Posted by Bridgette
Obama Hauls Arizona Before the UN Human Rights Council!!
August 24, 2010
Ben Johnson
Floyd Reports
Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one.The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance for slavery, and his version of our long and despicable history of discriminating against and oppressing minorities, women, homosexuals, and the handicapped. After each complaint, he addresses how he is delivering us from ourselves, patting himself on the back for such initiatives as ending “torture,” promoting Affirmative Action, and passing health care legislation.
In his section on “Values and Immigration,” he praised the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to provide better medical care for detainees and increase “Alternatives To Detention” (e.g., letting them go). Then he turned to the one state that has had the temerity to stand in his way of fundamentally transforming the American electorate:
A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.
On Obama’s command, Attorney General Eric Holder has sued the State of Arizona for passing a law that he criticized without reading, and which merely upholds federal law. (He gave sanctuary cities a pass.) He now threatens an additional lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio for “racial profiling” when arresting illegal immigrants near the Mexican border.
Obama’s turns his skirmish with Jan Brewer from a states rights dispute into an international human rights cause. It also places Arizona’s law in the hands of the United Nations.
The national report is but the first step of the international government’s review process. On November 5, the United States will be examined by a troika of UN bureaucrats from France, Japan, and Cameroon (an oppressive nation which is a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference). This trio will consider three items: Obama’s self-flagellating report, reports written about America by UN tribunals or international governing bodies, and testimony from NGOs with a pronounced anti-American bias. It will also consider “voluntary pledges and commitments made by the State,” such as suspending an Arizona state law.
Then the French, Japanese, and Cameroon diplomats will draw up a plan of action for the United States to implement.
Nations are re-examined every four years. The Human Rights Council looks for voluntary compliance. However, its website asserts, “The Human Rights Council will decide on the measures it would need to take in case of persistent non-cooperation by a State with the” World Body.
When the Left cannot win at the ballot box (virtually every time), it overrules the people in the courts. Now that Obama is not sure he can prevail in the courts, he has overruled the American people by hauling Arizona and the two-thirds of Americans who support its law before the United Nations.
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Below cites paragraphs regarding Muslims and Arizona from the Report.
Report of the United States of America
Submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Fairness, equality, and Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian American persons
Page 10 35 We have worked to ensure fair treatment of members of Muslim, Arab-American, and South Asian communities. The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the rights of members of these groups, and to combating discrimination and intolerance against them. Examples of such measures include the Justice Department’s formation of the 9/11 Backlash Taskforce and civil rights work on religious freedom (e.g., bringing a case on behalf of a Muslim school girl to protect her right to wear a hijab); the civil rights outreach efforts of the Department of Homeland Security; and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s enforcement efforts to combat backlash-related employment discrimination which resulted in over $5 million for victims from 2001-2006.
36. At our UPR consultations, including the meeting in Detroit, Michigan, Muslim, Arab-American, and South Asian citizens shared their experiences of intolerance and pressed for additional efforts to challenge misperceptions and discriminatory stereotypes, to prevent acts of vandalism, and to combat hate crimes. The federal government is committed to ongoing efforts to combat discrimination: the Attorney General’s review of the 2003 Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies (discussed below), as well as efforts to limit country-specific travel bans, are examples.
Page 23 94 Under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, DHS may delegate authority to state and local officers to enforce federal immigration law. DHS has made improvements to the 287(g) program, including implementing a new, standardized Memorandum of Agreement with state and local partners that strengthens program oversight and provides uniform guidelines for DHS supervision of state and local agency officer operations; information reporting and tracking; complaint procedures; and implementation measures. DHS continues to evaluate the program, incorporating additional safeguards as necessary to aid in the prevention of racial profiling and civil rights violations and improve accountability for protecting human rights.
V.2 Values and Immigration
Page 23 95 A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.
Page 24 96. President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system, because he recognizes that our ability to innovate, our ties to the world, and our economic prosperity depend on our capacity to welcome and assimilate immigrants. The Administration will continue its efforts to work with the U.S. Congress and affected communities toward this end.
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=16411&posts=1&start=1
Bridgette
itooktheredpill
Miri
newssleuth
We the People of the United States 
We have to get him out of office now! When is Lakins court marshall discovery happening?
It is Obama, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Director of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that are in violation of Section 287g of the US Immigration laws. Section 287g was enacted by the US Congress in 1996. The 287(g) program, one of ICE’s top partnership initiatives, allows a state and local law enforcement entity to enter into a partnership with ICE.
Currently ICE has 287(g) agreements with 71 law enforcement agencies in 26 states. Obama, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the head of ICE are refusing to partnership with State and Local Authorities in immigration violations. They are “allowing only the apprehension of criminals”.
