Coyote Blog

One of the perils of being a small school is that sports requires a lot of travel.   In Arizona (unlike Texas where I grew up) the private schools do not have their own prep league for athletics, but play with the public schools based on their size (e.g. 1A to 5A).  Ours is a 1A school that generally plays 2A because we get more teams to play that way.  In soccer we play 3A, which can be a tough road when a school that has barely 120 boys in the high school play schools with 900+ kids.  But we made it to the state finals last year, so we hold our own.

Anyway, last week we actually played a school within the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park, just a stones throw from the south rim visitors center and the El Tovar lodge.   That was awesome – nothing like post-game parent cocktails on a deck looking at the sunset over the rim of the canyon.  (I am on the road but will post a few photos next week).

The Grand Canyon is spectacular, but there is something about looking down into it that reduces its beauty.  You only really see its real drama hiking down into it (e.g. the Bright Angel or the harder but more beautiful Kaibab trail from the South Rim).  If you want to talk about really spectacular scenery, I think Sedona beats the Grand Canyon, at least from the rim.

This week my son’s team played a small school in Sedona, a pretty old boarding school called Verde Valley HS.  Its got an IB program and a lot of horses and a drop-dead location, and has been getting some popularity in this area and in SoCal.  Anyway, I have seen some nice kids fields, but this one was pretty spectacular.  Unfortunately I only had my crappy cell phone camera but here is a sample:

My column in Forbes is up for the week, and discusses the failure of light rail.  In particular, it focuses on Phoenix light rail, which has been hailed by the intelligentsia as a stirring success.  Which it is … if you are willing to completely ignore its costs.  Saying that Phoenix light rail represents an example to be emulated is roughly equivalent to saying that an Aston Martin makes a sensible middle class family car.

One reason Phoenix is a particularly bad candidate for a light rail line is that our population is so dispersed, and there are not any obvious commuting routes.  Our downtown is a destination for very few, but even here the commutes, as shown on this distribution map, are from all over, hardly very good fodder for rail (the downtown is near the “phoenix” label).  More importantly, people work all over, so taking a suburban zip code, look at where people are commuting to from suburban 85032.   Again, all over.  Notice how few are going downtown (where the light rail line is — downtown is toward the south about where the “phoenix” map label is).  In other words, people in Phoenix are driving from all over to all over.

Update: Now here is my idea of rail running in the streets, via Shorpy

The word is out around town that Ben Quayle (yes, from that Quayle family) who is running for the Republican nomination for Congress, may be one of the founders and chief writers for local (very sleazy) gossip site Dirty Scottsdale  (which has since gone national as the Dirty — barely SFW).  The site seems to specialize in printing pictures of club-hopping local girls and calling them out for either their looks, plastic surgery, or sexual preferences.

Update: Quayle denies it.  Either this is an incredible revelation of a secret life whose writing marks him as a real sleazy loser or it is an incredibly brazen (given that the accusation comes from his supposed partner) political hit-job.  Either way its a really interesting story.

Update #2: Quayle, uh, un-denies it.

Greg Patterson has an interesting post (at least to political neophytes like me) on how not to write a political hit piece.  For example:

The theme of the piece is that Jim Ward is an outsider and that Schweikert is a career politician.  Then lead quote is from…an incumbent Congressman.  Dude, that’s awesome.  I like John Shadegg, but he’s been in Congress for 16 years.  So Ward is telling me that he’s an outsider by showing me that he’s been endorsed Arizona’s longest-serving Republican Congressman?

From the AZ Republic

Once Tempe officials determined the fish that remained in Tempe Town Lake would not survive a possible rescue mission, they decided to dispose of them in what they deem to be the most natural way possible: by feeding them to an alligator.

Hundreds and possibly thousands of fish were left in small pools scattered throughout the 220-acre lake after one of its dams breached Tuesday night and sent nearly a billion gallons of water cascading down the normally dry Salt River.

Via Valley Fever, Sheriff Joe is expanding his outdoor jail whose conditions are substantially worse than those at the nearby WWII POW camp where German prisoners were held.

