I guess. But the  reality is that, you know, it could happen to anyone. And it happened  to her. You know, she got stopped out of nowhere, literally, supposedly  for speeding. She didn’t even get a ticket. But she did get sent to the  police to take her fingerprints. And, you know, next thing you know, ICE  is already at our house. And this happens every day–in Arizona, in  Maricopa County, happens even more.

LEÓN: However, in Arizona, a social movement was born as a reaction  to such anti-immigrant laws. Back in 2008, just a year after the passing  of SB 1070 “the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure  in recent U.S. history”, as The New York Times called it, the movement successfully recalled Russell Pierce, the main promoter of such controversial legislation.

Randy Parraz was one of the main organizers of the successful recall effort.

PARRAZ: Yeah, I think there’s been tremendous change. I think finally  people have started to come together and fight back and to get some  real victories.

Like, the first for us, even in the darkest of times, when, you know,  Jan Brewer became governor, SB 1070 was passed by, pushed by Russell  Pearce, within a year of that time, you know, we had a campaign to  recall Russell Pearce and remove him from office, which was unheard of  and unprecedented. So I think that was huge move forward in a different  direction for Arizona.

And now we just have to build on those victories. We’ve got to keep  holding people like Sheriff Arpaio and Governor Brewer accountable as we  move forward. 

So I think that, by removing Russell Pearce as president of the  Senate has definitely set a different tone, where some of these  anti-immigration bills are no longer being heard. By not taking out  Russell Pearce, he would have been president. That Medicaid expansion  never would have happened in this state. He would have, you know, really  clamped down with the Tea Party in the Senate and really shut that  down. So I think that’s tens of thousands of people getting Medicare  coverage that would not otherwise.

So I think we’re moving in a better direction. But the challenges are  still here, and I think there’s still opportunity and promise, but it’s  not going to happen just because we want it to.

LEÓN: Erika is one of many activists who believe that the main obstacle for immigration reform is the prison-industrial complex.

ANDIOLA: Yeah. I mean, it’s an issue that is sort of like a taboo for  many people, especially in D.C. because there is a lot of money being  spent by these corporations.

But it’s a huge issue. And the way I see it is that it’s a human  issue, right? You cannot expect to have, you know, these really big  prisons just–they don’t call them prisons. They call them detention  centers. But for us they’re prisons, right? You can’t expect to have all  these, you know, places to hold people and not commit human violations.  You have tons of undocumented folks who are being stopped for  literally, you know, driving without a license, and they end up in those  places for about a year. And so, you know, having those being a  for-profit, I guess, for-profit place or a detention center, then it  causes for a lot of, you know, legislators to actually not want to get  the problem fixed as much as they should.

LEÓN: The prison-industrial complex is a name used to describe a  private industry that Huffington post reported to have contributed as  much as $45 million on a small army of lobbyists to successfully  entrench itself on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. In 2012, an  Associated Press report found that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is  paying $5.1 billion to private prison corporations for immigration  detention through several year-long contracts.

Andiola denounces the conditions in for-profit detention centers  close to Phoenix, like Eloy and Florence, which are but small local  components of the nationwide private prison industry.

ANDIOLA: My mom went through Eloy–not Eloy. Florence. And she all of  that, right? She saw–you know, she was actually chained herself. They  chained her arms to her legs for no reason. She had no criminal  background. She’s a 55-year-old woman. It makes no sense for them to do  that. And they do it to her, to women, to people who are–you know, women  who are pregnant, and men who have committed no crime in the past.

LEÓN: Parraz believes that beyond the powerful prison-industrial  complex’s lobby, it is in the people’s hands to fight for their rights.

PARRAZ: Yeah. I think it’s more than a shortage of financial  resources. I think it’s a short of courage and people willing to take  the risk and sacrifice to make things happen. Right now on the Capitol  lawn there are people fasting for immigration reform, but the problem is  they’re in one tent, in a small tent. If there are indeed 11 million  people who are suffering, where are the hundreds and hundreds of  thousands of people really demanding this change?

LEÓN: Although 2013 came to a close without any immigration reform  passed by Congress, The Real News will continue to report on this  important issue throughout 2014.

Reporting for The Real News, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon June 2, 2013 for TRNN

Mobilization across the country demands Obama administration stop deportations  and pass genuine immigration reform

CROWD: When communities are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: Human Rights organizations and immigrant  rights activists held a week of action in many cities around the country  to demand a halt to all deportations.

Since the National Action Day for Immigration Reform on April 10,  Latino activists and families have organized a number of actions in  order to build up political pressure, while Democrats and Republicans  debate about immigration reform in the Senate and eventually in the  House of Representatives in U.S. Congress. On one side, Senate  Democratic Leader Harry Reid declared Wednesday on an interview in  Nevada’s Public TV, “it should be pretty easy to get four more  Republican votes needed to pass the Senate 60-vote threshold.” Reid’s  optimism contrasts with Democrat Senator Bob Menedez’s opinion. The  chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations recently said that  “Immigration reform doesn’t have 60 Senate votes.” Furthermore, the  Senate’s eventual bill is not expected to pass the House. It has been  reported that House Speaker John Boehner has insisted that “the Senate  bill would not pass the House,” which he said “would craft its own  immigration reform bill.”

Without many certainties about the final immigration reform bill that  the president would eventually sign into law, while deportations planes  leave the country every day in record numbers, human rights  organizations, churches, and Latino families are feeling doubts and  insecurity about their living situation, motivating them to speak out  and demonstrate on the streets around U.S. in an effort to influence the  debate on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, May 29 in Chicago, Latino rights advocates and  activists joined environmental groups and chained themselves outside a  fundraiser party to support Democrats running for the House on the next  elections, hosted by Barack Obama–or “deporter in chief”, as they call  him. There Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and many other Democrats had  reportedly paid between $1,000 to $5,000 dollars to meet and lunch with  the president.

ACTIVIST: We’re here to demand that Obama stop deportations. He has  the power to stop deportations, and we believe in him to be able to do  it, and we won’t stop until he stops deporting our families every single  day.

LEÓN: The activists managed to hang a banner denouncing Obama’s  record number of deportations outside the Hilton Chicago. But security  forces rapidly took it down. The organization used a number of snowplows  to block the hotel’s first floor windows, this to protect the people  inside from a possible sniper fire. 

In the southwest of the country, Arizona is one of the main fronts in  this conflict between undocumented immigrants and authorities, who are  trying to deport them back to their countries of origin. Many families  are separated by deportation processes every day, like the Hernandez  family, the focal center of Wednesday’s march. When a group of activists  demonstrated outside the offices of Immigration and Custom Enforcement  agency, there they demanded the release of Bertha Alicia Avila, who  after being detained at a checkpoint in front of her daughters has been  locked up for six months, with no right to bail, waiting for deportation  in a cell at Eloy Detention Center, near Casa Grande Arizona, a private  for-profit facility with a high rate of inmate fatalities.

JENNIFER HERNANDEZ, PHOENIX, ARIZONA: My dad has tried to get other  people, like lawyers, and tried to do stuff with my mom, but since  there’s been no response, there’s been no action taken with my mom, I  mean, she just waits where she’s detained. And so we decided to take  action in our own hands, and we decided to march today to make noise  about my mom, to tell people that she exists, that she’s just not  another number on a paper, that she has feelings, she has a family, and  she has to be here with us. I mean, just because [incompr.]  documentation, she’s not able for six months, almost seven, not be with  us. It’s hard.

CARLOS AVILA, PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Like, I never really seen–never,  like–I never really thought anything would happen to us, ’cause it just  didn’t. Never came up. It’s just there. And it’s heard to–I’ve heard of  it happening to other people, but when it happened to us, I just–I  didn’t know what to do. I just want it to [incompr.] just be there. I  really didn’t know how to act. I just wanted–.

LEÓN: The next day, on Thursday May 30, the famous sheriff Joe Arpaio  dodged an attempt to force a recall election. The activist  organizations looking to recall the sheriff were not able to gather the  335,000 valid voter signatures, despite the fact that he was recently  found guilty of racial profiling by a federal court.

While Arpaio said he will appeal the court ruling, for the time being  he has ordered his deputies to obey the court and stop arresting  undocumented immigrants.

JOE ARPAIO, SHERIFF, MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA: You know as sheriff I  uphold the law. The court’s order is now clear. We will no longer detain  persons believed to be in the country without authorization whom we  cannot arrest on state charges. I have already instructed my deputies.

LEÓN: In Miami, Florida, a couple dozen activist holding signs of  “act now pass immigration reform” demonstrated outside U.S.  Representative Trey Radel’s offices. Radel, a Republican representing  Florida in Congress, can be a key vote in the heated dispute of the  Senate.