Just what in the world is the definition of ILLEGAL if “illegal” doesn’t at least imply criminality? That is why the Obama administration will no longer allow “illegal entrance” into the United to be classified as a “criminal act”, thereby skirting the law that exists. http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/section287_g.htm
Good question Skeeter. Let’s look.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal
Throwing a bone to the UN and helping Dems in Texas at the same time (they hope):
“Immigration cases being dropped
• The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to sources. It has stunned Houston immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients’ deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.”
From: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/article_e87395a5-3b16-5e5b-9401-2ded766702c1.html
Sarkozy boots illegals out of France
“…This summer French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a crackdown on Roma as part of a larger “war” on delinquency. The practice of giving each Gypsy a few hundred euros (dollars) and flying them to their Romanian homeland is widely seen as discriminatory.
In recent weeks, French police have dismantled dozens of illegally installed Gypsy camps and flown the dwellers to Romania…”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100824/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_roma_1
I would think it would act as a bar to the re-election of the dems in releasing the illegals. They are tired of footing the bill for 60,000 to 63,000 illegal births each and every year in the state. That is essentially adding the equivalent of one mid sized city with a population of 60,000 to 63, 000 people to the state every year. Many of these illegals are known in the state as “generational welfare recipients”. Gaming the social programs is a way of life for them. It has been that way for years but it has become MUCH worse by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Example: one tribe (small) of Kickapoo lived under the international bridge at Laredo Tx and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico for several years until the state finally broke down and purchased 40 acres or so north of Laredo. Talk about “human rights”, the UN should be addressing Old Mexico. And Obama should send his poor brother , living in africa in a mud hut, enough money to buy a table in order he wouldn’t have to sit on the dirt floor to eat his meager rations.
Renee: Wikipedia and several dictionaries are fairly vague on what “illegal” is. Illegal can describe a civil violation or a felonious crime or it can describe an illegal formation in a football game, roughing the kicker or slugging the ref. ;). In society illegal can be civil or criminal. Anyway, I found one lawyers thoughts on the differences between civil and criminal law.
Q: What is the difference between criminal and civil law?
——————————————————————————–
•A: Civil law is concerned with relationships between individuals and is addressed in civil court. Here, the person injured or somehow “wronged” (he’s called the “plaintiff”) by another person files a lawsuit against that person (he’s the “defendant”). Generally, if the plaintiff wins, the defendant has to pay for the plaintiff’s damages.
Criminal law, on the other hand, deals with relationships between individuals and the federal, state, or local government. If someone breaks a criminal law (he’s called the “defendant”), the government or “prosecutor” files a criminal complaint against the defendant. If the defendant loses (meaning he’s “convicted”), he may have to pay a fine or perhaps go to jail.
Well, I suppose Obama is now saying illegal aliens have not broken any law(s) at all.
Bridgette, is this also an “open thread” ?
This is beyond making the blood boil.
DHS Helping Illegal Alien Felon Who Voted Become a Citizen
felon ? I thought you could not come here if you had any problems legally in the past…. ????
Exactly Renee. This guy is a FELON, and an ILLEGAL citizen and our Department Of Homeland Security is “helping” him become a citizen. AND to top it off – they are saying, sure you can vote in this country in our elections if you get caught we at “Homeland Security” under this administration will give you a free pass.
No way this will fly in court Leza ! Unbelievable ! Who is he really ?
United Nations, human rights violators
Obama’s August Surprise: Turning AZ and 22 other States over to the UN
By Sher Zieve August 28, 2010
After turning NYC over to the Islamists and leftist sympathizers, via endorsing their 9/11 Victory Mosque (any Muslim project called “The Cordoba Initiative” has to be just that), Dictator-in-Chief Obama believes that he has found the way to both destroy opposition to his Orwellian plans for the former United States of America and introduce OUR country’s final demise.
For attempting to do that which the Obama refuses to do (his job under the US Constitution—not George Soros and friends), the tyrant has now turned Arizona and the twenty-two other US States trying to protect their citizens over the patently corrupt (Obama’s kind of organization) United Nations as “human rights
violators.” Now disregarding the US Constitution and US law entirely—and getting away with it—The Obama and his worldwide anti-US Marxist minions have begun to divvy up the booty from that which was once America. Note:Despite our protests and marches, Obama believes he silenced We-the-People long ago. Didn’t Hugo Chavez affect something similar in Venezuela? But, let’s face the truth, folks. Even Chavez didn’t try to destroy his OWN country. But, considering his true birth place, neither did Obama.