In the words of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, 17 years ago today, “on a swelteringly hot day in 1993, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio opened the doors to the nation’s largest canvas incarceration compound. Tent City, as it became known, would prove to be one of Sheriff Arpaio’s best known and potentially most controversial programs.”

Today, Arpaio’s celebrating the anniversary by unveiling a new section of the compound: “Section 1070,” specifically designated for those arrested under Arizona’s controversial, new immigration law.

The new section can hold an additional 100 inmates but Arpaio says he expects that number to grow.

“Citizens here sincerely hope that SB 1070 will result in large numbers of illegal aliens being captured and arrested by local law enforcement officers,” Arpaio says. “I’m not so certain that will actually happen. But on the assumption it does, then as the Sheriff of this county, I am ready. Tent City is ready. There will never be the excuse that this jail hasn’t enough room for violators of SB 1070.”

Did you ever notice that when government programs are labeled “popular,” it is always by their beneficiaries, e.g.

For the second time in two years, the state universities are weighing whether to limit or even get rid of the popular AIMS scholarship, which waives tuition and fees for thousands of college students.

Since most similar government programs consist of giving people something of value for free or at least for a below-market price, aren’t they always going to be popular with their recipients?  Wheat subsidies are popular with wheat farmers, light rail subsidies are popular with those who ride it, cash-for-clunkers was popular with folks who got 2-3x blue book value for their trade-ins, and education subsidies are popular with the students and parents who get them.  In this usage, then, I would argue that the word “popular” in the paragraph above is entirely tautological and should therefore be eliminated from standard usage.  The only meaningful definition of “popular” vis a vis a public program should be “popular with those who fund it.”

On this blog, over the last couple of months, I have presented a pretty clear set of facts showing that, with the possible exception of some rural border regions beset by drug gangs, the vast majority of Arizona has experienced rapidly falling crime rates, in fact crime rates falling much faster than in the rest of the country.  The crime rates of even our key border towns has remained flat.

What to make, then, of these statements by our governor.

Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday reiterated her assertion that the majority of illegal immigrants are coming to the United States for reasons other than work, saying most are committing crimes and being used as drug mules by the cartels.

Brewer’s remarks are an expansion of comments she made last week during a televised debate between the four Republican gubernatorial candidates….

In the debate, Jette [a candidate running against Brewer] said that most people who cross illegally into Arizona are “just trying to feed their families.” Brewer disputed that, saying, “They’re coming here, and they’re bringing drugs.

And they’re doing drop houses, and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.” The governor, who has become a national media figure since signing Senate Bill 1070 into law on April 23, went further on Friday, saying that the “majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming (into) the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels.”

When pressed, Brewer said that even those who do come to the United States looking for work are often ensnared by the cartels.

“They are accosted, and they become subjects of the drug cartels.”

Estimates are that there are 8-12 million illegal immigrants in the US (Brewer’s hispano-phobic allies would put the number much higher).  They are mostly all drug dealers and criminals?  Really?

I try really hard not to try to guess at what motivates folks I disagree with by assuming they are driven by something dark and evil, but how else in this case can one describe opinions like this so contrary to facts as anything other than prejudice against a particular ethnic group?

Just look at the actions of our governor and folks like Joe Arpaio.  If it really were the case that illegal immigrants are all criminals uninterested in legal work, then why is so much recent legislation aimed at business owners that hire illegal immigrants?  Or at day labor centers?  Why are all of Sheriff Joe’s immigration sweeps raiding lawful businesses rather than, say, crack houses?  After all, if illegal immigrants are all just drug dealers not looking for real work, why spend so much time looking for them, uh, doing real work?

Postscript: If Brewer is in fact correct, then there is a dead easy solution for the illegal immigration problem — legalize drugs.  She and I both agree that the worst criminal elements of illegal immigrants would be much less of a problem without the illegal drug trade.  The only difference is that I think that segment makes up less than 1% of the population of illegal immigrants, and she thinks its everyone.

Further, to the extent that some illegal immigrants just trying to support their families are “ensnared” by drug cartels (whatever that means) it is because of their immigration status.  Make them legal residents of the country, and no one has any particular leverage over them.

