Nine Latin America countries join U.S. Justice Dept against Arizona

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KTAR News
by KTAR.com (November 16th, 2010 @ 11:56am)

PHOENIX -- Anger about Arizona's tough immigration law has spread from Mexico throughout Latin America, according to a report in "USA Today."

Ecuador Ambassador Luis Gallegos told the United Nations Human Rights Council in early November that he is extremely concerned that the Arizona law will lead to widespread stereotyping of both legal and illegal immigrants.

The council included the Arizona law in its list of concerns sent to the U.S. State Department.

Ecuador and nine other Latin America countries have signed on to a brief supporting the U.S. Justice Department's suit challenging Arizona's law. A U.S. District court judge put the main parts of the law on hold just before it was to take effect in July. Arizona is appealing that ruling before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

State Department spokesman Charles Luoma-Overstreet told USA Today that the Arizona law has become a topic of discussion "in all our interactions" with Latin American countries.

Mauricio Cardenas, director of the Latin American Initiative at the Brookings Institution, said,

"The countries in Latin American are already perceiving some distance and disengagement from the U.S. The Arizona law makes Latin America more and more interested in developing stronger relations with other parts of the world."

In the brief filed in support of the Justice Department suit challenging Arizona's law, the 10 Latin America countries argue the law harms their citizens living and working in Arizona and could hurt "bilateral economic, immigration and security policies" between the United States and those countries.

Other states are considering immigration laws similar to Arizona's, and Gallegos said that is of significant concern.

"My basic question is, are we going to have a more protectionist United States that is more inclined to discriminating and persecuting groups like the migrants?" Gallegos said in an interview from Geneva. "We would hope that the federal government would be wise enough to enact a law which encompasses these issues."

Brewer said Arizona was forced to act and pass the law because the federal government has failed to secure the border and stop illegal immigration.
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Study: 100,000 Hispanics Left Arizona After SB1070

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Published November 12, 2010 | Associated Press

 

MEXICO CITY -- A new study suggests there may be 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state's tough new immigration law earlier this year.

BBVA Bancomer Research, which did the study, worked with figures from the U.S. Current Population Survey. The study says the decline could be due to the law known as SB1070, which partly entered into effect in July, or to Arizona's difficult economic situation.

The study released Wednesday also cites Mexican government figures as saying that 23,380 Mexicans returned from Arizona to Mexico between June and September.

U.S. census figures from 2008 say about 30 percent of people living in Arizona are Hispanic, or about 1.9 million.

The state is appealing a ruling that put on hold parts of the law, which would have allowed police to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Immigrants are heavily employed in Arizona's construction industry, which has suffered -- along with the rest of the state's economy -- in the economic downturn.

In that and other studies released at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, BBVA Bancomer Research -- part of the financial group of the same name -- estimated that probably about 720,000 Mexican migrants were unemployed in the United States when the study concluded in late October.

The study also predicts that remittances -- the money sent home by migrants working abroad -- won't recover their peak value of about $26 billion until 2012 or 2013.

Remittances fell in 2008 and 2009, largely because of the U.S. slowdown.

Remittances are Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income after oil exports. Nearly all of the money comes from the U.S., where nearly 12 million Mexicans live.

The research center also estimated that remittances were dwarfed by the amount of money Mexican migrants paid in taxes in the United States -- about $53 billion in 2008.
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'Major' Human Smuggling Cell Busted in Arizona

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Published November 10, 2010 | Associated Press

Authorities have dismantled a major cell of a human smuggling ring that may be responsible for the transportation of thousands of illegal immigrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to Phoenix and other parts of the country, investigators said Wednesday.

Nine people were arrested Wednesday after a yearlong investigation. They have not yet been charged but are accused of picking up illegal immigrants after they crossed the border by foot, and taking them to what are known as drop houses in Phoenix before they were distributed to other parts of the country.

The group was led by a man who told them his name is Mark Rodriguez-Banks, although investigators were working to determine whether that is his real name and if he was living in the country legally, said Arizona Department of Public Safety Capt. Fred Zumbo.

All but one of those arrested are believed to be in the country illegally. Their names were not released.

Rodriguez-Banks provided vehicles for the immigrants' transportation from the border to Phoenix, and from there to other parts of the country, Zumbo said.

Authorities seized 62 vans from the group Wednesday, some of which were disguised as belonging to flower or carpet cleaning companies. None of the vehicles had been reported stolen but were registered to people with addresses that don't exist.

Zumbo said the group specialized in smuggling people from Central America, and that many of their customers -- who paid to be taken to various U.S. cities -- came from Guatemala.

The group has been connected to a June 2009 vehicle rollover near the southern Arizona town of Sonoita in which 11 illegal immigrants from Central America in the vehicle were killed. Twenty-seven people had been "stacked like wood" inside, and most were ejected after a tire blew and the vehicle rolled.

Members of the group also were involved in two other reports last year of transporting illegal immigrants. Charges in those cases involved resisting arrest, fleeing law enforcement, aggravated assault on an officer and endangerment.

The group displayed a "total disregard" for human life, said Zumbo, who leads the Illegal Immigration Prevention & Apprehension Co-op Team, a task force of Arizona law enforcement agencies that targets human smuggling.

"We have put a huge dent in the human smuggling arena, not only in Maricopa County but in Arizona," he said. "We are going after the mid- to upper-level players in these organizations."

The seized vans surely would have been used to smuggle more people, Zumbo said.

"The biggest thing that we need to look at on this case is what we prevented possibly, because this group was very violent," he said. "These vans were potential hazards on our highways, they were possibly going to hurt and injure our citizens because of the reckless disregard of these human smugglers."

Arizona is the busiest illegal entry point for human and drug smugglers along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Between 40 percent and 50 percent of all immigrant arrests each year on the border are made in the state, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
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