Civil rights supporters heard welcome news on a couple of fronts last week. First Attorney General Eric Holder made it clear in a speech at the LBJ Center at the University of Texas that the Department of Justice was prepared, able and ready to enforce the Voting Rights Act, and to seek legal sanctions against states refusing to comply. Welcome news for voting rights supporters busy tallying up the new restrictive voting measures passed in 25 states.
Then in an even more satisfying move, DOJ civil rights chief Tom Perez released a devastating report detailing how Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, also known as America’s meanest sheriff, had engaged in racial profiling and other civil rights abuses against Latinos. Rinku Sen wrote a brilliant piece in Colorlines titled “Because the Arc is Bending Toward Justice.” You can check out her analysis here.
Poor Joe really had a bad week, after the report was released, the Department of Homeland Security run by none other than former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano announced that it was ending an agreement with the Maricopa department that allowed deputies to enforce immigration laws and use the Secure Communities programs which uses fingerprints collected in local jails. DHS sanctions Arpaio.
The Supreme Court will review Arizona’s restrictive immigration law, SB 1070 in 2012. Arizona voters spoke last month when they recalled the bill’s author, Senate President Russell Pearce. He is the first state senate president to ever be recalled. More about Arizona law here. Meanwhile Pearce’s followers in Alabama are scrambling to undo the damage their state’s copycat anti-immigrant law has caused the state’s bottom line and reputation. Apparently several traffic cops have been enforcing the strict laws against the wrong immigrants. When executives with Honda and Mercedes were stopped for not having proof of citizenship—Chamber of Commerce types thought they had gone just too far. Despite the fact that the Chamber backed most of the miscreants behind the bill. The Republican attorney general is suggesting several fixes as is the Republican governor who signed the bill. The arrests of the two auto execs prompted Missouri to run an ad encouraging foreign investment saying, “We’re the show me state—not the show me your papers state.”
Mayor Sheldon Day in Thomasville Alabama is worried about recruiting industries. According to Day, "Up until a few months ago, nobody raised the immigration issue," he said. But in the last few months, it's been brought up regularly. Day suspects competing states are portraying Alabama as hostile to foreigners even though he says that is not the truth. Based on the questions he gets from industrial prospects, he also believes competing states are recounting stories from Alabama's civil rights past. "It's bringing back old images from 40 or 50 year ago," he said.
The governor says he's declined many national TV interviews about the law because he doesn't want to fuel comparisons with what he sees as Alabama's long gone past. "It's going to take us a long time to outlive those stereotypes that are out there among people that Alabama is living in the '50s and '60s," Bentley said. You can read more here.
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