Note to Commenters: Many, many of you have disagreed with me vociferously on immigration.  Please, I would love to see reasoned comments defending Brewer, particularly with data.  In particular, please use the laws of supply and demand to explain how the majority of 8-12 million people are able to earn a living in the illegal drug trade in the southwest.  To help you out, there are about 6.6 million people in Arizona.  Based on national rates of 8% of over age 12 being users, about 500,000 of those are illegal drug users.  One estimate is that there are 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Update: Are she and I living in the same state?

Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer claimed recently that law enforcement has been finding beheaded bodies in the desert — but local agencies say they’ve never encountered such a case.

“Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded,” Brewer said Sunday, suggesting that the beheadings were part of increased violence along the border.

But medical examiners from six of Arizona’s counties — four of which border Mexico — tell the Arizona Guardian that they’ve never encountered an immigration-related crime in which the victim’s head was cut off.

Wow, I am sure those in Arizona who are clambering for more border support from President Obama will back off now that they hear this:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rob Daniels says officers at the Douglas port of entry stopped a tractor-trailer coming from Mexico for further inspection on Friday.

Officers found the tractor-trailer was loaded with papier-mache items, including 108 piñatas in the likeness of Disney characters on their way to Thornton, Colo.

Officers seized the shipment for violation of intellectual property rights.

You will be happy that national security has been protected

Assistant port Director Eli Villareal says the piñatas may seem innocent, but shipments of illegal merchandise on a national scale can undermine the U.S. economy and “is a vital element in national security.

Do all your sheriff’s waste their time on this kind of stuff?  Sheriff Joe is cranking on the old PR machine again, this time having an Oval Office fantasy emulating the President’s weekly address:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Monday announced plans to use a live-streaming video Web site to deliver a weekly address to the media and public.

The Web program “JMA TV-1″ will stream Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m. for five to 10 minutes, depending on the subject matter, according to a statement from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Barf.

With the amount of attention Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has brought to his 78th birthday, you might think he’s a 16-year-old girl.

First he “tweeted” that he needed ideas on how to celebrate his birthday. Then he claimed his special day was “ruined” because a blind-advocacy group uninvited him to speak at their convention. And now he’s lending the occasion to J.D. Hayworth for the Senate hopefuls “Biggest Best Dang Birthday Bash” — a fundraiser for Hayworth/ birthday party for America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff.”…

The event will be held tomorrow — nearly a week after Joe’s actual birthday — and for a mere $35 you could celebrate Joe’s big day with Arpaio and Hayworth at The Silver Spur Saloon and Eatery in Cave Creek.

Or, with the flick of a match, you could set $35 on fire — if given the choice, we’d prefer the latter.

My guess is that most of your would define “temperate” and “moderate” differently than we do in Phoenix.

The summer so far has shaped up to be, well, temperate in the Phoenix area.

June has fallen into a pattern of moderate temperatures, with high temperatures falling consistently close to 100 degrees without the big jumps to 110 or above. This follows a fairly temperate May.

Beautiful week right now.  “Only” about 104F today.

Readers know I oppose recent Arizona immigration legislation and enforcement initiatives.  I don’t think government should be stepping in to effectively license who can and can’t work in this country, and am thus a supporter of open immigration (which is different from citizenship, please note).  As I support open immigration, both from a philosophic standpoint as well as a utilitarian perspective, I don’t support laws to get tougher on illegal immigrants, any more than I support laws to get tougher on the failed practice of drug prohibition.

That being said, reasonable people can disagree, though some for better reasons than others.  But I don’t see how all these folks who support tougher laws on immigration with the mantra that it is all about the rule of law can justify this piece of unconstitutional garbage:  (Hat tip to a reader)

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they’re on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene….

The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that “all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government’s control over citizenship.

But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been “hijacked” by illegal immigrants. “They use it as a wedge,” Pearce says. “This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we’ve created.” Pearce says he is aware of the constitutional issues involved with the bill and vows to introduce it nevertheless. “We will write it right.”

I didn’t like SB1070 that much, but as ultimately amended it was not nearly as radical as this.  I think those of us who feared SB1070 as a first step on a slippery slope should feel vindicated by this.

