Opponents of Arizona's Immigration Law Take Their Protests to the Ballpark

.

- FoxNews.com, July 01, 2010  

Opponents of Arizona's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants are trying to put pressure on baseball commissioner Bud Selig to move next year's All-Star Game from Phoenix, and they're doing it by protesting the state's Major League team, the Diamondbacks.

The protesters are following the Diamondbacks from ballpark to ballpark, from Dodger Stadium to Fenway Park, accusing the team's management of supporting the Arizona Republican Party, which is responsible for the bill.

"The Diamondbacks represent Arizona, and Arizona is our key target," Favianna Rodriguez, a lead organizer with the activist group Presente.org, told FoxNews.com. "When we deliver an economic blow to Arizona, it really sends a message that Americans will not tolerate laws like this."

Arizona's law, which empowers police to determine immigration status when investigating other potential crimes and violations, takes effect July 29, prompting a wave of lawsuits and boycotts from opponents who say the law promotes racial profiling and is unconstitutional.

The D-backs have denied supporting the law, saying that while the team's managing general partner Ken Kendrick has donated to Republican political candidates in the past, Kendrick personally opposes the law.

"The team also explained that Kendrick is one of nearly 75 owners of the D-backs and none of his, nor do the other owners', personal contributions reflect organizational preferences," team spokesman Shaun Rachua said in a written statement provided to FoxNews.com, adding that the team has never supported the law and have never taken political stances.

"The D-backs represent all of our employees, players, owners and fans who all have different political affiliations," he said. "It would be unfair and unjust for the D-backs to take a position because it can't be reflective upon everybody's views."

Since April, there have been six ballpark protests in Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, New York and Boston, typically drawing about 100 protesters, waving signs and yelling outside the main gates. At one game in Dodger Stadium, about a dozen protesters reportedly unfurled a banner that read, "Don't Play With Hate," prompting security guards to escort them out.

Rodriguez said the group has collected 100,000 petitions asking for the 2011 All-Star game to be moved and added that they will protest this year's All-Star Game, which takes place this month in Anaheim, Calif.

"We're going to continue the pressure until Bud Selig moves the game," she said.

This week, protesters at Busch Stadium were met by dozens of St. Louis Tea Party members who were demonstrating support for Arizona's law. St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa said he supports the law and welcomed the Tea Partiers inside the stadium.

"I'm actually a supporter of what Arizona's doing. … The national government doesn’t fix your problem, and you've got a problem, they've got to take care of it themselves," La Russa said.

Rodriguez said Tea Party members have not appeared anywhere else except Arizona.

But Selig is feeling internal pressure to bow to the protester's demands.

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has said he wouldn't participate in next year's All-Star Game if it remains in Arizona. The Major League Baseball Players Association condemned the law. And Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat whose district includes Yankee Stadium, has sent a letter asking Selig to move the game.

But leaders of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and 10 other groups have asked Selig not to take a position against the state by moving the game.

In a letter to Selig released in May, the group said a relocation would cost jobs for "innocent citizens, including our Hispanic community," and it says baseball shouldn't become "a pawn in a political debate."

So far, Selig has ignored the protesters. In May, he responded to questions about the pleas by defending baseball's minority hiring record.

"Apparently all the people around and in minority communities think we're doing OK," Selig said at a news conference. "That's the issue, and that's the answer. I told the clubs today: 'Be proud of what we've done.' They are. We should. And that's our answer. We control our own fate, and we've done very well."

Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney told FoxNews.com that the league has no further comment.

But Rodriguez said that's not good enough, saying in a statement that "the commissioner is clearly out of touch with the 'minority communities' he says MLB is so in tune with."

She told FoxNews.com: "We need Bud Selig to speak out. He can't be silent on this issue.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

.

Widow of Houston Officer Killed by Illegal Immigrant 'Shocked' at ICE Appointment

.

FOXNews.com - June 25, 2010

The widow of a Houston police officer killed by an illegal immigrant was "shocked" to learn that the city's former police chief has landed a top immigration job with the Obama administration, her lawyer told FoxNews.com on Friday.

That's because Joslyn Johnson, whose husband, Rodney Johnson, was killed in 2006, is suing former Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt for failing to enforce federal immigration laws. She claims her husband would be alive today if the city had bothered to check up on the gunman's immigration status.