In his boldest move yet to destroy OUR country, Dictator-in-Chief Obama has now decided to bring the full force of the world against those who oppose their own slavery at his and his masters’ hands. And the overseers at the United Nations are applauding The Obama’s move. As the people of the United States of America are—in greater and greater numbers each and every day—supporting Arizona and other states for working to protect US citizens from the now unstopped marching phalanges of illegal immigrants composed of drug cartel members, Central American gangs, Hezbollah, other middle eastern terrorists and millions of others who sap the resources of sovereign States
(entering via our southern border), the tyrant believes he has found a way to stop the States and us.
Now “elevating” himself to the level of an Islamic Mufti, Obama has effectively issued a fatwa against Arizona and every other US State that opposes their own demise. Obama has issued an, heretofore, unprecedented report to the “UN High Commissioner for Human Rights” (a bad joke considering the organization itself) outlining his carefully crafted and manufactured ‘horrors’ the USA has committed against humans (I suspect that means freedom and liberty are two of them), he has given full sway to the UN to go after any US States that do not comply with the tyrant’s (and soon to be King of the World?) commandments.
Suffice it to say, the UN is more than pleased to do so!
Replete with its proclamations for perversities of all kinds, in order to support any and all fully suppressive and exploitative totalitarian regimes (as long as it gets a substantial piece of the action), the UN is more than willing to go follow The Obama’s “requests.”
This latest perversion of law by The Obama is, yet, another patent treasonous action against the USA. Each and every day, he is racking up more and more of them. Then, without a care in the world save how to better give his union thugs and other countries funds stolen from the US taxpayer (where lots of our “stimulus” dollars ended up) and then frivolously wasting and spending what’s left, he and his family are now working to establish the record of “most vacations taken while occupying the US White House—and still being able to destroy the country.” I suspect that record will never be broken—but, if he isn’t removed, the country will.
In November 2010, if we do not take back at least the House of Representatives we will have no chance—whatsoever—of surviving the beast and its minions. But, even worse, if we don’t get rid of said beast our destruction is also assured. If we can rid ourselves of both—and restore our Republic—we must for all time say “Never Again” to tyranny and all would-be tyrants. We cannot and must not allow this to happen to our country, our loved ones and us even one more time…never. This time, we must remember.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/27070
Brewer Condemns Report to UN Mentioning Ariz. Law
Friday, 27 Aug 2010 08:44 PM
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is demanding that a reference to the state’s controversial immigration law be removed from a State Department report on human rights.
The United States lists its legal challenge to Arizona’s immigration enforcement measure on a list of ways the government is protecting human rights. It’s part of a report to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights.
In a letter Friday to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is “downright offensive” that a state law would be included in the report.
Arizona’s law requires police enforcing other laws to investigate the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants. Critics say it will target minorities, but Brewer says it prohibits human rights abuses.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/US-Brewer-UN-Report/2010/08/27/id/368617
Do you think we could borrow Sarkozy and co.?
France to step up deportations of foreign thieves, beggars
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100830/wl_afp/franceimmigrationrightsroma
Obama’s healthcare law passed: You Must Prove that you have healthcare not to be penalised.
Obama’s immigration: It’s ok to be here illegally!
What’s wrong with this? Am I missing something here?
Welcome, Inge! Thank you for your comment.
Hi Inge, Welcome here.
State Department Stands By Decision to Include Arizona in U.N. Human Rights Report
August 30, 2010 SNIPS
Spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Arizona immigration law included in an Aug. 20 report to the U.N. high commissioner on rights came up during the preparation period, when teams went around the country gathering ideas for the report.
Crowley said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included the dispute in the report because she thought the U.S. could serve as “a model” to other nations.
“The universal periodic review, we believe, can be a model to demonstrate, you know, to other countries, even other countries on the Human Rights Council, this is how you engage civil society,’ Crowley told reporters.
It is “downright offensive” that a state law would be included in the report, Brewer, a Republican nearly guaranteed re-election as a result of the legal dispute, wrote to Clinton.
“The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to ‘review’ by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional,” she said.
On Monday, she described the situation as “nationalism run amok.”
“We talk about human rights. We have, you know, thousands of illegal aliens coming across our border and suffering under inhumane conditions due to the drug cartel and due to the heat, and, you know, dying out in the middle of the desert. It doesn’t have anything to do with Senate Bill 1070,” Brewer told Fox News.
“Name a human rights violation. Name it,” Antenorri demanded of the Obama administration.
“Tell the people of this country where in this U.N. report you are defining a human rights violation occurring in the state of Arizona. It’s garbage,” he said, adding, “I find it comical to kowtow to dictators in this global effort to demonize the United States.