I find many of the uses politicians make of the money they take from me to be irritating.  But perhaps the worst of them all is to use my money to fund their own election campaigns when they can’t get enough people to voluntarily contribute.  Which is why I am happy to see the Supreme Court put a injunction on Arizona’s politicians take tax money to re-elect themselves law.

Today the Supreme Court blocked “matching funds” for candidates under Arizona’s Clean Elections Law while it decides whether to hear a First Amendment challenge to the system. Under the law, participating candidates receive one taxpayer dollar for each dollar spent by their privately funded opponents (or by groups sponsoring messages for their benefit) above a certain threshold. The Goldwater Institute and the Institute for Justice, representing politicians and activists who are challenging the law, argue that it penalizes people for exercising their right to freedom of speech by using taxpayer money to undermine the impact of their message. In January, U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver agreed, concluding that Arizona’s campaign finance system “burdens…First Amendment rights, is not supported by a compelling state interest, is not narrowly tailored, and is not the least restrictive alternative.” Last month the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Silver’s decision and lifted her injunction against the delivery of matching funds. Today’s stay effectively reinstates the injunction until the Court either rejects the case or accepts and decides it.

“The Supreme Court’s decision today will allow the 2010 Arizona election to occur without the government placing its thumb on the scale in favor of those politicians who receive government subsidies,” says Institute for Justice senior attorney Bill Maurer. “The purpose of this law was to limit individuals’ speech by limiting their spending. But the First Amendment does not permit the government to restrain Americans from robustly exercising the right of free speech.”

…where cold fronts drop the temperatures into the 90′s:

While an excessive heat warning is in effect through Monday, temperatures are expected to plunge into the mid-90s by the weekend, according to the National Weather Service…

The large drop in temperatures can be attributed to a cold front that is expected to move through Arizona on Friday, Leines added.

I was forwarded an email today, and I can’t honestly figure out the source since it is one of those that has been forwarded a zillion times, but at some point it passed through the Arizona 2010 Project.  It consisted mainly of pictures of desert areas along major immigration routes that had been trashed by illegal immigrants.  This picture is pretty typical.

Certainly an ugly site, particularly for someone who lives and works in the outdoors as I do.

Here is a quote, I think from the original email but it may have been from one of the forwarders (emphasis added):

This layup is on an ‘illegal super – highway’ from Mexico to the USA (Tucson) used by human smugglers.

This layup area is located in a wash area approximately .5 of a mile long just south of Tucson.

We estimate there are over 3000 discarded back packs in this layup area. Countless water containers, food wrappers, clothing, and soiled baby diapers. And as you can see in this picture, fresh footprints leading right into it. We weren’t too far behind them.

As I kept walking down the wash, I was sure it was going to end just ahead, but I kept walking and walking, and around every corner was more and more trash!

And of course the trail leading out of the layup area heading NORTH to Tucson, then on to your town tomorrow.

They’ve already come through here. Is this America the Beautiful?  Or another landfill?

The trash left behind by the illegals is another of the Environmental Disasters to hit the USA. Had this been done in one of our great Northwest Forests or Seashore National Parks areas there would be an uprising of the American people……..but this is remote Arizona-Mexican border.

Well, it so happens my life is spent cleaning up public parks.  My company’s mission is to privately operate public parks.  A lot of that job is picking up and hauling away the trash.  And I can tell you something with absolute certainty:  This is exactly what a highly trafficked area in our great Northwest Forests or Seashore National Parks would look like if someone wasn’t there to pick up.  Here is one example from a northwest forest, in Oregon:

We run busy campgrounds and day use areas all over the country, and you would not believe the trash on the ground on a Monday morning.  And this is after the place was cleaned on Sunday morning and with trash cans available every 10 feet to throw things away correctly.  I have seen a few areas in the National Forest that were busy ad hoc camping areas — meaning they had no facilities, no staff, and no trash cans — and they were absolutely trashed by good old red-blooded American citizens.  Parts looked no different than this picture.  Most of these areas have since been closed, because of this ecological damage.