The same day in Wisconsin, a group of activists and immigration  advocates held a rally at U.S. Senator Johnson’s office. In Portland,  there was a journey of fasting on Thursday and Friday.

ACTIVIST: We are part of the National Day Labor Organizing Network. We have this national fast, we call Not One More.

ACTIVIST: I am fasting to help send a message to stop the  deportations of immigrants, because I believe that no human being is  illegal.

LEÓN: On Thursday, May 30, many other families confronted and  demanded Maricopa County’s attorney Bill Montgomery to release their  relatives.

UNIDENTIFIED: You’re going out of your way to make sure that these  people can’t even fight their immigration case. They’re not eligible to  get an immigration bond because of the charges you’re giving them.

LEÓN: Bill Montgomery has acquired fame of being tough on immigration  for presenting charges of conspiration to smuggle themselves for  undocumented people otherwise not offenders. 

UNIDENTIFIED (TRANSLATED): My kids, they need him.

LEÓN: This has been a widely criticized policy in Maricopa county  that has prevented many individuals to make bail when arrested. Put in  place in 2007 and ratified by Arizona’s senate on April 12, 2011, this  policy ensures jail terms for undocumented immigrants before being  deported back to their countries. 

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to involve people in the  undocumented Latino rights movement is art, like the one of Favianna  Rodriguez, who has been working on ways to change the perception tagged  on immigrants.

FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ, ACTIVIST AND ARTIST: The anti-immigrants had this  frame that said illegal, illegal, illegal. And then undocumented youth  came and kicked that frame off, and they say, actually, we’re  undocumented and we’re unafraid.

ACTIVIST: –and against deportations. This moment will not come again.  If we settle for less, it will mean years and years of struggle to  attain–.

LEÓN: On Friday, May 31, a group called the Tampa Dream Defenders  rallied outside the local office of Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who  faces criticism for a series of comments he made (as was reported by  Reuters) recalling a meeting between republican senators. He said, “This  is a terribly flawed bill, but it moves the ball forward, and over the  next weeks and months, it will move ever rightward.”

Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz, a conservative from Texas who  had introduced an amendment to block any access to citizenship to  undocumented immigrants, was also confronted this week when about a  hundred activists turned out in Manhattan when Cruz attended a  Republican Party meeting in NY. In Philadelphia, also on Friday, about  two dozen people gathered outside Governor Corbett’s office to remind  him “that we came out in large numbers for our community members and the  issues that matter to us,” as one of them told The Inquirer, a local newspaper, referring to their numbers in the last electoral process.

Many more actions are programmed to keep building political momentum,  seeking to pressure the congressmen and senators to pass the  immigration reform bill. They want legislation not only focused on  securing the border and tightening controls, but one with a humane  perspective that will satisfy the Latino community aspirations, mainly  by stopping deportations, and in some cases even setting up bail for  some people waiting for due process like Bertha Alicia Avila.

Reporting from Phoenix Arizona for The Real News, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon June 24, 2013 for TRNN

Pt 1. In 2012, undocumented immigrants toured country on Undocubus,  used civil  disobedience campaign to mobilize support for just  immigration reform

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: A group of activists from Phoenix,  Arizona, organized a bus trip for undocumented voluntaries as part of a  wider campaign called No Papers, No Fear, trying to bring the drama of  undocumented people’s life to the public attention and trying to empower  the Latino community. Last year they toured parts of the Midwest and  the Southwest Coast on the way to Charleston, North Carolina, where  after 20 cities on ten states, the first chapter of the trip ended. The  bus is now headed to California, touring the West Coast.

FERNANDO LOPEZ, COMMUNITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST: The purpose was to, like,  gather as many people possible, you know, that they have, like, open  cases or, like, just regular people that, you know, they risk arrest  every day just by going out on the street, you know, to drop off their  kids or going to get groceries or whatever. So we just wanted to show  that for a lot of people it was–they saw it as something really risky  just to get on a bus and, you know, openly say they were undocumented  and travel across country. But it’s something that we do every day. You  know, we’re under that risk.

LEÓN: A positive outcome from the battle for undocumented people’s  right here in Phoenix Arizona is a sizable Latino rights movement  composed by people from different backgrounds. 

Many of them gathered together to paint their bus and got it ready to go.

UNIDENTIFIED: This bus stands for not being afraid, and for being  proud of who you are, and for seeing the beauty in the lives of the  people who are told that they’re undocumented so they must be in the  shadows. But the bus is supposed to carry that message that, no, you  don’t have to be in the shadows.

LOPEZ: In reality there is nothing to fear to come out and say, you  know, openly that you’re undocumented, because you’re still under the  same risk, you know, of getting arrested or getting pulled over and not  having an ID.

LEÓN: On August 1, 2012, under a full moon, they hit the road and  drove north for about 12 hours from Phoenix to Denver. Once in Colorado,  the first stop of the trip, the activists met with local Latino rights  organizations and discussed strategies to unite and coordinate efforts.

ERIKA OVALLE, COMMUNITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I play a supportive role  when they do civil disobedience. We do a lot of the chanting and stuff.  So we get people’s energy up. And everybody did a great job. And I don’t  have any children, but, you know, I see so many faces, I see so many  kids out there who are–they’re hurting. Even today at our action, so  many broken people. You know, they might arrest one person, but the  family outside is suffering. You know, the person inside is suffering.  People are committing suicide. And a lot of private prisons, people are  investing in our incarceration. And to me that just blows my mind.

LEÓN: The next day, on August 3, they arrived to Albuquerque, New  Mexico, and met with local Native American and Latino activists to  interchange experience and widen the network of activists and local  organizations. 

After a night of travel, they demonstrated in Travis County, Texas,  where 50 local activists show support for the Undocubus. They called on  the local sheriff, Craig Hamilton, to stop participating in the program  that detains and deports illegal immigrants.

SARAHI URIBE, NATIONAL DAY LABOR ORGANIZING NETWORK: They’re mothers,  they’re fathers, they’re day laborers, they’re workers, they’re  students, and they’re drawing inspiration from the undocumented youth  movement that has led the country forward. And throughout the country,  the purpose of the riders is not only to overcome their fear, but to  also pose a moral dilemma to sheriffs like Sheriff Hamilton, who claims  he has no choice. But he does have a choice. And the riders are coming  to Austin to pose that moral dilemma and have the sheriffs stand on the  right side of history, to have the sheriffs stand with the riders and  stand with the community. And that’s why they’ve come so far.

LEÓN: Many miles and cities down the road, the Undocubus visited New  Orleans to talk about and understand the natural and humanitarian  disaster that was Hurricane Katrina.

ALFRED MARSHALL, STAND WITH DIGNITY: It knocked these buildings down. 

LEÓN: There they learn about an agreement between the black Stand  with Dignity and Latino Congress of the Jornaleros coalitions. This  union of coalitions was created to heal tensions between the two  communities.

MARSHALL: You was talking about the border from Mexico to the United  States. Here’s a border from my street, from one side of of the street  to the next street. That is the border right there. I can’t even cross  the street.

ELEAZAR CASTELLANOS, CONRGRESO DE JORNALEROS: It’s hard to live in a  neighborhood that is separated by a single street. It makes me feel I am  at the border, where some are declared legal while others aren’t.

LEÓN: On August 18 in Alabama, they demonstrated outside the U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights. The Undocubus activists, or “riders”, as  they call themselves, interrupted a testimony by Kris Kobach, one of the  SB 1070 authors, who had been invited to speak about the impact of that  law.

UNIDENTIFIED: The federal civil rights commission is having an  audience, a hearing, and they’re inviting really racist people like Kris  Kobach, like Dan Stein, like [incompr.] and people that hide behind the  face of a business suit. But they’re still really racist people.  They’re still the clan. It’s just that they’re wearing a suit. 

LEÓN: He was invited because in 2012, Alabama followed the example of Arizona and enacted a very similar law, HB 56.

PROTESTER (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Here I am raising my voice for my  family, for my community and my children, for all the families that have  been separated. I am doing this so you all see that I am a mother, a  responsible mother. I am not a criminal. I am no criminal. I am here  defending my rights.

PROTESTER: We love this country. We can share. We can share with you.  But we can’t live with the lies. We are undocumented, but we are human,  not animals.

LEÓN: In part two of this report we will ride with the Undocubus  activists all the way to North Carolina in their quest to empower a  community as a response to the criminalization of undocumented people.

