Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Even before today's U.S. District Court ruling granting a temporary restraining order against enforcement of major provisions of SB 1070, nativist demagogue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was already promising to throw gas on the fire of anti-immigrant hysteria.
Arpaio said he’s planning to bolster his image as the “poster-boy” of immigration enforcement by showcasing his strict policies with a crime suppression sweep on July 29, the day Arizona’s new immigration law is scheduled to take effect. Open season: Arpaio plans massive sweep, tent city expansion (Arizona Capitol Times):
[Arpaio] said he hopes to jail as many people as possible, in the most visible way possible. He said he is planning to expand his tent city jail to make room for all the illegal immigrants he expects to round up.
“Why not take advantage of a new law, if the opportunity presents itself?” Arpaio said. “I’m doing this to show the people of Maricopa County that I don’t just talk about (illegal immigration enforcement), I do it.”
In fact, Arpaio said he expects to arrest so many illegal immigrants that he’ll need to pitch more tents in his outdoor jail to house them.
“I will be forming this month a special tent city to make room,” he said. I just want to make sure I have room from the 29th and on.”
Arpaio said that while he’s still finalizing his plans for making this happen, he’s been accumulating military-style tents for years, and that he has all the inmate labor he would need to erect them. ”If I had to build more tents, it would be very, very easy,” Arpaio said.
But Maricopa County Manager David Smith said Arpaio’s claim of needing additional space in tent city for illegal immigrants is nothing more than a publicity stunt. ”He’s trying to play his two signature issues, which are tent city and arresting illegal immigrants,” Smith said. “He runs a $270 million operation by whim-driven chaos. It’s just another one of his typical (public relations) efforts. He’s recycling them for the hundredth time to see if he can get some play.”
The Arizona Daily Star adds today State heads for SB 1070 showdown:
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is making room in a vast outdoor jail and is determined to round up illegal immigrants to fill it.
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The hardest-line approach is expected in the Phoenix area, where Arpaio plans to start his 17th crime and immigration sweep on Thursday. He plans to hold the sweep regardless of any ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton. Arpaio, known for his tough stance against illegal immigration, plans to send about 200 deputies and volunteers out, looking for traffic violators, people wanted on criminal warrants and others. He has used that tactic before to arrest dozens of people, many of them illegal immigrants.
"We don't wait. We just do it," he said. "If there's a new law out, we're going to enforce it."
But Crazy Uncle Joe's unbridled hatred is not limited to undocumented immigrants from Mexico, oh no. He hates American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to peacably assemble, to petition for a government redress of grievances, and to exercise their freedom of (political) speech to protest against this demagogue sheriff run amok. Arpaio: I’ll jail immigration protesters:
The sheriff of the most populous county in Arizona says he’s “not going to put up with any civil disobedience” when the state’s new immigration law takes effect.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that if protesters want to block his jail, he’ll put them in it.
Echoes of Sheriff "Bull" Connor in Birmingham, Alabama. "Civil disobedience" to protest an injustice is an American tradition older than the Republic, from the Boston tea party to anti-war demonstrations, to the Civil Rights Movement:
In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began "Project C" (for "confrontation") in Birmingham against the police tactics used by Sheriff "Bull"Connor and his subordinates (and, by extension, other Southern police officials). Dr. King's arrest during this period would provide him the opportunity to write his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. The goal of this movement was to cause mass arrests and subsequent inability of the judicial and penal systems to deal with this volume of activity. One key strategy was the use of children and young adults to further the cause.
The short-term effect only increased the level of violence used by Sheriff Connor's officers. Connor's infamously fought against civil rights marchers by using fire hoses, police attack dogs, and even a small tank against protest marchers. But in the long term "Project C" proved largely successful. Sheriff Connor's aggressive tactics backfired when the spectacle of the brutality being broadcast on national television served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the South and helped in large measure to assure the passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [That's Joe Arpaio's 50 cal. on his assault vehicle by the way.]
It is long past time for men and women of good conscience to put a stop to demagogues like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sen. Russell Pearce, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and recently, Gov. Jan Brewer. They are throwbacks to a bygone era of hate in American history. This country has matured well beyond this point, despite recent rhetoric from the right. There is no turning back to the 1950's, or the 1850's for that matter, of which many on the right speak longingly.