Gordon's Reverse on Police Migrant Rules

PHOENIX (Jon Garrido, Hispanic News) December 7, 2007 — There are two questions relevant to Mayor Gordon's proposed change in Phoenix Police Operations Order 1.4.

1. Are undocumented migrants a threat to Phoenix?

2. What is to be gained by Gordon suggesting a change in the 20 year old policy, Operations Order 1.4, which prevents police in most cases from asking about a person's immigration status?

The threat to Phoenix from the migrant community

On October 4, 2007, ASU held a conference "Immigration and the Public Sector Public Official" that brought National immigration experts and academic leaders to Phoenix for a national conference to share research, insight and address questions on the impact of immigration and immigration policies on people working in the public sector.

On Channel 8's Horizonte's Jose Cardenas talked to Dr. Catherine Eden, director of the ASU Bob Ramsey Executive Education Center, about the conference and how people working in this specific area are dealing with this issue.

Jose Cardenas: "The ongoing immigration issue impacts government at the state, local, and federal levels. Last week, public leaders attended an A.S.U. conference called immigration and the public sector, your world is changing. How do you respond? It was an opportunity for people facing daily decisions involving immigration to talk about their experiences and hear experts share their research on the impact of the issue and how they respond in their local communities. How did the program come about."

Catherine Eden: "Well, my job is the school public affairs and what is called executive education. Public administrators, I work with them and try to figure out what it is they need. Oftentimes it's ethics training, leadership, organizational management. What are the hottest issues? The biggest issue they keep saying to me is immigration immigration. So I decided to bring together the best thought leaders in this country and sit down and talk about it. So that was my dream."

Jose Cardenas: "Who were the people you brought together to discuss this?"

Catherine Eden: "We brought public administrators to the viewing audience. That was from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The thought leaders or the people that were the experts, some of them were academics, some were people that were demographic experts. Others were: Linda Chavez from Washington DC and the head of the Service Workers' Union — Alicio Mendez.

Jose Cardenas: "You had a representative from Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)?"

Catherine Eden: "That's right. Ira Mehlman, FAIR media director.  We also brought him too."

Jose Cardenas: "The purpose was to represent all sides of the issue?"

Catherine Eden: "Yeah. And it's tough to do. So the way we did this was we first brought in somebody who was a demographer to talk about what are we talking about? What are the facts and figures of the birth and death rates and the immigration and how many workers are in this country and where the workers are needed? It's interesting that this man, Hutchinson, who's a demographer — can you imagine making straight facts and figures interesting? But he did it. And then we brought in the congressional staff. We were going to bring in the congressmen, and they were in session, so their top leaders that worked on the immigration bill, their staff people, we brought in Kennedy’s staff, Gutierrez’s staff out of Chicago. We had Shadegg's staff here and talked about what is the federal legislation. When you talk about experts, we brought in people from the National Conference of State Legislatures, that represent the national state legislators association and they talked about what was happening across the country, legislation that is happening. We brought in the attorney general of Arizona. We brought in the people that are the best thinkers on this subject nationally and locally."

Jose Cardenas: "And this took place over three days?"

Catherine Eden: "That's right."

Jose Cardenas: "And you had attendees from several states, including California?"

Catherine Eden: "That's correct. Some mayors and police chiefs."

Jose Cardenas: "What were the things that the demographer said that were so interesting that, even though he was talking facts and figures, people were really impressed?"

Catherine Eden: "Well, the figures that stuck out — the biggest thing to me is in historical perspective. We have had waves of immigration in this country ever since we've been a country for the last 200 years. He says this wave of immigration is like so and that what's happening in this country is what's happening in other waves of immigration. As people get upset, they think they don't want these new immigrants here. The new immigrants stay together. The next generation learns the language and then are the interpreters for their parents. And the next generation after that don't want to speak their mother tongue and that they become very much a part of this country and don't even remember us being horrible to the last wave of immigration."

Jose Cardenas: "So in respects, this wave of Latino immigration is very similar to what's happened historically."

Catherine Eden: "Very much. They talked about when the Germans came, when the Italians came and they talked about how awful the people that were here were to them and this wave of immigration we're acting about the same. Not good."

Jose Cardenas: "You talked about this being a big issue in Arizona right now. It's a big issue because of some unfortunate incidents, including the death after police officer. Was there discussion about the rate of crime attributable to undocumented immigration?"

Catherine Eden: "Everyone who spoke, who are these experts that have research and facts and figures, said to us over and over again, crime is statistically the same with those of us who have been here for 100 years and the new immigrants, the statistical number of crimes in terms of major crimes is almost equal. There is no way of determining the difference."

Jose Cardenas: "So no one said anything different, even the people who might be considered as anti-immigrant?"

Catherine Eden: "Very much so. There is a man who is the spokesperson for FAIR, which is the largest anti-immigration. He said he agreed 100%."

Jose Cardenas: "Now, your audience, your participants were city managers, county managers, law enforcement officials. Was there any discussion about what's gone on in other municipalities like Hazelton and the wisdom of doing things like that to try to control undocumented immigration?"

Catherine Eden: "There was a lot of discussion. And what the city, county managers, mayors, the police chiefs kept saying is that their huge frustration is that they don't know how to handle this because the federal government won't give clear direction of what should happen. Then they start coming up with their own ways of — you know — you can't rent to people, you can't get a license, you can't do these sort of things like happened in Hazelton. And what most of the studies have shown is that there's two things that happen. The immigrant then leaves and people aren't spending money, and they've had to board up certain downtown cities. And then the other thing is that they're spending a lot of money of the resources of defending themselves in court 'cause they're being sued right and left. What we're finding is, when small communities try to sustain no immigrants in this country, it's not working."