Reporting for The Real News, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon June 27, 2013 for TRNN

Pt 2. In 2012, undocumented immigrants launched the “Undocubus” campaign and  used civil disobedience to challenge deportations

OSCAR LEÓN, TRNN PRODUCER: This is the second part of a report about a  group of activists from Phoenix, Arizona, who organized UndocuBus, a  bus trip for undocumented voluntaries, as a part of a wider campaign  called No Papers, No Fear, trying to bring the drama of undocumented  people’s life to the public attention and trying to empower the Latino  community.

On part one we reviewed their trip, starting from Phoenix, crossing  Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama on their way to Charleston,  North Carolina.

FERNANDO LOPEZ, COMMUNITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST: But it’s just to show,  like, the power that an organized community has, and then also to build a  network. We have all this technology these days. You know, we have  internet, we have Facebook, we have cell phones. We can all use that to  organize.

The other purpose was showing what an organized community can do. You  know. Like, we were, like, so many and we had so much support that it  didn’t really matter that we were saying we were undocumented, traveling  in a bus that said that we had no papers on the outside.

LEÓN: One of the main stops was on August 22 in Atlanta, a city with a  big Latino population and a powerhouse for the economy among southern  states. There the UndocuBus “riders”, supported by numbers of local  activists, demonstrated outside Atlanta City Detention Center, one of  the jails where undocumented individuals are detained under Georgia’s  HB87 law, sometimes for long periods of time before being deported.

ERIKA OVALLE, COMMUNITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST: When we went to different  stops, people did–they were very interested in Arizona. So when we got  to Atlanta, it was like, wow, Arizona’s here, you guys are the leaders  in this fight, we look up to you. And, you know, we more or less were  like, well, we’re all in it together. But they see a lot of our actions,  so they were really inspired by it.

LEÓN: In Atlanta, like the other cities, the “riders” visited a rally  on Latino markets and communities spreading their message of strength  in community organizing.

After leaving Georgia and crossing into Tennessee, they visited the  National Museum of Civil Rights. Many riders blogged that they became  inspired by the tactics and beliefs of the community organizers who  changed history and society by relying precisely on what the “riders”  have been preaching from day one–community strength.

Tennessee is one of the many states that followed Arizona’s SB 1070 and passed a similar bill, HB 670.

OVALLE: —Arizonification. So there were checkpoints, there  where sheriffs who didn’t want to talk to the people. It was very, very  similar to here, but still really, really backward. Like, here at least  we will fight, we’ll get to the media, we’ll do what we have to do. But  in a small town like Knoxville, it was a lot more difficult.

CROWD: Undocumented! [incompr.]

OVALLE: In Knoxville, Tennessee, actually, it was very, very  interesting there, because that was the first time I had ever done civil  disobedience where they tried to actually kill us. They wanted to run  us over. And that was unlike anything I had ever experienced, even here  in Arizona. I mean, they get–people get angry. But in Tennessee they  wanted to run us over. As soon as we took that street, they were ready.  And so that was a little bit interesting and scary to me. We stopped at a  four-corner, and we were in the middle of the intersection, and we  blocked off traffic so bad that it was really backed up. And we had a  forum, like, a body of chain to protect the people in the middle,  because they wanted to run us over. They didn’t care. They were like,  get out of the street, and if you don’t go–they were, like, gearing up,  like rrrngh. Like, they were just ready for us.

LEÓN: The riders made their way to nightly newscasts after a very  tense action of civil disobedience, where four of them were arrested and  later released.

Many of the UndocuBus activists who took part of that action were  people that back in Arizona were afraid of any contact with the police.  Now they were here, voluntarily risking arrest and maybe deportation.

LOPEZ: I don’t know. You just think about every time people were  doing civil disobedience. You know, like, they were undocumented people  that at some time they were afraid of even, like, engage–any kind of  engagement with the cops, then seeing that they were, you know, shutting  down streets and saying–being willing to get arrested for the cause. So  I think that’s something really, like, that caused a lot of impact, you  know, like, seeing how just education, just knowing about basic laws  and or basic rights, it could give you, like, so much empowerment, you  know, even though the system is telling you that you’re undocumented,  you don’t have a voice, you can’t vote. You still have a voice, you  know, if you organize with the community.

LEÓN: On Sylva, North Carolina, the activists visited the local  police station trying to confront Sheriff Jimmy Ashe, who regularly set  up checkpoints in Latino neighborhoods where many workers of the  numerous local plantations live. A group of local activists and “riders”  walked in and showed no fear inside the police station.

~~~

REPRESENTATIVE OF SHERIFF JIMMY ASHE: The sheriff’s not here. Would you like to speak with a deputy or–?

PARTICIPANT, NO PAPERS, NO FEAR CAMPAIGN: Do you have an idea when he’ll be returning?

REPRESENTATIVE OF SHERIFF JIMMY ASHE: What you have to do is make an appointment, ’cause I don’t know.

~~~

KITZIA ESTEVA, BUS RIDER UNION MEMBER: Hello, Sheriff Jimmy Ashe.  This is Kitzia Esteva from the No Papers, No Fear right for justice. And  I’m calling you because we’re trying to have a meeting with you and  we’re waiting for you here. So we want to talk to you about why you  should do that.

PARTICIPANT, NO PAPERS, NO FEAR CAMPAIGN: And we are here in your  office. We want to meet with you in order to talk about some issues that  are happening here in the community, in the country.

~~~

PARTICIPANT, NO PAPERS, NO FEAR CAMPAIGN: We’re here to talk to the sheriff if that’s at all possible.

LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL: He’s not available. Is there anything else I can help you with? Or–.

PARTICIPANT, NO PAPERS, NO FEAR CAMPAIGN: Well, we’d like to speak to  someone, because there’s some concerns here in the local community and  the sheriff hasn’t been willing to speak to folks.

LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL: Okay. Put the camera down. That’s–.

~~~

LEÓN: The trip ended in North Carolina. After traveling for over a  month, on September 2 the UndocuBus arrived to Charleston and closed  it’s journey protesting the Democratic National Convention. There they  received the support of a number of local activists.

ESTEVA: –my mother. [incompr.] doesn’t help my mother. If we are  arrested today and she gets arrested, she’s receiving deportation. But  we’re here because we want to stop that, exactly that, the separation of  families. And we have faith that our action is going to have ripple  effect in all of our communities, that they’re going to organize to get  us out and to continue fighting.

CROWD: Undocumented! [incompr.]

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): I need for President Obama to hear  our message. What side is he on? Does he want to be remembered as one  who deported undocumented people? Or does he want to be on the side of  immigrants and their civil rights?

~~~

ROSARIO DAWSON, ACTRESS: For all of you who just got arrested, I just  want to commend your bravery in making sure that your voices, your  stories, your situation is exposed and shown, that it’s not just about  what people, big people with a lot of money and Super PACs get to say  out in the media and the press, but that real people step forward and  share their stories unafraid. You should not be afraid, even though  you’re undocumented. Things will change. We are here with you. Si se puede!

CROWD: Si se puede!

~~~

OVALLE: I think we’re living in extreme times. And since we’re living  in extreme times, we need extreme measures. We’re dealing with mass  incarceration and a mass amount of criminalization. And we’re a society  that punishes and tortures one another because we feel like we can  judge. And that’s not the truth. You know, as long as the government  goes around and starts saying, well, you’re a criminal, you’re not,  you’re not, you know we can’t allow that to happen. Our community is  broken, our families are broken, and it’s breaking us as individuals.

LEÓN: UndocuBus is one of many initiatives by the immigrant, mainly  Latino advocates to bring their daily drama of racial profiling and  separation of families to the public eye. Other initiatives, like  Immigration Is Beautiful and Coming Out of the Shadows add to this No  Papers, No Fear campaign. The idea behind them is to empower individuals  through community organizing.

Reporting for The Real News this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar Leon March 12, 2013 for TRNN

Protest organized by families broken by immigration deportations

OSCAR LEON, PRODUCER, TRNN: Many Latino rights organizations have  declared the month of March as the month of action for real immigration  reform across the United States. In cities around the country, families  and activists have taken to the streets to show support and solidarity  with the many families of these broken homes. In Flagstaff, Arizona, on  Saturday, people defied the snow and low temperatures to bring attention  to this daily drama.

In Chicago on Sunday, a march called “Coming Out of the Shadows” took  place. A couple of hundred of activists gathered downtown. Around 100  people marched on Monday, 11 March, in downtown Phoenix to demand the  end of deportations and separations of families with undocumented  members. This march takes place in a month that has been declared a  month of action for real immigration reform by many Latino rights  organizations across the United States. Erika Andiola felt the pain and  fear herself when ICE agents broke in her house, detaining her mom and  her brother. Fortunately for her, the community’s support and phone  calls got her family released.

