The Arizona Guardian followed up, asking the state’s county coroners — who would examine any body connected with a crime — if they’d seen the headless bodies from the desert.
They hadn’t.
(Although one coroner, gruesomely, told the paper they did sometimes get human skulls– but not as a result of a fatal beheading. Such skulls are found after people die in the desert and “the animals … get a hold of them and start moving their body parts around,” the coroner said.)
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Brewer told the Guardian said the governor had never said anyone was beheaded inside Arizona. “I’m not aware of any statements where the governor specifies where any crimes were committed,” he said, despite his boss having made exactly that specific claim on two different news programs. On the contrary, he claimed that Brewer was talking about the fear that crimes that occur in Mexico could spread to Arizona.
“That report, which is based on other news reports, suggests that the drug cartels who operate on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, have not beheaded their victims,” the spokesman, Paul Senseman, told Politico. “Even a cursory check of news stories on the internet suggests otherwise.” Perhaps his boss should have done one before appearing on news programs to make such a claim.
The great divide just seems to drift further apart when we have to deal with this type of ‘exaggeration’ on the part of a public official, time and time again.
The AFL-CIO and one of its civil rights groups has written to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano demanding that all agreements between Arizona law enforcement and DHS cease. AFL-CIO is the largest labor union in the United States. According to the Huffington Post:
On Friday, the union conglomerate AFL-CIO and the civil rights coalition, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, became the latest institutions to urge for the isolation or boycott of Arizona when they requested that Homeland Security terminate its training of local law enforcement officials in the state.
“We write to express our deep concern with the Department of Homeland Security’s continued cooperation with state and local law enforcement in Arizona pursuant to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (‘the 287(g) program’) in the aftermath of Arizona’s passage of Senate Bill 1070, and we ask that you immediately rescind all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona,” the letter reads.
The message continues:
“We are grateful that President Obama has spoken out to correctly call the Arizona law ‘misguided.’ However, more than words are required from the federal government at this time. As we explain below, the enforcement of Arizona’s law fundamentally depends on the use of federal government resources for the implementation of its racial profiling regime. Unless DHS terminates all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona, the federal government will be complicit in the racial profiling that lies at the heart of the Arizona law. Such a result would place the DHS at odds with this Administration’s stated views on SBI070, and at odds with basic American values of tolerance and non-discrimination.”
The letter is by far the most serious effort to date to make Arizona’s new immigration law untenable for the state. Other groups have urged economic and travel boycotts as a way to target the state government’s tourism revenues. Should DHS adopt the AFL-CIO’s suggestion (and it’s a big question whether the Department will) it would deny the state the type of law enforcement expertise that the immigration law was designed to beef up in the first place.
The legislation passed by Arizona state government would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime. It would also give law enforcement officials fairly broad powers to detain those suspected of being in the country illegally.
“A review of DHS’s 287(g) program agreements in Arizona makes clear that once SB1070 becomes effective, DHS will be complicit in the enforcement of Arizona’s misguided law,” reads the letter, signed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “We urgently request that you exercise your authority to immediately rescind all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona and, in this manner, avoid making the federal government complicit in the enforcement of Arizona’s misguided law.”
So what, you might say. PWC and City of Manassas both participate in the 287(g) program. What impact will the dust up in Arizona have on our MOU with Homeland Security?
Meanwhile things show no signs of calming down in Arizona. 9500Liberty is now being shown in Tucson per request of the community. Sarah Palin is out there saying ‘We are all Arizonans now.’ Is that sort of like being a Hokie for the day?
Jan Brewer and Palin blamed President Barack Obama for the state law, saying the measure is Arizona’s attempt to enforce immigration laws because the federal government won’t do it.
“It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now,'” Palin said. “And in clear unison we say, ‘Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border.'”
The former Alaska governor appeared with Brewer at a brief news conference on Saturday. The event launched a website that Brewer said was an effort to educate America about border security and discourage an economic boycott of the state.
I hate being simple minded but did Mexicans just start coming across the border since President Obama took office? I could have sworn this was an issue before then. Silly me.
