Pinal County Greens Pass Resolution Condemning Alabama's Anti-American Immigration Law, Calling It "Kristallnacht for Alabama's Hispanic Schoolkids"

Apache Junction, Ariz., Oct. 1 -

The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution condemning Alabama's immigration law, calling it "the equivalent of Kristallnacht for Alabama Hispanic schoolchildren." Significant parts of the law, which Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson termed "even more odious than Arizona's SB 1070," were found constitutional by a federal judge this week, prompting the law to go into effect.

"This law is totally anti-American," said Grayson. "Reports now say Hispanic students are disappearing from Alabama's public schools by the hundreds because their parents fear the law's provision that requires schools to check students’ immigration status."

The resolution of the Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, the nation's second-fastest-growing county, condemns the Alabama law and demands its immediate repeal by the Alabama legislature or a blockage of the law by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals as a violation of equal protection and due process and an unconstitutional preemption of federal immigration statutes.

"As Alabama's farmers, contractors and homebuilders know, this law will have grave economic effects," said Grayson, the 2010 candidate for the U.S. House in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District. "Crops will rot in the fields and there'll be critical shortages of labor and less consumer spending as people leave Alabama."

Even fully documented Hispanic citizens are disappearing from Alabama, the Pinal County Greens resolution said, because the legal status of family members is often mixed — children are often American-born citizens — but the decision whether to stay is made to protect those who are not documented.

Grayson, who has taught constitutional history, noted that in Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court found that all children living in the United States have the right to a public education, whatever their immigration status.

The resolution also called on President Obama to scrap his xenophobic Secure Communities programs of local dragnets, which simply exacerbate the fear, and to do more to defend core American values against the hostility against immigrants that has overtaken Alabama, Arizona and other states.

The Pinal County Greens commended this editorial in today's Anniston Star:

It may be some time before the effect of Alabama’s new anti-immigration law is fully understood. More appeals are under way. The fight against this mean-spirited legislation is not over.

But at a number of Alabama public schools, the effect already is profound.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Birmingham upheld key parts of the law, including the provision requiring public schools to verify the citizenship of students. On Thursday, reports trickled in about how Hispanic students and their families reacted to the state’s insistence that it will enforce this law with gusto.

As one principal told the Mobile Press-Register, “It’s been a challenging day, an emotional day. My children have been in tears today.”

In Decatur, school officials said 32 students withdrew from school and many others didn’t attend. Seven Hispanic students withdrew from Austinville Elementary. The scene was chaotic.

“Parents, students and the principal were crying,” Austinville Principal Beth Hales told the Decatur Daily. “It’s tough because you get to know the children and their families … I wish they would wait and see what happens before they leave us.”


In south Alabama, there are 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary. On Thursday, 19 students withdrew from school, and another 39 were absent.

“We have been in crisis-management mode, trying to help our children get over this,” Principal Bill Lawrence told the Press-Register. “They’re afraid.”

A greater number of Hispanic students are expected to withdraw from that school by next week, Lawrence said.

All across Alabama, newspapers are carrying stories of these young students — in most cases, young Alabamians born in the United States, the principals say — who are suffering from this misguided and hateful law.

That Larry Craven, the interim state school superintendent, says children already enrolled in schools won’t be checked, that only students who enroll after Sept. 1 will have to prove their citizenship, isn’t mattering to many Hispanic families. That Craven says all students must be enrolled whether they have the proper documents or not is carrying little weight with some of these families.

For now, those who want illegal immigrants driven from Alabama at any cost are getting some of what they want. Some immigrant families are leaving the state, officials are saying. But a terrible byproduct is falling on the shoulders of young Alabamians of Hispanic descent who deserve the same public-school education as any other Alabama student.

That principals are reporting their students are scared, their students are afraid, their students are crying about being pulled out of school, should make legislators such as Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, and Gov. Robert Bentley hide their faces in shame.

Beason was a sponsor of the bill that Bentley signed into law.

What would Beason and Bentley tell these young Alabamians? That their education isn’t important? That the state doesn’t care about them?

This is a dark day in Alabama. Beason and Bentley should join these principals as they counsel crying, scared students. They should see the damage from their handiwork.

"We must not allow these innocent kids to become los desaparecidos," said the Pinal County Greens resolution. "That is not the American way."