ERIKA ANDIOLA, DREAM ACTION COALITION: People that are detained in  jail for years, that their–the only crime (which I don’t think is a  crime) committed was really providing for their family, going to work.  You know, sometimes you have to find ways to work if your family’s going  through a rough time. And so Arizona’s one of the harshest–or Maricopa  County’s one of the harshest places to just work. And, you know, people  are in jail for years just for doing that. And, you know, we want to be  able to avoid that. And if Arizona can be a starting place for people to  realize that this is wrong, then hopefully that can be a blueprint;  that fact, that they stopped that, can be a blueprint for the rest of  the country.

LEON: The reunification of people that has been detained and put in  deportation process is being used lately as some other families were  successful in their effort to recover their loved ones by putting public  pressure on local elected and public officials. That is why in this  little theater montage, the activists try to teach the use of a cellular  phone and social media as an effective tool for garnering community  support and defend their neighbors and family in case of a raid by ICE  or the feared Maricopa sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

ACTIVIST (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Bring out your cellular phones so we can call ICE and free this friend. She needs our help.

UNIDENTIFIED: Inside this building, a terrible–while I was in there,  they keep you in a room with 40-plus other males. It’s really cold. They  try to keep the temperatures as low as possible to prevent bacteria and  infections and, you know, diseases. But while I was in there–they  usually give blankets to cover up ’cause it’s so cold. But while I was  in there, there was a bedbug breakout. So I was then exposed to that.  There was a bedbug breakout. We didn’t receive any blankets.

JORGE MARTINEZ (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): We are tired of all that is  happening here in Arizona and all across the U.S. We want them to stop  deporting people. We have so many of us being deported day after day  after day. I myself am in a deportation process. I don’t know what is  going to happen. My son is detained and on deportation process. We are  trying to get him out. But you know lawyers charge high prices to defend  immigration cases here in Arizona. 

I was sent for 30 days to a detaining center, which in reality is a  prison, a private prison rented by ICE where they treat you really bad.  There I observed very unfair treatment. The county sheriff maltreated  the prisoners, and especially with the services, like food. We were fed  really horrible food: raw rice and raw beans. It was horrible. Many  people got sick. I was one of them. 

Some people got arrested while crossing the border. Many of them  arrived to jail badly beaten. They said it was the agents who did it.  None of them got a chance to defend themselves or undergo any sort of  procedure. They were deported right away. The incident that especially  got my attention was of this guy who was beaten. He had a badly injured  eye. He got taken away without any medical help or lawful procedure. He  got deported to Guatemala.

LEON: After walking for miles under the hot desert sun, the march  came to an end outside Maricopa County attorney’s–Bill Montgomery’s  office.

MIGUEL GUERRA (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): We are against these new lawsthat  are being passed here in Arizona. We want them to change the kind of  charges made against people that are being detained in Arpaio’s raids.  We want to tell Bill Montgomery to redraw all the harsh sentences (on  immigrants). I think it is unfair the way they separate families. Inside  the ICE jail I saw how they do it. They intimidate them into signing  their deportation papers, saying that if they don’t sign, they’ll remain  from six to 12 months in jail.

LEON: Montgomery’s hard sentences on Latinos either with fake IDs or  working without legal documents are a major factor in the separation of  families.

JULIA OJEDA (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): There was an Arpaio raid, and they  took my husband. His name is Miguel Venegas. And we are here to demand  our rights as human beings. We are not criminals. We are hardworking  people that come to this country to fight for a better life, and our  children belong here. We want them to stop deportations and to drop the  charges no all the raided workers that were detained (with my husband).

JHONTE VENEGAS, 15-YEAR-OLD: And I’m here to tell Montgomery to drop  the charges, ’cause we don’t like it to–Montgomery to part the families.  And we want all the families together, to be happy. And I fear Arpaio  took my dad when he was at work, and I was devastated that he took my  dad. And it’s been hard that my dad’s not here. He was working hard to  put food on the table for my family. And I just want him back home.

LEON: The demonstration was carried out on Monday morning, a day  that’s normally not known to attract big crowds because everybody’s  working or studying. However, they did it this way ’cause they wanted  the public officers inside the buildings to feel the pressure by  themself, since on Saturday they’re not working.

After making a lot of noise both outside the county’s building and in  the TV news, these families and activists went back to their lives.  Many of them, however, went back to homes that are lacking one or more  members.

More marches and events are set up to happen all across the country in this month of action for immigration rights.

For The Real News, this is Oscar Leon.

 by Oscar Leon February 10, 2011 for TRNN

TRNN visits a gun store in Tucson

OSCAR LEON, TRNN: On the aftermath of the Tucson shootings, I still had Sheriff Dupnik’s declarations in mind.

CLARENCE DUPNIK, SHERIFF, PIMA COUNTY, AZ: It’s my feeling that his  personality is the type that is susceptible to this kind of behavior. It  doesn’t surprise me that people from the right would be upset that  people like myself and maybe people from the left and a whole lot of  other people in America feel as I do, that the anger that’s purposely  generated by people who make a living off of it serves one particular  party better than the others. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it  continues at least through 2012.

LEON: So when I heard there was a movement to recall the sheriff, I  drove to Tucson. In the Black Weapons Armory, I found some of the  sheriff’s apposers. However, they did not allow me to film the petition  to depose the sheriff or the people who sign it. I end up talking to the  shop owner and a guns / martial arts instructor to figure out their  perspective on gun laws, the Second Amendment, and the shooting.

JEFFREY PRATHER, WEAPONS & MARTIAL ARTS INSTRUCTOR: As far as  Dupnik, Sheriff Dupnik is concerned, he–as a former law enforcement  official myself, I thought he acted very unprofessionably and  irresponsibly, because he had no facts to back up what he said  whatsoever. And a good defense attorney–and I’ve been to trial with a  lot of cases–is going to bring his remarks up in court and say that the  prosecution is prejudicial because of that attitude. He is in effect  profiling anybody who is conservative, pro-gun, Republican. And I  foresee a lot of problems for him in future court cases and inside his  own department, with promotions and hiring and equal opportunity  lawsuits where I see officers coming forward and saying, well, you  didn’t give me a promotion because I was a conservative and I was on  this Facebook or this blog or something. I think Sheriff Dupnik should  pay a lot more attention to law enforcement and a lot less to publicity.

~~~

LEON: Have there been any kind of modifications to the procedures you have to do in order to sell a gun?

TOM ROMPEL, BLACK WEAPONS ARMORY OWNER: No, none whatsoever. The  requirements are that if you want to purchase a handgun, you must be an  Arizona resident. Assuming you’re an Arizona resident, you would then  fill out a one-page federal form. It’s called a 4473. Once you have that  completed, we copy your example, your driver’s license with your  current address. We call in to ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms  and Explosives] or FBI for a background check, which takes about two or  three minutes. Assuming that you are clear, they give us the proceed.  Then we can proceed with the transaction and you can take your firearm,  your handgun out right away. Well, the Second Amendment–our founding  fathers, when they drafted the Constitution of the United States, put  the Second Amendment in there. Second Amendment deals with the right of a  US citizen to keep and bear arms. Now, they did that to prevent a  tyrannical government. So they believed that a government should fear  their people, the people should not fear the government. And that is the  brilliance–one of the things our founding fathers did. And that is  actually the culture of what it is to be a US citizen.

~~~

PRATHER: Second Amendment’s right there in our pocket Constitution:  “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.  And what that means is that the average citizen is allowed to defend  themselves against tyranny of oppressive government, against criminals,  against domestic or foreign terrorists. Well, Arizona has always been a  bastion of Second Amendment freedom. And if you’re paying attention to  American politics right now, Arizona is the epicenter of individual  rights and states rights, where we are opposing big government, big  government restrictions, and emphasizing individual and states rights,  including gun rights, because if you aren’t free–. The reason we’re free  is not because we talk about it. The reason is is because we’re armed  and able to defend it. And since the history of the beginning of the  United States our founding fathers defended themselves with firearms. In  fact, the Continental Army fought against the British before there was  even a country founded. Early native Americans defended their freedom  with firearms. Early African Americans defended their freedom with  firearms. And that’s just a fact of life is if you want to be free, you  have to be willing to fight for it, and the weapon of the age is the  firearm.