Now that Hurtt is taking a job to oversee partnerships between federal and local officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Johnson -- and other critics -- say they're concerned the official who resisted immigration enforcement in Houston will now be in charge of promoting it.

"She was shocked at the irony," Johnson's attorney, Ben Dominguez, said.

As a police chief, Hurtt was a supporter of "sanctuary city" policies, by which illegal immigrants who don't commit crimes can live without fear of exposure or detainment because police don't check for immigration papers. During his tenure as Houston police chief, he criticized ICE's key program that draws on local law enforcement's support. He said in 2008 that local police "don't want to be immigration officers." He described that as a burden on the force.

Several years after the killing, Hurtt announced he would participate in the federal 287(g) program, which gives local police authority to initiate deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants linked to serious crimes. But then the city backed off the program and linked up with ICE on a separate one that has local officials run immigration checks on suspects once they are in jail.

Johnson could not speak directly to FoxNews.com because she is also a member of the Houston police force and subject to rules prohibiting her from commenting on department policy.

Dominguez, speaking on her behalf, said Johnson believes Hurtt is "competent" but hopes he does not spearhead policies that will put officers in harm's way.

"If (his federal policy is) similar to Houston's policy, then it's going to continue to endanger private citizens and officers," Dominguez said.

The gunman who killed Johnson's husband had already been deported once, returned and then arrested at least three times before he shot the officer. Johnson's original court petition -- naming Hurtt as well as the city and the police department -- claimed that the department's failure to discover the gunman's immigration status and report him to federal authorities enabled him to stay "at large" in the country.

Dominguez said officers at the time were not checking the immigration status of suspects.

Johnson's suit is not seeking monetary damages, aside from attorney fees -- it is seeking a change in policy so that federal immigration databases are widely available to local departments. Hurtt is still a party to the lawsuit but has not been served because he left the force, Dominguez said.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for ICE, told FoxNews.com that Hurtt has always been a proponent of the jail model of the 287(g) program, but as a police chief, he didn't favor more proactive local enforcement because he didn't believe it was the best utilization of his resources.

"I think the critics are only talking about half of what he said," she said. "He's always been a strong proponent of every law enforcement agency making those decisions on their own."

But the criticism has been strong.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, questioned whether Hurtt was the right choice for the job.

"Here he is, he should be standing up for the letter of federal law," King said. "I don't know how he can do that given the record that he has. I think this is another piece in the puzzle to granting some type of de facto amnesty."

Hurtt, a former police chief in Houston and Phoenix, will assume the position of director for the ICE Office of State and Local Coordination. Starting July 6, Hurtt will supervise outreach and communication between ICE, local law enforcement agencies, tribal leaders and representatives from non-governmental organizations.

Aside from the Houston case, Hurtt's policies have been blamed for enabling illegal immigrants to kill two police officers and seriously injure another in Phoenix before he left in 2005.

But Nantel dismissed such allegations.

"The responsibility of those homicides lies on the shoulder of the individuals who committed the crimes," Nantel said.

.

CA Teachers Take Kids on a Protest Trip to Arizona

.
FOXNews.com - June 10, 2010
- by Jana Winter

With Revolutionaries 'Looking On,' Teachers Take Kids on a Protest Trip to Arizona

Standing in front of a wall-to-wall mural featuring a who's who of revolutionaries, including Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, and boldly displaying the motto Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!!! (Fatherland or Death, We Shall Overcome!!!), a group of teachers, students, parents and community activists in the Los Angeles Unified School District gathered last month for an unusual field trip — to Arizona, to protest that state's controversial immigration law.

A video posted on YouTube shows LA social studies teacher Jose Lara interviewing teachers and students on May 28 at the headquarters of an organization calling for a Mexican revolution on U.S. soil. Soon after he shot the video, many in the group left for an overnight "freedom ride" to Phoenix to protest what Lara tells the camera is a "racist and outrageous" law.

Four days later, the school board president implored the superintendent of schools to ensure that students in the district be taught that Arizona's law is "un-American" and Jim Crow-like. The law, passed in April, empowers law enforcement officials to question the immigration status of people they think may be in the country illegally.

Lara, who made the video, teaches at the Unified School District's Santee Education Complex with Ron Gochez, another social studies teacher who came under fire last month after he was identified making incendiary remarks in a widely circulated YouTube video that shows him speaking at a 2007 rally for La Raza, a revolutionary group calling for Mexican revolt inside the United States.