Pinal County Greens congratulate Activist and Prescott College Prof. Randall Amster on his article, "U.S. Greens Work to Stem Anti-Immigrant Tide"

Apache Junction, Ariz., July 25, 2011

The Pinal County Greens congratulate the well-known activist/author Randall Amster, graduate chair of humanities at Prescott College, on his article, "U.S. Greens work to stem anti-immigrant tide," posted on Friday on Green Pages, the national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States.

Randall Amster's article includes this excerpt featuring the good work of the Arizona Green Party leadership and its 2010 candidates:

In June of this year, both Alabama and South Carolina passed measures that are rhetorically competing for the misbegotten title of the “nation’s toughest immigration law.” According to Reuters, the South Carolina law will require police to check the immigration status of any individual they suspect is in the country illegally after they have stopped that person for another reason (akin to Arizona’s SB 1070); will allow the state to revoke the business license of any employer who knowingly hires “unauthorized aliens;” and will create a new (and pejoratively named) “Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit.” Alabama’s new law, as reported by the Associated Press, “was modeled on Ari­zona’s” and contains additional provisions “requiring schools to find out if students are in the country lawfully and making it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride.”

The passage of these new draconian laws has prompted the U.S. Department of Just­ice to initiate a review and call for meetings with state law enforcement officials in order to ascertain whether the federal government will file lawsuits similar to the successful challenge it launched against SB 1070. Yet here in Arizona, well before the federal government stepped in, the state Green Party took a strong stance on immigration issues, as reported by the local FOX News station: “Besides its position on the environment, there is another issue the Green Party is very clear about and that is its position on immigration. The Green Party is the only party that supports amnesty. ‘We want comprehensive immigration reform. We do not support any of this legislation, whether it’s SB 1070, anti-ethnic studies legislation, employer sanctions, English only,’ says Angel Torres, AZ House candidate.”

During the 2010 election cycle, Arizona Green Party (AZGP) candidates for state office were outspoken about immigration issues, including AZGP co-chair Torres, who noted that “as a Puerto Rican/Xicano and life-long Arizonan, SB 1070 is an insult to me, my family and the entire Latino community. To scapegoat or racially profile an entire community does not solve the problem. Our economic and immigration policies need to serve the interests of all working-class folks, not the interests of the corporations.”

Linda Macias, AZGP vice co-chair and 2010 State House candidate, added: “We need major federal reform of our immigration laws. Immigrants come to the United States in hope of a better life. We need to give them citizenship now and write immigration laws that are humane and just.”

The AZGP further issued a press release asserting that “Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation does not address the root causes of migration: poverty, lack of economic opportunity, war and political conflict, and environmental devastation…. The Arizona Green Party encourages all Arizonans to join the grassroots movement to overturn SB 1070, and organize for comprehensive immigration reform.”

As indicated by Leenie Halbert, AZGP and national Green Party co-chair, some im­portant gains were made here, “In Arizona, we’ve been able to use our special status under the state’s Clean Elections laws, in which we participate in organized televised debates, to directly address issues like im­migration and SB 1070, without parsing our words and hedging our positions like the Democrats do. We’re looking forward to the upcoming election cycle, as we pre­pare to field candidates who will represent our intention to become an electoral arm of a growing political movement against the state’s racist and draconian anti-immigrant laws. We are the only poli­tical party in the state that’s aligned with this perspective.”

(Photo courtesy of Bart Everson on Flickr)

"We urge everyone to read this article by Randall Amster," Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson said. The Pinal County Greens are a group of members of the Arizona Green Party residing in Pinal County, which according to the 2010 U.S. Census, is the second-fastest-growing county in the nation.

Pinal County Greens Support Severing Arizona in Two, Creating New State of Baja Arizona

Meeting today, the Pinal County Greens passed a resolution. based on current and pending legislative actions, calling for Arizona to be severed in two, with creation of a new state, Baja Arizona.

"The non-moronic parts of Arizona must secede from the crazy racists," said Pinal County Chair Richard Grayson.

Arizona Lawmakers Push New Round of Immigration Restrictions
By MARC LACEY
Published: February 23, 2011

PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are proposing a sweeping package of immigration restrictions that might make the controversial measures the state approved last year, which the Obama administration went to court to block, look mild.

State Senator Russell Pearce, Republican of Arizona, said, “If you are ever going to stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, you have to quit rewarding people for breaking those laws."

Illegal immigrants would be barred from driving in the state, enrolling in school or receiving most public benefits. Their children would receive special birth certificates that would make clear that the state does not consider them Arizona citizens.

Some of the bills, like those restricting immigrants’ access to schooling and right to state citizenship, flout current federal law and are being put forward to draw legal challenges in hopes that the Supreme Court might rule in the state’s favor.

