DOJ Colluded with ACLU Against Arizona : Center for Immigration Studies

By James R. Edwards Jr.

That foul smell isn’t emanating from Denmark (apologies to Shakespeare). No, the stench comes from the Obama Department of Justice.

What is supposed to be the nation’s apolitical top law enforcement agency protecting the rights of Americans, the U.S. Department of Justice, has been exposed for colluding with the most left-wing legal organization in the country, the falsely named American Civil Liberties Union.

The legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has made public documents it forced into the open through the Freedom of Information Act. Those Justice Department documents prove that DOJ and the ACLU closely cooperated in legal strategies against the state of Arizona. Not only that, but the documents evidence that the U.S. Justice Department worked in close cooperation with the government of Mexico to overturn the duly adopted law of a U.S. state.

Both the administration, via DOJ, and the ACLU (along with a slew of open-borders advocacy and ethnic identity politics groups) sued Arizona over its S.B. 1070. That state law sought to exercise Arizona’s inherent authority to deal as it sees fit with exigencies arising from runaway illegal immigration, cartel warfare, and human trafficking.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, captured the essence of the problem this exposes: “It is one thing to share the ACLU’s disrespect for the rule of law but it is quite another to collude with the organization on a prosecutorial strategy against the State of Arizona. Frankly, these new documents show it is hard to tell where the ACLU ends and the Justice Department begins.”

There’s good reason that the line between the two is so blurry in this case. Monica Ramirez, the counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at Justice and whose name appears in many of the disclosed e-mails, came from the ACLU. She’s the DOJ person who collected all the opposition materials, including from the National Immigration Law Center and the Mexican embassy.

While the DOJ sues Arizona over its attempt to stop illegal immigration BLM warns American Citizens to avoid federal park land because of the violence

Eleven signs have been posted at four federal properties, including Sonoran Desert National Monument, and two more are planned to alert guests to the possibility of running across smugglers. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is considered the most dangerous national park; many of its roads are closed and overnight stays in the backcountry are prohibited.

The environmental impact of all these illegal aliens should have Green Peace and the Sierra Club cheering the decision by Arizona to enforce our immigration laws. However, these organizations more often than not oppose the construction of a border fence even though the fence would be far less invasive in the environment then the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border.

In 1971, the environmental organization Keep America Beautiful launched a Public Service Announcement featuring a crying Indian lamenting the litter that supposedly coated America’s landscape. If in the 1970s the crying Indian was tearing up over some Coke cans on the bank of a river, today he would be sobbing at the environmental devastation occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border due to illegal immigration.


The Arizona Bureau of Land Management (BML) reports that in 2009 alone environmental groups collected over 234 tons of trash, 800 tires, 404 bicycles, and 62 vehicles left behind by illegals crossing the border. Special assistant for the Arizona BLM, Kathy Pedrick, told The Daily Caller that last year the agency spent over one million dollars of federal money just clearing the mess along the border.

Pedrick’s colleague, deputy state director for communications, Deborah E. Stevens, told TheDC that the clean up crews are outnumbered. “The impact of the environmental pollution far exceeds the amount of clean up,” she said. “We cannot keep up with it. We distribute the work, but there is too much.”

On Capitol Hill, Republican Congressmen are beginning to take notice. “Arizona is getting the brunt of the traffic now because it is so lax on the border security….The trash is a natural byproduct of the number of illegals who are coming in specifically with the purpose of human trafficking and drug smuggling,” Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop said in an interview with TheDC. “They [illegal immigrants] come with provisions that they will just drop along the way. So they will purposely leave everything behind and change clothing to go either up into Phoenix or further on north.”

According to Bishop, “wilderness areas,” or land set aside for protection — which limits border patrol access to surveillance on foot or on horseback, and limits vehicle access to emergencies on approved roads — have actually compounded the environmental problem as less supervision allows for more border crossings and polluting residue.

The Congressional Research Service reports that within 100 miles of the border there are 4.3 million acres of wilderness areas.

In a field hearing for the Natural Resources Committee in April of last year, George Taylor, a member of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers and a former field supervisory Border Patrol agent, explained, “When a wilderness or refuge area is established near the border, the criminal element moves in and trashes it because the restrictive wilderness or refuge status accorded to these lands effectively prevents all law enforcement from effectively working the area. In other words, the refuge or wilderness designation actually serves to put the environment at greater risk of being seriously damaged and defaced.”

The Department Homeland Security has recognized the problem, but to little avail. In October 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded to a letter from Bishop in which he pleaded with her to work to loosen the restrictions on agents in wilderness areas. While she conceded that increased surveillance would improve the environment, she has taken little action to date on the matter.

Daily Caller illegal-immigrants-leave-tons-of-trash-in-arizona-desert-devastating-environment/


A National Geographic’s 2003 story on the troubles at Organ Pipe are as valid today as they were seven years ago.

“Though Organ Pipe is a backwater in the National Park system, it almost certainly leads the Park Service in number of backcountry stays. On any given night, rangers estimate, up to 1,000 people are inside the park. Nearly all of them have entered illegally across the park’s 31-mile (50-kilometer) southern boundary, which also happens to be the dividing line between two nations—one with jobs, the other with people who need them.

“Last year, Organ Pipe rangers seized some 13,000 pounds (4,850 kilograms) of marijuana, one-third of the total seized in all national parks and monuments combined.”

Arizona Illegal Immigrant Law Fosters Wife Beating or Something

From the Stop the ACLU blog

-By Warner Todd Huston

Want to hear the latest idiocy against the Arizona anti-illegal immigrant law dreamed up by open-border advocates and illegal alien supporters? Well, try this on for size: Arizona’s SB 1070 helps men beat their wives and girlfriends.

No, really. That is their argument.

A national organization called Legal Momentum has asked a federal court to block implementation of Arizona’s SB 1070 because they feel that immigrant women will be afraid to report abuse for fear of being deported.

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2010/06/21/arizona-illegal-immigrant-law-fosters-wife-beating-or-something%e2%80%a6/trackback/

Arizona to LA Officials- I hope you're well stocked up on candles

It may get really hot this summer in LA if the boycott of Arizona stands.

From the Hot Air Blog http://hotair.com/
AZ utility board member responds to LA boycott over SB1070
by Ed Morrissey

The Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott the state of Arizona over its new immigration-enforcement law, and now the Arizona Corporation Commission has responded. Gary Pierce, one of the commissioners chosen in state-wide elections to the utility regulation panel, notes that Los Angeles gets about 25% of its power from Arizona producers. If the City of Angels really wants a boycott, Pierce offers his services to help, as he explains in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and copied to Hot Air:

Dear Mayor Villaraigosa,


I was dismayed to learn that the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based companies — a vote you strongly supported — to show opposition to SB 1070 (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).

You explained your support of the boycott as follows: “While we recognize that as neighbors, we share resources and ties with the State of Arizona that may be difficult to sever, our goal is not to hurt the local economy of Los Angeles, but to impact the economy of Arizona. Our intent is to use our dollars — or the withholding of our dollars — to send a message.” (emphasis added)

I received your message; please receive mine. As a state-wide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizona’s electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the “resources and ties” we share with the City of Los Angeles. In fact, approximately twenty-five percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.

People of goodwill can disagree over the merits of SB 1070. A state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill.

Sincerely,

Commissioner Gary Pierce

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/18/az-utility-board-member-responds-to-la-boycott-over-sb1070/