“The federal government, the president should be ashamed of himself for putting this on an international stage with a commission that is put together by countries that commit actual genocide and atrocities,” he added.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/30/state-department-stands-decision-include-arizona-human-rights-report/
Gov. Jan Brewer vs. The State Department
August 31, 2010 Video at URL
Governor explains why she found a reference to Arizona’s immigration law in a report to the U.N.’s human rights commissioner ‘downright offensive’ and wants it removed in her letter to Hillary Clinton of August 27th.
The Federal government are hypocrites.
Unbelievable how they operate.
Unbelievable how the Federal government has treated the people of AZ.
It is outrageous and offensive. It is so wrong.
If you choose not to remove AZ from the report, ….we are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our sovereignty.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4325255/gov-jan-brewer-vs-the-state-department
Arizona vs. the U.N. human rights police
Michelle Malkin – 9/1/2010
An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t
spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats.
Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s
far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world’s approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy
combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of ObamaCare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s age of post-achievement).
The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”
In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to “internationalism run amok.” Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, “Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B.
1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called ‘human rights’ issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona.” Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats’ notice.
No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama’s globalist panderers couldn’t simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you’ll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country’s human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans — and all Americans — who support states’ rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 “a troubling trend in our society” in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.
The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than “downright offensive,” as Brewer put it. It’s a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its “robust protections for freedom of expression.” The report notes sanctimoniously: “As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics.”
Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder’s Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.
As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1143938
Eric Holder sues Sheriff Arpaio for the 3rd lawsuit against AZ plus embarrassing the US by naming AZ in a Report to the UN on Human Rights. Hey keep it up Arizona, we are behind you. The USA is watching what is happening..you can be sure of it!
Statement of Robert N. Driscoll, Counsel to Sheriff Joseph Arpai and the Maricopa C. Sheriff’s Office.
“Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is part of a deliberate media strategy to “get tough” on Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and undermine immigration enforcement by a local Sheriff who is trying desperately to make up for this Administration’s own indifference to the topic.
The DOJ suit speaks loudly by what it does not say. It does not allege that Sheriff Arpaio or the MCSO have discriminated against anyone because the DOJ, after 18 months of soliciting allegations against Sheriff Arpaio, has come up empty. Even the purported basis for the suit, which alleges a lack of “cooperation,” is a sham.
In fact, after meeting with the DOJ last week, just last Friday, on behalf of MCSO, I informed the DOJ that MCSO would cooperate with all reasonable document requests and would schedule tours of MCSO facilities and interviews with senior MCSO command staff. We were awaiting a response from DOJ, and this lawsuit is apparently it. Clearly DOJ is more interested filing its third lawsuit in as many weeks against Arizona defendants than in looking into the allegations that purportedly gave rise to its investigation. This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to obscure the fact that DOJ still has no case. Today’s suit over documents does not change that.”
Robert N. Driscoll
http://www.mcso.org/index.php?a=GetModule&mn=Special_Announce
Click to access Obama%20Lawsuit.pdf
The following is an official statement by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio regarding today’s lawsuit filed against his office by the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C. for alleged refusal to turn over documents. It is followed by another statement from his Washington, D.C. attorney, Bob Driscoll.
“The Obama administration has filed three lawsuits against Arizona in the last few weeks … one against a college district, one against the state of Arizona and now one against my office. Each lawsuit centers on something to do with alleged racial discrimination.
These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this Sheriff, IS Washington’s new whipping boy. Now it’s time to take the gloves off.
As for today’s lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails.
They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit. The Obama administration intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it. Washington isn’t playing fair and it’s time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is. Calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country. “
The day after the DOJ filed against Sheriff Arpaio, an FOIA report was received by Byron York. The report from ICE e-mails may derail DOJ case against Sheriff Arpaio. The ICE emails showed that they had investigated the sheriff’s department and gave it a clean bill of health. They found no problems. No civil rights violations were found! They completed their report six months prior to this new lawsuit.
Political? No doubt.
Bridgette,
The ICE emails showed that they had investigated the sheriff’s department and gave it a clean bill of health. They found no problems. No civil rights violations were found! They completed their report six months prior to this new lawsuit.
Guess no one read that part huh ? Duhhh….
As for the way Anderson Cooper went after Jan Brewer on TV last night, I give her a pass on 13 seconds of silence. Beheadings ? I guess Jan was tired and did not have time to tell Anderson about the recent soccer ball with a man’s face sewn on it huh ? Poor Jan.
Another Black Eye for the DOJ and Obama?