Jose Cardenas: "Kathy, last question going back to the law enforcement issue. Any sense from the law enforcement participants about what they think their proper role is vis-a-vis immigration?"

Catherine Eden: "Almost all of them told me, if they're a city policeman or a state policeman, is that they want to do the job of general public policing. They want to make sure that they're looking for murderers, rapists. They do not want to know the representative to stop immigration. They want that to be I.C.E. or the border patrol. They do not want to be used as pawns in the immigration issue. They want to be police for the general community."

What is to be gained by Gordon suggesting a change in the 20 year old policy, Operations Order 1.4, which prevents police in most cases from asking about a person's immigration status?

Gordon said immigration has reached "a perilous point." He also said, "the 20-year-old policy came to symbolize government inaction in the face of worsening undocumented immigration." Supposedly because of this, Gordon now advocates a policy that would allow police to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement when any law has been violated by a person whom police suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. Today, in most cases, ICE is contacted only when a felony is committed.

The center of the immigration debate has moved undeniably to the right. On Monday, Gordon took the political expedient position of joining this movement to the right. To support Phoenix moving to the right, Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington think tank, came to Phoenix and probably met with Gordon to strategize moving Phoenix even further to the right at the expense of the Phoenix Hispanic community.

To show his new "enlightenment," Gordon made the rounds of broadcast media Tuesday explaining the need to change the current policy. His appearances included CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight to discuss his decision and how he arrived at it.

Alignment with Lou Dobbs to obtain Dobbs' blessing provides insight into Gordon's new direction to the right of the immigration debate to align with the likes of Dobbs' daily bashing of the Hispanic community. Lou Dobbs, a strong critic of migrants and the nation's leading demagogue of Hispanic racism praised Gordon on the air and gave his blessing to his new disciple.

With ample documentation to prove there is no statistical change in the Phoenix crime rate brought about by migrants, there is no cause to change Operations Order 1.4. The only conclusion must be there must be another reason for Gordon wanting to change the police policy. The only viable answer must be the proposed change in police policy is politically motivated brought about by a need to align with the movement to the extreme right to begin laying the ground work for election to another public office. The immigration debate keeps moving undeniably to the right and the Hispanic population becomes more and more expendable whereas immigration foes have become the non expendable force in Arizona politics. Gordon sensing the herd mentality moving to the right requires Gordon also move to the right if he wants to position himself for a run for Arizona governor in 2010.

Gordon along with Napolitano have abandoned Hispanics and this should be a wake-up call for Phoenix Hispanics to abandon Gordon as well as Napolitano. To all City of Phoenix Hispanic staff who are part of the "in" group aligned with Gordon, your boss used you and then tossed you away as Gordon joins the Napolitano, Pearce, Thomas, Arpaio, Kyl, McCain membership of the politically expedient. Let us not forget this change in direction for Gordon began when Gordon endorsed Andrew Thomas for Maricopa county attorney and this act clearly showed Gordon's true colors.

All persons in Phoenix with brown faces will be suspect by a change in policy 1.4 that Gordon wants to implement. The change in Operations Order 1.4 will have a drastic adverse impact on migrants and American Hispanics. All Hispanics will be suspect and all will be required to show proof of citizenship if stopped for running a red light or jaywalking. Racial profiling will be rampant as Phoenix police begin stopping Hispanics who are American citizens as well as migrants. Imagine being stopped by a racist Phoenix police officer who will have the authority and endorsement of Gordon to make you feel like a second class person. It will happen. It will happen each day — time and time again.

Police racial profiling is a federal violation. If we had a federal representative in Washington with a backbone, we could request all federal grants be blocked coming to the City of Phoenix particularly transportation financial assistance. Considering we only have name representation in Washington and not advocacy, this is not going to happen. Ed Pastor was the only congressman in Washington of 435 Members in the House of Representatives that did not stand in the well of the House of Representatives and debate ending the Iraq War.

If Pastor did not think it important enough to stand and debate ending the Iraq war, much less would be to have Pastor take a position on immigration to help undocumented who along with friends and family make up a majority in Congressional District 4 which makes District 4 a "safe district" on immigration advocacy.

This brings to mind a famous phrase: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

This was a famous phrase spoken by American Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle during the 2088 vice-presidential debate. Jack Kennedy was a reference to John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Since then, the words "You're no Jack Kennedy", or some other variation on Bentsen's famous exchange, have become a part of the political lexicon as a way to deflate politicians or other individuals who think too highly of themselves or are "do nothing" politicians such as Ed Pastor. In 16 years in Congress, Pastor has not sponsored one piece of legislation — not one!

Substituting Ed Pastor for "Senator" and U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, 4th Congressional District of Illinois, Democratic Party, for Jack Kennedy, the Phrase then becomes: Congressman Pastor, you're no Luis Gutierrez.

The only course of action is to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice against the City of Phoenix on the basis of discrimination requesting a halt to federal funds until discrimination by the City of Phoenix comes to an end.

This is the course of action Hispanic News will pursue as it files a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and all other federal departments particularly the U.S. Department of Transportation requesting an end to federal funds coming to the City of Phoenix if Phoenix approves a change in Operation Order 1.4.

This course of action of filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Transportation will not receive favorable review in 2008 by the current administration but then refilling in 2009 with a new federal administration brought about by the Hispanic vote will receive an appropriate review and probable action to halt federal funds coming to the City of Phoenix.