ROMPEL: Government has no business controlling guns. The only reason  they want to control it is so they can control the populace. You can  look around the globe. Where citizens are unarmed, you–Venezuela,  someone not far from your own native country, is a great example where  the citizenry has been disarmed, and now you have a dictator in South  America. Of course, he calls himself a president. I’m talking about Hugo  Chavez. So the government does not have a right to control the  firearms. There is no proposal on the floor that I have heard of at this  point to control the firearms. If anyone tries that, there is going to  be fierce opposition in Washington on the congressional floor. Well,  there is–on the form itself, if you have been hospitalized or had been  evaluated for mental problems, then you’re prohibited from purchasing a  firearm. I think our gun laws are fine the way they are. It’d be nice  for our government to focus on other issues, like illegal immigration.  And our government needs to enforce the laws that are on the book and  not worry about an issue like Second Amendment. Well, we have some very  unique issues. We’re a border state. The majority of the drug  trafficking is coming right through just south of here. We know for a  fact our border is porous. We’re being overrun. And our federal  government is not doing anything. They’re looking the other way.

PRATHER: Well, again, the Second Amendment starts off by saying “a  well regulated militia”, and the reason for that at the time was because  when the United States of America was being founded, there really was  no United States Army yet. There was a Continental Army, and George  Washington was leading the Continental Army, but in local areas they  were militias. Militia took on a dirty word under the Clinton  administration, and there is kind of a connotation of big-bellied,  camouflaged, cut-off sleeves, backwoods types. But actually the history  of America is founded on militias, local communities, local citizen  patriots defending themselves from the British with their firearms. And,  again, that’s what happened on that Saturday is you could say that  those folks were an unorganized militia. They came together right there  for the event, and all those people worked together–you know, retired  colonel Bill Badgers arm-barring the guy down, 61-year-old Patricia  [inaudible] [Maisch] grabbing his magazine, Joe Zamudio drawing his  weapon and then holstering it, Daniel Hernandez keeping pressure on  Congresswoman Giffords’ head wound. Certainly, if he had not done that,  she probably wouldn’t be making the miraculous progress. But everybody  worked together immediately as a citizen militia. And it was an armed  militia. Joe Zamudio was armed. He just didn’t need to shoot. So the  concept of militia has been badmouthed. And now we normally call them  state national guards, as in the Arizona National Guard. But I believe,  if I’m not mistaken, there is still an Arizona law on the books that  every adult male from age 18, I think, to 42, maybe, is in the Arizona  militia and it can still be called up. And, again, the best kind of  government is local government. Nobody knows how to govern themselves  best than local people. This whole big-government concept that people in  Washington or people in the UN can best know what’s best for us in  different places is absurd. And militia shouldn’t be a dirty word at all.

LEON: For The Real News, this is Oscar Leon..

 by Oscar Leon January 14, 2011 for TRNN

TRNN speaks to people attending memorial service in Tucson

OSCAR LEON (VOICEOVER), TRNN: On January 8, in the corner of West Ina  Road and Oracle in suburban Tucson outside a Walgreens store, a gunman  suddenly unleashed hell on the people that attended an event called  “Congress on Your Corner”. Jared Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabrielle  Giffords in the head before killing six other people. Congresswoman  Giffords survived the attack. As America felt the shock, one of the  voices that were most revealing was the one of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a  personal friend of Giffords and Judge John McCarthy Roll.

SHERIFF CLARENCE DUPNIK, PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA: But again I’d just  like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they are–how  they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about  tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that  goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately,  Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the  mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

LEON: After these strong statements by the sheriff, I attended the  event “Together We Thrive” to find out what the Tucsonians have to say  about this.

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, I do think the media has had a negative impact on  everything that’s been going on here. And the TV, definitely. It’s,  like, very different here lately when it comes to politics. It’s been  very different. And for us, that we live here.

UNIDENTIFIED: No, I think it’s very out of hand, and I think that  Sheriff Dupnik spoke the truth when he said that we need to tone down  the tearing down the government, we need to tone down the hatred  and animosity, ’cause it doesn’t do anything for anybody, it doesn’t  bring any help. And that’s a big part of the reason why we came down  here today, to support, to try and bring the city back together.

UNIDENTIFIED: It has become a mecca for racism, bigotry, and hatred.  It’s divided friends and neighbors. It’s been that heated. I personally  within the past couple of years have felt the–you just feel the whole  pressure, the whole negativity across–everywhere you go.

UNIDENTIFIED: It could happen anywhere. So, I mean, I don’t know why  it’s fair to say the political “mecca” even, ’cause why does Mecca have  anything to do with this?

UNIDENTIFIED: Politics in Arizona are absolutely crazy beyond all  belief. Tucson, I feel like, is more a mellow, you know, more liberal  city. You know, Phoenix is where things like this happen.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think considering this year’s election it’s justified  to say that, how much propaganda and lies there were behind the  candidates that were running. But I’d say overall we’re not the capital  of bigotry. I think there’s other states that represent that better than  Arizona. I’d say if gun laws continue to get more lax, it’s  definitely–there’s potential for there to be more problems, like,  considering how lax the gun laws already are. But at the same time, I  think it’s everyone’s responsibility to learn the responsibility that  comes with owning a gun. I don’t necessarily think that owning a gun  leads to this sort of thing. I think it’s the person behind the gun. I  think the media has a lot to do with the animosity that people feel  towards the government also, just because there’s so much propaganda  with the right and the left, especially in Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED: I feel safe in America, but there’s just a lot of  people out–there’s a certain few out there who just don’t like us, and  it’s hurting America as a whole.

UNIDENTIFIED: I would say maybe in other parts of Arizona, but not in  Tucson. People are generally really cool with one another out here.  I’ve found it to be a very accepting and just a great place to live. I  didn’t have–. But I do know what the sheriff was talking about. That  sort of vitriol he was speaking of is definitely permeated some of  Arizona politics.

UNIDENTIFIED: But I don’t think Tucson is the capital. But the United  States has a lot of rhetoric and vitriol right now within politics, and  I think right now it’s a time to reflect on the attitudes that both  parties have. I think it’s–we–both parties should reflect on their  behaviors and we should change our attitudes toward parties. We  shouldn’t see each other as enemies but friends working together.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think Sheriff Dupnik said the right things. I think,  you know, that does capture a feeling of a lot of our community. And  this gentleman, you know, obviously he was mentally ill. Whether he was  motivated by politics or not I don’t know, but it certainly didn’t help  it, because the things that are being said in the political arena are  very negative and very aggressive, and I’m sure that contributes to it.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think we all have our preconceived notions of people.  And when the media is portraying people in a bad light, it’s very easy  to make our emotions double, you know, to increase them in intensity,  possibly even leading someone to do something like what happened here.  You know, in the proximity that we are to Mexico and with all of the  racial tensions that are around here, I absolutely think that we are the  center of it. You never hear people complaining about Canadians who are  immigrating here; it’s always Hispanic people. And I think that we are  indeed the very center of the problem here, of the political heat for  immigration.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think it is. It is. There’s so much hatred with  living on the border. The whole immigration issues, everything that’s  happening right now, the whole eyes, news, everything is here in  Arizona. And that’s probably true. Just before the shooting, you had the  big incident happening on the border with a border patrol agent  shooting a 15- or 16-year-old kid crossing from Nogales, Sorona, to  Nogales, Arizona. So, I mean, I think that kind of sparked, and now this  is happening, so it could be.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): The way that we as Latinos have  been criminalized in Arizona, imagine if the shooter was Latino. We  will be executed by now.

UNIDENTIFIED: I don’t know if it’s the capital, but things have  gotten ugly. Things have definitely–politically, the language, the ideas  that people are talking about are just getting too extreme, I think.  There’s a culture of violence in this country, and gun–so many people  have guns in this country. They are too easy to access.

UNIDENTIFIED: You know what? The media is doing its job. And it’s the  government’s job to get out there and talk to the people, and I think  Congresswoman Giffords was doing just that. And whether–I don’t think  the media had a big influence on it. I think just with social networking  and just how the Internet is with blogging, you can’t control that.  That isn’t the media. That’s just everyday people going online and  speaking their mind.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think there’s animosity. There’s definitely a lot of animosity in Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think we take the Constitution a little too much at  heart, and they try and nitpick at every little thing, and just they’ve  got to remember that everyone’s equal. 

UNIDENTIFIED: I mean, I think Arizona as a state, being a state that  allows you to conceal and carry a weapon pretty much anywhere, you know,  including grocery stores and malls, things like that–bars you can  conceal and carry a weapon–you know, that might be something that needs  to be looked at a little bit more seriously when we have events that  happen like this.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think it’s important for us to stop, look, and listen  to what the community is saying and really listen to our people. And  then we can make a change positively.

UNIDENTIFIED: –and it has nothing to do with politics, and he was  completely wrong in his views on the issue. It’s one person that was  violent, and he chose to act out in an unlawful way. So it has nothing  to do with politics.

