As soon as anti-immigrant folks stop speeding, using drugs, and paying employees under the table, let me know

I think I could be OK with people who say "Illegal means illegal" if I didn't know so many so-called upstanding U.S. citizens who regularly broke the law as described in the post title.

Tea Party rallies for Arizona-style immigration law at the Capitol

n Arizona-like law to combat illegal immigration has a snowball's chance in Phoenix of passing the California Legislature, but freshman Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks (San Bernardino County) is giving it a shot.

Donnelly, who has patrolled the California-Mexico border as part of the militant Minutemen citizen group, held a rally at the Capitol today for his bill, AB26. The bill would make a number of changes in state law, including requiring law enforcement to verify the immigration status of anyone who is arrested and suspected of being in the country illegally...

The rally attracted about 100 participants, along with a good number of television cameras, and the crowd largely consisted of folks wearing Tea Party T-shirts and other Tea Party garb...

The rally did not go off without a protest, though, as about a dozen people marched and shouted "Si Se Puede" a few hundred feet away. An immigration rights group called the bill "dead on arrival" as it faces its first legislative hearing on Tuesday.

"Simply put, California is a very different place than Arizona. We are proud of our state's spirit of inclusion," said Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Policy Center...

Arizona's pre-Election Day rainbow shades

At the risk of skewing Google Analytics yet again, here is a 3-dish selection of late-breaking news from the Grand Canyon State as November 2nd approaches...

1. Remember Ward Connerly? Yep, while we have been focused on immigration & SB 1070 he's been laughing all the way to the bank. I apologize to all for missing this:

Arizona seen as bellwether in affirmative-action debate

by Dianna M. Náñez - Oct. 30, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Arizona's effort to ban state-sponsored affirmative action has intensified in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's election. But people on both sides agree on at least one thing: If the measure passes, it will trigger similar proposals nationwide and reignite debate over whether America has moved past the racial and sexual discrimination that spurred the 1960s civil-rights movement.

Proposition 107 is a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw affirmative action in state, county and municipal government, higher education, contracting and hiring, unless prohibiting it would result in the loss of federal funds or violate a court order. If voters approve the measure, Arizona would become the fifth state to pass an affirmative-action ban.

Although such laws have spread slowly, starting with California in 1996, supporters and opponents of Prop. 107 say affirmative-action bans will gain greater publicity if the measure passes because the nation is focused on Arizona's politics and immigration laws. Opponents say they expect several of the states that plan to mimic Senate Bill 1070 to also try to pass affirmative-action bans.

Passing Prop. 107 in Arizona is part of a broader strategy to target states by region, said Ward Connerly, who heads a California-based non-profit focused on dismantling affirmative action in all 50 states...

2. SB 1070 lawsuits in progress-- as summarized by the Arizona Republic. Here's an example of each, more at the link:

SB 1070 lawsuits (Appeals & District Court updates)

Appeals court

- The U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit goes before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday. Gov. Jan Brewer is appealing U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's ruling to halt the enforcement of four parts of SB 1070...

District court

- Bolton dismissed a couple of the legal arguments in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and several other legal groups but is moving forward with several others...

3. Are the parts of SB 1070 in force actually changing anything? A longish (for newspapers) analysis of law enforcement, policy changes, and community impact at the link:

Arizona immigration law has not lived up to reputation

by Alia Beard Rau - Oct. 29, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

The nation's toughest immigration law has been in effect for three months. But after the federal courts prevented key portions from going into effect, it has failed to live up to both opponents' worst fears and supporters' greatest hopes.

Immigrant-rights groups and major Arizona law-enforcement agencies say they've heard of no arrests made or citations issued using the statutes created under Senate Bill 1070, and no Arizona resident has taken advantage of the portion of the law that allows them to sue an official or agency that is not enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent...

But several state statutes created under SB 1070 went into effect on July 29. Individuals on both sides of the issue said after Bolton's ruling that the law still had teeth.

New statutes

The statutes allowed to go into effect do several things:

- Require government officials and agencies to enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent permitted by federal law and allow Arizona residents to sue if the official or agency adopts a policy that violates this requirement.

- Allow law enforcement to pull anybody over for any traffic violation if the driver is suspected of engaging in the "smuggling" of human beings for profit or commercial purposes. This could include stopping a driver for a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which in every other circumstance can be cited only if the driver is stopped for a separate primary violation such as speeding.

- Make it a crime to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer if the vehicle is stopped on a road and impeding traffic.

- Make it a crime to encourage an illegal immigrant to come to Arizona or transport, conceal, harbor or shield an immigrant if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact the immigrant is in the country illegally. This offense has to be during the commission of another criminal offense...

When I agree with Al Sharpton you'll be the first to know

Rev. Al went down Phoenix way a few days ago, and some people (if you can call a clearly unrepentant Armstrong Williams "some people") gave him a hard time about it. The recent Arizona legislation on illegal immigration didn't seem to affect him or African Americans. If anyone was going to be stereotyped or profiled, it would be Latinos-- and not even Latinos in his native New York. So why would Rev. Al add the Arizona governor and legislature to his enemies list by assuming the classic "outside agitator" role?