Arizona drew considerable scorn last year when it passed legislation compelling police officers to inquire about the immigration status of those they stopped whom they suspected were in the country illegally. Critics said the law would lead to racial profiling of Latinos, and a federal judge agreed that portions of the law, known as Senate Bill 1070, were unconstitutional.

Similar legal challenges are likely to come in response to the latest round of legislation, some of which cleared a key Senate committee early Wednesday after a long debate that drew hundreds of protesters, some for and some against the crackdown.

“This bill is miles beyond S.B. 1070 in terms of its potential to roll back the rights and fundamental freedoms of both citizens and noncitizens alike,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arizona. She said the measures would create “a ‘papers, please’ society” and that a new crime — “driving while undocumented” — would be added to the books.

Despite boycotts and accusations that the state has become a haven of intolerance, Arizona won plaudits last year from immigration hardliners across the country. On Tuesday night, the Indiana Senate voted to allow its police officers to question people stopped for infractions on their immigration status, one of numerous proposals inspired by Arizona’s law.

“If you are ever going to stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, you have to quit rewarding people for breaking those laws,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, the Senate president, who is leading Arizona’s effort to try to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they stop coming, or leave.

Opponents said the changes were a drastic rewriting of the core values of the country. In Tucson, a community group was so enraged by what it called the extremist nature of the proposals from Phoenix that it proposed severing the state in two, creating what some call Baja Arizona.

“Denying citizenship to children because they have parents without documents is crazy,” said the Rev. Javier Perez, a Roman Catholic priest and immigrant from Mexico who waited in the legislative chamber into the night Tuesday for a chance to speak. “Honestly, I don’t think anything I say will change their minds, but it’s immoral what they’re doing and we have to say this is against the values of America.”

The measures would compel school officials to ask for proof of citizenship for students and require hospitals to similarly ask for papers for those receiving non-emergency care. Illegal immigrants would be blocked from obtaining any state licenses, including those for marriage. Landlords would be forced to evict the entire family from public housing if one illegal immigrant were found living in a unit. Illegal immigrants found driving would face 30 days in jail and forfeit the vehicle to the state.

The measures are not assured of passage. Although Republicans have a majority in the Legislature, the restrictions on citizenship failed to win approval in the Judiciary Committee this month, so they were rerouted to the Appropriations Committee, where they won passage.

Some state lawmakers said their constituents were furious over the Obama administration’s lawsuit challenging the last immigration law and wanted the state to continue pressing the issue. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said the state would file a countersuit against the federal government accusing it of not enforcing immigration laws.

Supporters of the crackdown include Katie Dionne, who described herself as an “average, everyday American” who wanted to prevent illegal immigrants from changing her way of life. “If their life is so wonderful why did they leave where they’re from?” she asked senators.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security and a former Arizona governor, cites statistics showing that the influx of illegal immigrants across the Arizona border has declined markedly with significant increases in federal resources. But that has done little to ameliorate the feeling of crisis expressed by many Arizona politicians.

The state’s business community, stung by a boycott that has reduced the number of conventions in the state, generally opposes the new round of restrictions. “This will put Arizona through another trial and hurt innocent businesspeople who are just trying to get ahead,” said Glenn Hamer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Pinal County Greens: Like Conor Oberst and Desaparecidos, We Believe SB1070 and Other Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Youth Republican Laws Are Unacceptable

for Telemoonfa

Today's New York Times notes the obvious, gathered from the 2010 census, that we are in

a changed American landscape, with whites now a minority of the youth population in 10 states, including Arizona, where tensions over immigration have flared, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

“This is a huge demographic transformation,” Mr. Frey said. “A cultural generation gap is emerging.”

The growing divide between a diverse young population and an aging white population raises some potentially tricky policy questions. Will older whites be willing to allocate money to educate a younger generation that looks less like their own children than ever before? How will a diverse young generation handle growing needs for aging whites?

The rapid change has infused political debates, and they have been noisiest in the states with the largest gaps.

Arizona is the leader, with whites accounting for just 42 percent of its young people, compared with 83 percent of its residents 65 and older, according to Mr. Frey. Over all, the state’s Hispanic population nearly tripled between 1990 and 2009, and is now a third of all residents.

The Pinal County Greens and the Arizona Green Party will respond to the needs of all Arizonans, unlike the right-wing bastards in the legislature who have declared war on the state's youth. As young people turn 18 and are eligible to vote, the radical Republicans' days in power are numbered.