UNIDENTIFIED: For us, and not only for a lot of people in the  country, but for a law enforcement official, specifically Clarence  Dupnik, to politicize this before we knew anything about the individual I  think really cast a bad shadow on Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED: Just because people are drinking and driving doesn’t  mean we make driving illegal or drinking illegal. I mean, just because a  couple of people screw up doesn’t mean we should limit and restrain all  the people that actually follow laws and abide by and are given and who  have fought for our Second Amendment.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think the media does the best job that they are able  to, but the whole truth is never portrayed in the idiot box. What  happened to bring me your poor, your tired, your wretched masses, yearning to be free?  And now it says “no vacancies”. Screw that. We can lose–like, we can  lose the wall. We can lose the wall. Why don’t we just make it a state?

UNIDENTIFIED: City perhaps, but I also feel the Senate Bill 1070  brought a lot of negative animosity to groups of people, and now  they’re–it gave them an incentive to come out and act in negative ways  and say negative things and be racist. And maybe this is what caused  Gabrielle Giffords and those other victims to undergo this tragedy.

 by Oscar León  August 5, 2018 for TRNN

Progressive grassroots candidates battle with Corporate Democrats for control of the party in Arizona

 by Oscar León  July 5, 2019 for TRNN

The revelation of extreme immigration detention center conditions for  exhausted asylum seeking children, who are separated from their  relatives, sparked outrage nationwide. In Phoenix, Arizona, Jews for  Justice demonstrated, demanding permanent medical staff for Border  patrol’s Provisional Detention Centers

 by Oscar León  June 23, 2018 for TRNN

Despite signing the end of family separation, “zero tolerance”  policies are still in place, turning a decade long crisis into a larger  problem

OSCAR LEON: Slowly but surely,  the victims of the catastrophe we are witnessing began to recover their  humanity, the very same humanity that Trump and so many white  supremacists before him had worked so hard to deny.DONALD  TRUMP: They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you, they’re  not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and  they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re  bringing crime, they’re rapists. I’m going to build a wall, going to  build a wall. We need the wall. And Mexico will pay for the wall. But we  have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out.OSCAR  LEON: But the leaked audios of crying children tore the soul of the  U.S. of A. and showed to the world a naked image of who really were  these “bad hombres” fueling the rhetoric by the president. Univision  Spanish’s reporters quickly found the aunt of “Alison,” one of the  children we hear crying on the recording, and while she chose to remain  anonymous, she said:AUNT OF ‘ALISON’: I feel great sorrow, my  heart broke. She is my blood. I feel powerless. I spoke to her, and she  told me everything that was happening, and I couldn’t do anything. As  of now, we have no news of her either. We know she is in a  shelter-detention institute. We have tried to follow up with them and  they won’t give us any information about her, like where she is. My  sister, who is detained in a different place, she does not know either.”OSCAR  LEON: This picture by Getty Correspondent John Moore went viral as an  instant classic of the dehumanization of those migrant families.  Univision also found Denis Varela,the father of Janella Varela,the  two-year-old little girl crying on the picture, the younger of four  siblings and the one that made the trip with her mom.DENIS VARELA HERNANDEZ: The  picture by photojournalist John Moore, it broke my soul. I can tell you  my soul broke in pieces. To see my girl like that… right away I knew, I  said, oh no!”OSCAR LEON: On Wednesday, president Trump  signed an executive order that ended the separation of children but  perpetuates indefinite incarceration and “zero tolerance” policies.  However, the fact that the families will be kept together can make the  world of a difference for the next wave of children, who like a hostage  being released by its captor, will not face the ultimate torture as a  welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave.The  policy of violence, incarceration and denial, conducted on cue by the  maestro of showbiz, had begun leaving a trail that shook the hearts of  everyone who listened to cry of the children. Infinite sadness quickly  turned to rage.BOB INGRAM: Kidnapping of children crossing  the border with their parents, and they are being held hostage for to  build a wall. And I think that is abominable and un-American, and I  think all Americans need to take every chance they can get and speak out  against it.OSCAR LEON: Shadow Rock UCC and Central United  Methodist Church, two progressive churches, called for a Father’s Day  rally on Sunday, June 17.DOUG HANDLONG: My children go to  their schools and see all shades of people. We are no longer just a  white country, we are a melting pot of many different shades. So, that’s  what our children see, that’s the lens they see through, is not just a  pure white lens, but it’s various shades and colors. And it is a  beautiful thing.OSCAR LEON: They called for a town hall  meeting where many chosen speakers shared their first-hand experiences.  The indignation towards Attorney General Jeff Sessions using the bible  to justify child separation and imprisonment was still evidentMICHAEL  STANCLIFF: Anybody can crib a biblical passage to support their  position. The fact of the matter is that is if you want to talk about  the bible, through the scriptures there is the command to be kind and to  accept and to love immigrants.OSCAR LEON: Michael Stancliff, a scholar and activist and one of the organizers of the event.MICHAEL STANCLIFF: This  is not an isolated incident. There are events, protests, vigils  happening all over the country this week. And we are part of this  movement to push back on these policies which recall the worst moments  in United States history.People seem to be finally paying  attention to what is a much broader problem, which is an immoral and  dysfunctional immigration policy.OSCAR LEON: Germina Sanchez made this symbolic cage to carry in arms during the march.GERMINA SANCHEZ: I  wanted to send a message for the community to realize the conditions  under which kids are being held in detention centers. Those children are  in a cage, and that to me is inhumane because they are children. I know  of a number of families that have been separated, the dad taken away.  And I feel an immense pain every time I hear about family separation.”OSCAR  LEON: At the church town hall, people talked about the case of Marco  Antonio Muñoz, thirty- nine years old from Honduras, who reportedly took  his own life in a detention center on May 13 after his children were  ripped away from his arms and he was placed in a padded cell. Many more  cases were brought to bear, giving a name and a human identity to those  often identified as “illegal aliens.” The people in attendance were  outraged.SPEAKER ONE: I am a human, and what we are doing to these families is not human.SPEAKER  TWO: I have two children of my own, and I would be extremely upset if  they were to be ripped away from me as they are doing at the border.SPEAKER  THREE: It is definitely a violation of human rights. Sadly, our history  has had a lot of human rights violations, and this is unthinkable. I  think people feel powerless, like what will it do if I yell and scream?  But we have to, we have to do something. You can’t just walk by. And we  can’t feel powerless, we have to do something, anything to force change,  and awareness is first.OSCAR LEON But on the buildup to this  point, not everybody was on board. In fact, this scene has been almost  the same for over a decade; the indignation is new, the cages with  families and children in them are not. J. Murieta is a security  contractor, from Tucson, Arizona, I have personally meet before. Among  other types of facilities, he has also worked on the Provisional  Detention Centers. Responding to my inquiry, he wrote:J.  MURIETA: I worked on three contracts with ICE and BP, and this was no  different than the scene is now. I’m talking about it being over ten  years ago. I worked those contracts. This isn’t new, nor is it only  occurring due to the current administration. This happened in the Obama  and Bush administrations and started with the Clintons.OSCAR  LEON: The presence of unaccompanied minors in these detention centers  for small periods of time has been a common occurrence over the past  decade. A wave of unaccompanied children from Honduras, Nicaragua and El  Salvador have been knocking on USA’s doors, feeing gang violence,  escaping recruitment and assassination threats and poverty.These  children, unlike past immigrant waves who avoided the Border Patrol),  immediately surrender at US ports of entry, forcing its legal processing  and release under any relative’s care if they had any. Thus, the  presence of unaccompanied children at these facilities, an experience  that Murieta, a hard man by any standards, who manned those facilities  over the last decade and trains law enforcement in martial arts,  described as “heartbreaking, to say the very least.” Murieta experienced  how challenging it was to keep children and families detained, even for  a short period of time. Trump’s executive order ends family separation  but ensures indefinite detention.The recent escalations in  number and severity of human rights violations is well documented and  denounced by public and private organizations of a broad spectrum,  foreign representatives and even the United Nations. The move by United  States on Tuesday June 19 to abandon the UN Human Rights Council signals  yet another step into a trend of human rights violations.DEMONSTRATORS: Say it loud, say it clear. Immigrants are welcome here.OSCAR LEON: From Phoenix Arizona, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar León  June 27, 2018 for TRNN

Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration violation policy is not the only  policy that is leading to family separations. Even families crossing at  regular ports of entry and requesting asylum have often ended up being  separated. Oscar Leon reports from Arizona

