Above is a video of Maricopa County's (which includes the city of  Phoenix) sheriff, Joe Arpaio, stating that it is an honor to be compared to the Klu Klux Klan. As we watch the situation for undocumented migrants in Arizona spiral out of control, it all goes back to him. The man who is honored to be compared to this nation's most notorious hate group--and why wouldn't he be? After all, they are his buddies and his greatest supporters.

Tonight Sheriff Joe Arpaio joined the nativists and unrepentant bigots of Rusty Childress' United for a Sovereign America, speaking before a group that accepts racists like Buffalo Rick Galeener into its fold, as well as neo-Nazis like J.T. Ready. It's also an organization that praises old guard neo-Nazis such as Elton Hall. This is at least the second time Arpaio's spoken to the most radical anti-immigrant hate group in the Valley. The last time was last year, while Childress still held the meetings at his Kia dealership on Camelback, which he's since sold. Tonight Arpaio spoke at VFW Post 9400 at 804 E. Purdue, in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix, where U.S.A. currently holds its Thursday night meetings.

--Phoenix New Times, a paper which has been standing up to Arpaio's strongarm efforts and has had their publisher illegally arrested in the middle of the night as a result 

You can read more about Childress here. 

The news coming out of Arizona, particularly out of the area where Arpaio reigns supreme, is chilling. The worst part of it is that Arizona is only half way there. What they are doing is nowhere near as extreme as the enforcemet only policies which have been proposed by the federal and many local government bodies. As you see the effects, you can form a picture in your head of what life will be like post-enforcement.

Migrants Too Scared To Report Crimes

"There has been a surge of folks who have been victimized in one way or another, and they are afraid to call police," said Lydia Guzman, spokeswoman for Respect/Respeto, a Phoenix-based human-rights organization. 

The organization launched a Web site in January that allows people who think their rights have been violated to call a hotline to seek help. The hotline receives 30 to 40 calls a week. A woman called recently and said she had been raped but was too afraid to call police, Guzman said.

--The Arizona Republic

This is why sanctuary cities are necessary--because even if you believe that unauthorized immigration is wrong, you should at least be able to concede that it should not be punishable by rape, by murder, by mugging. When communities are so marginalized and so attacked that they must fear speaking their native language (or speaking at all, for many) because their words would attract the wrath of police who detain and deport people simply for giving them reason to believe that they are here illegally--reasons which they have admitted include simply speaking Spanish or looking like they came from south of the Border--then you have a problem.

Alisa Valdes Rodriguez wrote an excellent post on her blog about Arpaio's efforts to round up undocumented migrants in Latino neighborhoods this weekend. I will quote parts of it, but the whole thing very much deserves to be read.

 After all, Arpaio is here today, on Good Friday, to tell the people of Maricopa County that he has begun another weekend of “patrols” in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. For Easter Weekend. The last time he did this, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Nice timing, from a man who bragged on CNN that he found being compared to the KKK to be a compliment. Ah, Arizona.

In Arpaio-speak, this "patrol" thing means claiming that crime is up in the neighborhood, when, in fact, it is down. It means claiming that people in the neighborhood have called his offices to ask for more patrols, when in fact no one I talked to in the neighborhood has anything but fear and loathing for the sheriff. It means arresting people for minor offenses, such as a cracked windshield or mild speeding, offenses that in Scottsdale or Cave Creek would get the offender a ticket at the most.

And it quickly becomes obvious just who these "crime patrols" are targeting...

The first arrests begin to come into the roped off area, and Sheriff Joe parades them proudly. Illegals are being taken off the streets! See? One man is hurried into a holding cell. His best friend runs alongside the police tape, into our crowd. I ask him what’s going on, and he tells me, in broken English that is still better than the MinutemenBonics I’ve just been subjected to, that the police have arrested his best friend.

“He was coming home from work,” he tells me. “They arrest him. He needs medicine. They don’t understand me when I tell them, he has the hypertension, he will be very sick without his medicine.”

“What did they arrest him for?” I ask.

“Speeding.”

“How fast was he going?”

“Four or five miles over the speed limit.”

Ah. And they arrested this man of 56, with heart problems and hypertension, shackled him, and herded him into a mobile prison cell so that the evening news could show a brown man being taken off the street.

Migrants aren't the only targets of Sheriff Joe. Many day to day prisoners are also facing terrible conditions, such as being housed in tents outside with weather over a hundred degrees. Meanwhile, the jail facilities are used to house dogs. Arpaio brags that "in our jail, dogs are treated better than humans." People have died.

The situation in Arizona is becoming desperate. Do we really want to make the whole nation like this, and worse?