****
New evidence undermines feds’ case against Arizona
By: Byron York
September 2, 2010 SNIPS
Despite the splash of attention from the newest lawsuit, the Justice Department’s investigation of Arpaio could end badly for Holder. When the Department first informed Arpaio that a probe was under way, back in March 2009, it sent a
letter saying the investigation would focus on “alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.”
But now we learn that just six months before that, in September 2008, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, did its own investigation of Arpaio’s office — and gave it a clean bill of health. Arpaio’s lawyers recently got a copy of the ICE report through the Freedom of Information Act.
ICE officials evaluated how the sheriff’s office performed under a law that allows specially trained local law enforcement officers to enforce parts of federal immigration law. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which is the largest sheriff’s office in the Arizona, has 189 officers who have been trained by ICE to enforce federal immigration statutes.
The report, crammed with acronyms and bureaucratese, is not light reading. But struggle through it, and the key sentence is this: “The OI and DRO supervisors consider the conduct and performance of the MCSO … officers to
be professional and meeting the requirement of the MOA.” Translated, that means officials from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Investigation (OI), along with officials from the Detention and Removal Operations office (DRO), concluded that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), in its handling of illegal immigrants, acted in a professional manner and complied with a memorandum of agreement (MOA) under which the government gave them the authority to enforce federal law. That agreement included a ban on racial profiling.
ICE investigators also interviewed top federal officials involved in illegal immigrant cases in Arizona. They found an “excellent” working relationship between the sheriff’s office and the feds. ICE talked as well to federal prosecutors in Phoenix, who described the cases brought by Maricopa County as “high quality.”
In all, it’s a quite positive assessment of an operation that just six months later would come under the Justice Department’s microscope for alleged civil rights violations. It also lends indirect support to Arpaio’s contention that the Justice Department investigation is politically motivated.
A tidbit of information contained in other government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act also suggests politics may be involved. Arpaio’s lawyers found a March 11, 2009, e-mail, sent just after the Justice Department investigation was announced, from an ICE employee to John P. Torres, then the acting assistant secretary of ICE. “Did you see this?” the e-mail said, attaching a news report on the investigation. “Yes,” Torres responded a few minutes later. “Interesting politics at play.”
What happens now? It’s been nearly a year and a half since the investigation began, and the Justice Department has not charged the sheriff’s office with violating anyone’s civil rights. Instead, Thursday’s lawsuit goes after Arpaio for allegedly failing to cooperate fully in the probe.
“It’s a totally political lawsuit,” says Bob Driscoll, a former Bush Justice Department Civil Rights Division official who is representing Arpaio. “They want to find evidence of discrimination, but all they’re finding is evidence of law enforcement that includes immigration enforcement.” (The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.)
Failing to find proof of real discrimination in Maricopa County could ultimately doom the administration’s entire crusade in Arizona. The much-publicized suit against the new immigration law is based on the possibility that it might result in future discrimination, but at the same time the department is struggling to find evidence of civil rights violations in Arpaio’s office, which uses enforcement techniques similar to those outlined in the new law. There’s a real chance that in the end Obama’s war on Arizona will come to nothing.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/New-evidence-undermines-feds_-case-against-Arizona-html#ixzz0yVeH1Pmi
Obama Administration Calls Unions a Human Right in U.N. Report and Refers to ‘Card Check’
September 06, 2010 Snips
Among the tidbits buried in the first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report of U.S. Human Rights issues was the section excerpted (starting on page 6) below.
The Obama administration has declared unionization a human right and indirectly equated it to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and other normal human rights.
23. Freedom of association also protects workers and their right to organize… Workers regularly use legal mechanisms to address complaints such as threats, discharges, interrogations, surveillance, and wages-and-benefits cuts for supporting a union. These legal regimes are continuously assessed and evolving in order to keep pace with a modern work environment. Our UPR consultations included workers from a variety of sectors, including domestic workers who spoke about the challenges they face in organizing effectively.
Currently there are several bills in our Congress that seek to strengthen workers’ rights—ensuring that workers can continue to associate freely, organize, and practice collective bargaining as the U.S. economy continues to change. (emphasis mine)
Making it very easy for unions to organize workers is now a stated U.S human Rights goal. The primary bill among the ‘several bills’ the Obama administration is referring to is the ironically named Employee Free Choice Act which is commonly called ‘Card Check.’ This bill does away with secret ballot elections for unionization. When a union gets over 50% cards signed, they have won.
There is no election.
If you wonder why ‘card check’ is bad, let progressive and labor supporter George McGovern explain the issue to you.
http://www.bluegrasspundit.com/2010/09/obama-administration-calls-unions-human.html
George McGovern on the Employee Free Choice Act (video)