From the above Rev. Al/Phoenix link:

“If they do to Latinos today, they’ll do it to your group tomorrow,” he said. “If you open the door to a double standard for anybody, you open the door to a double standard for everybody.”

And Sharpton had a special message for blacks who made up a large part of the audience.

“Let me tell you something: After dark we all look Mexican riding down the street,” he said.

This week, Rev. Al and I agree. Legislators and law enforcement types aren't talking about checking people in plaid shirts just in case they might be Canadian and so far they've been unable (oh, all right, unwilling) to say what it means for someone to look illegal. So it makes sense for us to be duly concerned.

But Rev. Al is not alone in noting that stereotyping one group may lead to stereotyping others. (This isn't a "research study of the obvious" situation, either. If you've ever met whites who seem to get along with black folk but not with Asians, or black Protestants who like Catholics and Muslims but not Jews, or... well, continue please...)

(h/t to Racialicious) Jenn Fang over at Change.org briefly describes two new studies led by Dr. Chu Kim-Prieto of the College of New Jersey, one of which

suggests that stereotyping is a psychological process that actually promotes a broader "stereotyping" attitude that affects all minority communities, not just the ones being actively stereotyped. In other words, my stereotype is your stereotype, too.

Participants were exposed either to a stereotyped Native American image (the old University of Illinois mascot), a generic logo, or a blank folder. Those exposed to the mascot endorsed anti-Asian American stereotypes (yes) more so than the two other groups did. The implication being that stereotyping one group increased the propensity to stereotype others.

I continued to follow the trail from Fang's commentary in hopes of finding the original study. Her page led me to an article by Tom Jacobs at Miller-McCune that more clearly describes both studies. Jacobs reports:

The second experiment was conducted at The College of New Jersey. The 161 participants were randomly assigned to read one of two short essays: A descriptive history of Chief Illiniwek taken from the U of I website, or a description of that same university’s arts center. Both essays “were complimentary and respectful in tone,” the researchers note.

Afterwards, the same test to measure anti-Asian American stereotyping was administered. “Participants who were assigned to the American Indian reading passage endorsed anti-Asian American stereotypes to a greater extent than did those in the control condition,” Kim-Prieto and her colleagues report.

Jacobs provided a link to Kim-Prieto's article in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Here's the abstract:

Numerous findings have documented the adverse effects of stereotypes on those negatively portrayed by the stereotypes. Less is known about the ramifications of stereotype exposure on those who are not the objects of the stereotypic depictions. Two studies examined the effect of exposure to an American Indian sports mascot on the stereotype endorsement of a different minority group. Study 1 used an unobtrusive prime, while Study 2 used a more engaged prime. Study 2 also investigated the effect among those unfamiliar with the controversy regarding American Indian sports mascots. Results from both studies show that participants primed with an American Indian sports mascot increased their stereotyping of a different ethnic minority group. [emphasis added]

Bottom line, as minorities we hang together or hang separately. That's why I agree with Rev. Al's trip to Phoenix. He wasn't just showboating.

___________

P.S. from our Cute Web Tricks Dept.: Fang's commentary also has a great example of single-word linking, for those who like online parlor tricks as I do. Go there and scroll over the words in the phrase: "right-wing pundits and fear-mongerers who perpetuate the racist notion that all Muslims are terrorists" ...

Take off your rainbow shades

It's too early-- or too late-- to react calmly and reasonably to the train wreck generated by Arizona's passage of a draconian immigration law, signed into law on April 24 by Gov. Jan Brewer. Cooler heads do not yet prevail.

I said early on:

If Arizona starts checking ID of people with plaid shirts to see if they're Canadian, I'll take back all my remarks.

That was late April. Now that it's early May, it appears that I need not worry about retracting the above. The tops of people's heads did indeed explode, and stayed that way. Arizonan public officials (and their pundit supporters across the realm) spent the intervening days trying and failing to explain how the new law could be enforced without rampant racial profiling, especially since there is no expressed official interest in illegal immigrants from anywhere but Mexico and points south.

As of April 30, a hastily-signed follow-on bill attempted to quell the uproar by being, ah, just a bit more specific. It clarifies that people can't be interrogated strictly on the basis of race or ethnicity alone, but (from the linked story) "civil complaints, such as an unmowed lawn, could trigger questioning about immigration status." Well, as long as there's a sound reason to check someone's papers, right?

I had one moment of near-sympathy for the Grand Canyon State when talking with an expatriate Arizonan a few days ago. The claim, which I have no reason to doubt, is that border crime and violence has gone so far beyond merely crossing to find work that a radical solution is necessary. Well, you've got me there. Peaceful residents on either side of the border, being overrun by marauding drug dealers? Migrant workers' minor pilfering of water or food escalating to grand larceny? No argument, some kind of hammer needs to come down. I just can't see how the new law, however amended, changes either of these.