In that video, Gochez referred to Americans as "frail, racist, white people, and to California as "stolen, occupied Mexico." The video's posting led to a groundswell of anger and a flood of calls for Gochez's firing, but a school district investigation found him fit to continue teaching history to public school students.

Both Lara and Gochez are active in numerous revolutionary groups, including Union Del Barrio, a La Raza organization that Gochez helped establish across the street from Santee High School.

In the video shot before the trip to Arizona, students, teachers and others are seen gathered at the Union Del Barrio meeting hall and cultural center in Los Angeles, called Centro Cultural Francisco Villa — a nod to one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution — where wall murals picture revolutionary leaders — including Ho Chi Minh — holding machine guns.

Beside portraits of the revolutionaries is a hand-painted rendering of the famous and long-living revolutionary motto: Patrio o Muerte, Venceremos!!! Popularized by Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution, it’s been used by Latin American leaders including Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, who declared it the official motto of his nation's army three months ago.

Gochez confirmed to FoxNews.com that he participated in the caravan to Arizona, though he does not appear in Lara’s video blog entry. Gochez did, however, give numerous on-camera interviews to local news outlets from Centro Cultural Francisco Villa that same night.

In his video, Lara asks a North Hollywood High School student named Susana why she's heading to Arizona.

"Even though we're — I don’t even know how miles away — we're there, we're there for la gente, we're there to help every Latino who's being accused for being immigrants," Susana says. "We have the power to make a lot of change."

Toward the end of the video, Lara introduces another LAUSD teacher, Clare Martinet of Garfield High School.

"I'm getting on the bus because, I think, that the laws are such a threat to all of us," she says. "I'm getting on the bus for all the people that can't get on the bus — for my students and parents of my students ... I'm here with them in solidarity."

School district spokesman Robert Alaniz declined to comment.

The teachers who accompanied students to Phoenix are no strangers to political activism and controversial speech. Gochez has organized against immigration law enforcement raids and held anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement meetings at his public high school. Lara has worked to secure scholarships and student loans for high school students who are in the U.S. illegally.

Lara and Martinet did not respond to e-mail requests for comment.

FoxNews.com has also uncovered e-mails sent by Martinet to a Progressive Educators discussion group that reveal her involvement in a May 16 march to protest Arizona's immigration law and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who gave a commencement speech that day at Pomona College.

In an e-mail to the group on March 15, Martinet listed the demands of the next day's "March and Rally to DHS Secretary Napolitano's Speech at the Pomona College."

She wrote:

"Demands:
1. To Stop the Criminalization of Immigrant Families!
2. No More Deportations and Raids!
3. Stop Using Police to Enforce Immigration Laws!
4. Stop Arizona Now!
5. Pass a Just/Humane Immigration Reform Now!"

The day after the march, Martinet wrote an e-mail directing the group to "a nationwide call for people to converge on Phoenix, Arizona, on May 29 for a National Day of Action."

Three days after the teachers and students caravanned to Phoenix to protest the immigration law, the Los Angeles school district board passed a resolution opposing it. The board said the district would look into curtailing district travel to the district and business with any Arizona-based companies. The school board president called on the superintendent to ensure that students throughout the district are taught that the immigration law is "un-American."

Hours after that June 1 school board meeting, Lara posted on his Facebook wall a link to an article titled,

"LAUSD board condemns Arizona Immigration law," along with the comment, "I know what I am teaching tomorrow in class!!!!"

Others weren't so sure. A Facebook user named Anne responded, "LAUSD CLEAN UP YOUR OWN HOUSE FIRST!" and another, Lou De Pace, a longtime LAUSD educator who's now retired, wrote, "amazing CA is going to hell in a handbag that is empty and we worry about AZ."

De Pace still sits on a teachers' union committee and is involved in national education and student activist causes. He said the student-teacher field trip was another example of the district focusing on other people’s issues while avoiding their own.

"I think it's ridiculous. There's so many more important things — like oversized classrooms, that's one of the biggest problems in the district," De Pace said. "I don't understand what their priorities are.... What message are we sending our kids, help everyone else other than yourself?"

"Clean your house up so you don't live in glass house that people can throw stones at it."
.