OSCAR  LEON: While President Donald J. Trump says the gangs are invading USA,  it seems to be that the ones arriving are the gangs’ victims. A wave of  unaccompanied children from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador have  been knocking on USA’s doors, fleeing gang violence, escaping  recruitment, assassination threats and poverty.PATRICIA  FLORES: Firstly, the future of my son forced me to get out of El  Salvador, because there is no future. So, I decided to leave my country  because of the insecurity, the violence.OSCAR LEON:  Differently from past migration waves with plans and intentions to avoid  border patrol at all costs, large groups of families and even  unaccompanied children take a great number of risks, just to get to a  U.S. border checkpoint and ask for asylum. The zero-tolerance directive  turns walking across the border into a crime and orders every state  attorney to press mandatory criminal charges for those crossing the  border. This means that those individuals will be immediately removed  and sent to federal detention centers, and therefore cannot take care of  children or minors accompanying them. The children and minors will be  placed in the care of the U.S. Department of Health & Human  Services, more exactly the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).ANA  MEJIA: That’s my biggest fear, to be separated from my children. I am  bringing them, fleeing from the danger in Honduras. And if we are  separated here in US, I don’t know what I would do. I think about this  day and night when I see my children.OSCAR LEON: In the month that lasted the family separation policy,  according to NPR, 2,342 children were taken away from their relatives  and placed in detention centers for processing and eventual transfer to  detention-care facilities. But even before the president backed down  from his separation policy, some families had already been reunified  thanks to the work of pro bono lawyers and advocates like the ones at  the Florence Project, providing legal services to detained migrants and  their families. Also, thanks to activists working with the Phoenix  Restoration Project.SELENA KEESECKER: I worked with one  woman, picked her up at the bus station one night- or one morning. She  was supposed to take the bus to go to Florida, but she was not going to  leave because her daughter was not with her. So, we took her home and we  worked with the Phoenix Restoration, which we’re a part of, to find  what we could do to find the daughter. And I made a number of calls over  to UMA, because we heard that might be where she was, and no one in the  UMA child’s department knew where she was. Talked to, left messages and  talked to three different people and also another person, and they did  not know where she was. And this child is a U.S. citizen, and I have no  idea why they did not send that child to the family where this person  eventually did go. She was a U.S. citizen born in California. She was  about twelve years old, about twelve years old.OSCAR LEON:  Cases like this are possible because unlike the people walking across  the border, and because they are not fighting a criminal case but an  immigration one, the people entering the country at ports of entry after  initial processing and detention are entitled to seek asylum and have a  legal opportunity to fight their cases in court, be released and even  get to be reunited with their children here in U.S. pending their  immigration cases. It is important to notice the difference between  those who simply walk over the border and those who surrender themselves  at ports of entry. The latter group “will not be prosecuted,” according  to U.S. General Attorney Jeff B. Sessions, who, defending his  immigration policy in Fox News, said:JEFF SESSIONS: If they  enter the country at a port of entry, and there are many of those around  the border, they are not violating the law. The mother or father in  that circumstance will not be prosecuted, and the families will stay  together. However, the lawyers from the Florence Project have observed  that this is not the case and there have separations at ports of entry,  as they confirmed to us in a written statement.FLORENCE  PROJECT STATEMENT: The Florence Project is the only organization in  Arizona providing free legal and social services to detained immigrants,  including parents and children who have been separated. We have met  with parents and children who were separated after seeking protection at  a port of entry. We believe that the practice of forcibly separating  families is cruel and inhumane.OSCAR LEON: As far as the  people caught crossing the border with their children, they will be  detained and charged, will face six months prison time, repeaters will  face two years prison time, and after paying their sentences they will  be deported.DOLORES ALARCON: We are each put in a cell that’s  like a cage, the so-called “ICE machines.” It’s horribly cold. Us women  are on the floor, there’s a piece of plastic over us and nothing else.  For children, there is a mattress but there isn’t anything to cover you.  And it’s very cold. We were there in detention for four days, my son  and I, my husband also.OSCAR LEON: After the signing the  executive directive to stop the separation of families, the Trump  administration has offered a way for those parents who accept being  deported to be sent back accompanied by their children. The ones who  choose to stay and fight their cases in court, face a much more  complicated path. Their children, at the care of Health and Human  Services, will be trapped in detention centers, care institutions, until  they are claimed. Veronica Monge, a local mom and activist, emphasizes  the importance of supporting organizations that shelter and support  these kids who can suffer even harder detention conditions, if they turn  eighteen and they haven’t been claimed.VERONICA MONGE: After  someone turns the age of eighteen, when they are released, if they  don’t have anywhere to go, then they can be transferred to an adult  detention center.OSCAR LEON: There is already a generation of  American kids who have been severely impacted by family separation.  Something that has happened since a decade ago, albeit different  circumstances.VERONICA MONGE: I hear a lot of stories of separation, of families. A lot of people have relatives detained in Florence or in ICE detention.OSCAR LEON: Germina Sanchez, an activist from Central United Methodist Church, knows about a number of similar cases.GERMINA  SANCHEZ: Those children face a very hard reality because they stay with  an uncle, maybe an aunt or under the care of their older siblings. And  it is very hard for someone so young to work and take care of them.OSCAR LEON: But why is this happening? Was an escalation in cruelty  necessary? Is it necessary to stop immigration from the South? A growing  economy relies on a growing population, and with birth rates in the  U.S. reaching record lows in 2018 and in constant decline since 1971,  economists suggest the future of the U.S. economy could rely on migrant  population to keep up with its growth. In other words, a declining  population could pose serious challenges in the future. So, the US  economy needs all those future workers, shoppers and taxpayers to be  able to maintain a functional economy of growth, never mind keeping its  place as a world leader. But others, like Arizona State Representative  David Stringer, see these kids as an “existential threat.”DAVID  STRINGER: Sixty percent of children in public schools today are  minorities, and that complicates racial integration because there aren’t  enough white kids to go around. I mean look at that sixty percent  number for our public-school students, just carry that forward ten  years, fifteen years. It’s going to change the demographic voting base  of the state and that’s what’s going on around the country”OSCAR  LEON: Stringer speaks of the “the demographic voting base” around the  country changing, and he is right. If you look at the demographic charts  of the city of Phoenix, you’ll notice that after that generational  shift takes place in fifteen years, it is easy to imagine that an  anti-immigrant party can never win an election in a context of white  people being a forty percent minority, as it is the case in the early  ages brackets. With an endless flow of refugees percolating the South  border, that difference could increase at an even larger rate. So, do  they want to make a wall and imprison families indefinitely just so they  can keep winning elections, even at the cost of their own country’s  economic well-being? Stringer himself says it openly:DAVID  STRINGER: Immigration is politically destabilizing the country,  President Trump has talked about this. I am really concerned about this.  Immigration today represents an existential threat to United States. If  we don’t do something about immigration very, very soon, the  demographics of our country will be irrevocably changed, and it will be a  very different country. It will not be the country you were born into.OSCAR  LEON: Which begs the question, does having a larger multiracial  population assures electoral victories for the Democratic Party? It is  not written in stone, especially because Democrats have separated about  four million families already and those children that grew up with no  father or mother, or both, will not forget as easily as the rest. For  The Real News, from Arizona, this is Oscar León.

 by Oscar León  August 26, 2018 for TRNN

A  battle for survival; longtime activists-turned candidates like Jovana  Renteria are battling with corporate Democrats for control of the party  and for the survival of their communities

OSCAR  LEON: On November 6, 2018, the state of Arizona will hold its general  elections. A generation of young Latina leaders are part of a  progressive upswing inside the Democratic Party.

JOVANA  RENTERIA: If you would have asked me a long time ago if I would have  been running for this position or any elected positions, I would have  said no. In the current political climate that we’re in, we have to step  up and our community knows we have to. And they are totally in full  support in us doing what we’ve got to do. It’s our survival, we have to  do anything and everything that we could do to keep our family together.  And this is part of running for the judicial system. 

OSCAR LEON: Jovana Renteria is a Justice of the Peace Candidate in Phoenix, Arizona. She worked for over a decade with Puente Arizona.

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: I’ve fought immigration streamline 27(g), SB 1070. Before  this, I worked at domestic violence shelter for 5 years. I recently went  to Tornillo to shut down the border and the camp out there that they  have with children. I went to San Diego to fight the expansion of  streamline. 

OSCAR  LEON: Along with a group of volunteers, she has covered thousands of  homes, knocking on doors and talking to people even in one hundred and  ten degrees as it often gets in Phoenix. Her main proposals are to work  out a way to keep misdemeanor offenders out of jail, try to work with  social services instead of criminalization to resolve conflicts

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: We get the minimum. Here in my campaign it’s the minimum that  we just have for the mailers and stuff like that. The rest is the  community coming through for canvassing, bringing water, bringing food  and stuff like that that is actually helping us power our canvassers  that are going out every day. 

OSCAR  LEON: Justice of the Peace is a judicial officer, of small jurisdiction  claims, civil cases, traffic violations. All justices hear every type  of crime that is considered a misdemeanor, and even some justices of the  peace conduct preliminary hearings on felonies.

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: They do civil cases and they give all the fines there. People  start accumulating fines, they start getting those warrants because  they can’t afford them. Family separation starts. So, people don’t  understand how important these roles in our communities are.

OSCAR  LEON: Renteria sees the high number of criminal codes demanding maximum  penalties as a decision to support the prison industrial complex.

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: When I decided to actually run, it’s been real for me. My  political campaign didn’t start when I submitted my JP application. It  started a long time ago when they were criminalizing my grandfather and  my tios, now my brothers. You know what I mean? And it’s not something  new to me, and I know all these politicians that are directly with these  corporations. And I’m here to say that it hasn’t been working, that we  need that change, we need a change that’s really going to help our  community. Because at the end of the day, our community is the one  that’s suffering with family separation.
 

OSCAR  LEON: Renteria thinks that the mistrust between the Latino community  and the Phoenix Police Department is a detriment to the city’s safety. 

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: With the political climate we have been living in under  Arpaio, when they were targeting Latinos in different neighborhoods. I  think that it’s going to be very hard to trust the police and stuff like  that. They are trying to militarize our communities. We don’t need more  police, we don’t need to be criminalized more than we already are. if  they are not criminalizing us and putting us in jail, they’re shooting  us in the streets.

OSCAR  LEON: Renteria is one of four candidates for the Justice of the Peace  post in Encanto, Phoenix, and in her own words, the one with the smaller  budget. None of the other three candidates have any critical statement  about Phoenix police department, nor any police accountability proposals  on their websites.

JOVANNA  RENTERIA: So, there’s a big disconnection that we have with our police  department because of how they conduct themselves, on us not trusting  them. This year, to this date that we’re currently in today, the Phoenix  Police department has killed thirty-three people, our community  members. None of them have gone to court, none have gone through a  process where they are going to be held accountable for killing our  family members. There also hasn’t been a process set forward on handling  these situations and deescalating instead of just going to basically  shoot, point and kill.

OSCAR LEON: Follow The Real News for more on the fight for community and human rights.

 by Oscar León  August 27, 2018 for TRNN

A  battle for survival: Tired of feeling betrayed and played by career  politicians, longtime activists have decided to run for key posts  themselves, battling with Corporate Democrats for control of the party

OSCAR  LEON: Arizona’s primary election will take place on August 28.  Grassroots activist leaders are facing off against corporate Democrats  for the party nominations. A generation of mostly Latina leaders are  part of the local progressive upswing inside the Democratic Party. Tired  of feeling betrayed and played by career politicians, they have decided  to run for public office themselves to occupy the positions that can  impact their communities.

TERESA  MABRY: Sheriff Penzone is actually doing the same thing Sheriff Joe  Arpaio did. And so, while there was a name change and a party change,  that same politic rests in that office. So, it must be systemic, the  issue is systemic.

OSCAR  LEON: Teresa Mabry is a candidate for Justice of The Peace in South  Phoenix, a district with some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city  and with the highest rates of racial diversity.

TERESA  MABRY: So, money can buy us signs, money can buy us ads, money can do  lots of things with messaging. But that’s not going to change the hearts  and minds of what is happening in our communities. Folks want to say  like, “Oh, the Democrats were responsible for what happened in Alabama.”  No, Black Women led that endeavor and moved and organized to build  power.

OSCAR LEON: One of only twelve Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Fellows,  she has been an activist for over a decade. Born and raised in  Guadalupe, queer, Black, Chicana, the granddaughter of Mexican  immigrants and a Black community leader, she is at the center of a new  vision of politics.

TERESA MABRY: The electability politics. You have to look a certain way, you have to  dress a certain way, you need to speak a certain way, your platform  needs to have these folks, and you need to have red white and blue as  your standard colors, for whatever you put out. And so, we’re  challenging these norms because they don’t serve our folks, they don’t  serve where we come from.

OSCAR  LEON: Maria Castro is running for Governing Board of the Phoenix High  School District. She thinks that the same police agents that are killing  in the streets should not be in charge of campus security.

MARIA CASTRO: We’ve  seen, here in the Phoenix Police Department, how rogue this agency has  been, shooting people every five to seven days. And these same officers  are within our schools. And we’ve been going to these school board  meetings telling the school boards, “Hey,  these officers do not mean safety for us, these officers are literally  shooting us in the streets, why would you have them on our campuses?”

OSCAR  LEON: After being ignored and even belittled, Castro decided to run for  the very position that will give her the power to make those changes  herself.

MARIA CASTRO: These  changes are the ones that need to happen and need to happen by the hand  of our own people. And us running allows that to happen and allows us  to put an end, to a certain extent, to the bigotry that is happening in  the policy, to the ignorance and to the complacency of some of the folks  who hold these positions, or are trying to run for these positions,  that they do just enough to be called progressives, but don’t actually  make the changes necessary that our community needs.

OSCAR  LEON: Castro particularly worries about the possibility of the Phoenix  Police Department facilitating a path for minors to get deported.

MARIA CASTRO: Right now, with the School Resource Officer Program,  officers are allowed to take the student off campus after they are  arrested and take them into the county jails where ICE could be  potentially waiting for them. So, definitely reducing the amount of  police officers that are involved in having student interactions both on  campus and off campuses.

OSCAR  LEON: Mabry’s platform as Justice of the Peace is to do everything  possible to contain the criminalization of the poor by surcharging fines  with fees and penalties. This can quickly snowball out of control for  those who can’t afford to pay, and eventually send them to prison and to  deal with the cost of that imprisonment.

TERESA MABRY: So, not only do you  have to pay the warrant fee, you have to pay for your time that you  spent in jail, and the payment plan that you couldn’t pay in the first  place. And then you have to come and appear in front of the judge. So,  now you are missing and paying- you have a list of things that you  couldn’t pay in the first place, now you have to go appear in front of  the judge, which is more time you have to get off work. So, we’re  criminalizing folks who are poor.

OSCAR  LEON: Mabry thinks this benefits only those profiting from the prison  industrial complex, which in many cases have occupancy quotas that  counties and states must meet or face hefty reimbursements. In Arizona,  MTC Management & Training Corp, a for-profit private jail  corporation, recently got three million dollars from the state after  they accepted a settlement on a fifteen-million-dollar lawsuit. The  reported quota on its contracts for the prison in Kingman is a  ninety-seven-percentage occupancy warranty. 

TERESA MABRY: What does it look like, to be value aligned when you  can take an endorsement from a police union that covers up murders and  the assaults of our community and be really proud of it and not question  it. Then we have to look a little bit deeper. We have the highest Black  infant mortality rate in the nation in South Phoenix. So, these things,  when we think about what’s going on and while or not directly related,  but they play into a geopolitical dynamic that exists in South Phoenix.  And so, when you cannot be value centered, when you are moving and have  the money talk to you in a certain way, it allows you accountability to  be questioned. That you are accountable to where that money comes from  and not accountable to where you came from and the folks who held you up  and got you where you’ve been.

OSCAR LEON: Castro is wary of fake progressives riding the “Blue Wave.”

MARIA CASTRO: You know, time and time  again we’ve seen, even on this school board, it’s supposedly the most  progressive, but yet continue to ignore our people’s fight. The city  council, there’s many Democrats on there, but that doesn’t mean that  they represent us the way that they should. And so, again, these people  are running for their party, they’re running for their own political  gain because the want to “climb” some way. We’re not climbing, we’re  building, and we’re building at the base so that our communities can  feel stronger, so that our communities have a voice and have a seat at  the table.

OSCAR LEON: Teresa Mabry feels the Democratic Party can’t really claim credit for recent progressive victories. 

TERESA  MABRY: So, we’re not in a flashpoint here with Ocasio Cortez and what’s  happening with Stacey Abrams and what’s happening here in Phoenix, this  isn’t a flashpoint, this isn’t something that happens randomly. We are  actually part of a legacy that has continued to build from the civil  rights era and before that.

OSCAR LEON: Castro concludes with a warning about what she sees as career politicians bending their way to power.

MARIA CASTRO: They go  up and up and up in their different political positions, and it’s easy  for them to climb because they don’t bring community with them. Again,  we’re base building, we’re allowing our communities to learn those  processes, we’re allowing our communities an opportunity for them to be  at the forefront of these changes, for them to be able to dream about  what freedom and justice look like in their own terms instead of  allowing these other people to just do it on their own. Instead of doing  things for them, we’re doing things alongside them.

OSCAR LEON: Follow The Real News for more on the fight for community and human rights.