In fact, in my presentation I make to public agencies about our services, I say that we are actually in the environmental preservation business.  By attracting recreators to defined areas of the wilderness where we have staff to clean up after the visitors and limit their impact on nature, we are helping to preserve the other 99% of the land.

So, yes this is ugly, but it frustrates me that this is used to play into the Joe Arpaio type stereotypes of Mexicans

All these people that come over, they could come with disease. There’s no control, no health checks or anything. They check fruits and vegetables, how come they don’t check people? No one talks about that! They’re all dirty. I sent out 200 inmates into the desert, they picked up 18 tons of garbage that they bring in—the baby diapers and all that. Where’s everybody who wants to preserve the desert?”

To my mind, this is an argument against Mexican immigration in the same way that violence against women is used as an argument against legalizing prostitution.  Prostitutes suffer abuse in large part because their profession is illegal which limits their access to the legal system when victimized, not because violence is inherent to their profession.  Trash in a wash in the desert is a result of the illegality of immigration that forces people into stream beds rather than city check points when they enter the country.

Postscript #1: Please, if you are a good, clean, thoughtful user of public parks, do not write me thinking I have dissed you.  I have not.  Most of our visitors are great and thoughtful, and we really appreciate that.  But it takes only a few to make an unbelievable mess.

Postscript #2: I am willing to believe that poorly educated immigrants have fewer litter taboos than we have been acculturated with.   But I have seen enough to say that no ethnic group out there should be too smug.  For God sakes, there had to be a large effort near the top of Mt. Everest to clean up a huge dump that had accumulated of oxygen bottles and other trash near the summit.   Here are pictures of what rich Americans and Europeans do on Mt Everest when they are hiking and there is no trash can nearby:

Back in college, I burned a lot hotter on a variety of political issues.  I would argue with about anyone, and often did.  The dinner table was almost always the venue for some political fight.  During those arguments, I quickly discovered something — people nominally on my side of the argument were sometimes my biggest problem.  I remember any number of times telling some person to shut up and let me argue the point.  People email me all the time asking me to ban some idiot commenter trolling in opposition to all my posts.  I tell them I am much more likely to ban an idiot commenter nominally supporting my point than the other way around.

Which brings me to Eric Holder:

“I’ve just expressed concerns on the basis of what I’ve heard about the law. But I’m not in a position to say at this point, not having read the law, not having had the chance to interact with people are doing the review, exactly what my position is,” Mr. Holder told the House Judiciary Committee.

This weekend Mr. Holder told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that the Arizona law “has the possibility of leading to racial profiling.” He had earlier called the law’s passage “unfortunate,” and questioned whether the law was unconstitutional because it tried to assume powers that may be reserved for the federal government.

Rep. Ted Poe, who had questioned Mr. Holder about the law, wondered how he could have those opinions if he hadn’t yet read the legislation.

“It’s hard for me to understand how you would have concerns about something being unconstitutional if you haven’t even read the law,” the Texas Republican told the attorney general.

I have never been totally comfortable with the Democratic support of immigration anyway.  The party, particularly under this administration, seems to take the position that the government can be as authoritarian as it likes, as long as it does not discriminate racially in doing so.  This post hypothesizes that the Democrats’ support for immigration is political rather than principled, a desire to create the next new underclass that can be exploited for political points, and I can’t really disagree based on past history.

Readers know I support open immigration.  I see immigration restrictions as government licensing of who can and can’t work (and who can and can’t be hired) — an intrusion Conservatives would likely reject in any other context.  Since I am opposed to immigration limits, I am opposed to giving government extra powers in the name of enforcement, in the same way I oppose, say, asset seizure laws originally aimed at enforcement of drug prohibition.

I acknowledged that the law is less onerous in its amended form (because, you see, I actually read the whole thing, here and here for example), but what the law’s supporters fail to deal with in claiming the letter of the law will not be enforced in a racist manner is how even existing law is being enforced here in Phoenix by Joe Arpaio in a racist manner.  When Joe goes into a business, and handcuffs all the people with brown skin, releasing them only when a relative or friend races to the police station with a birth certificate, it is an ugly, un-American scene (here or here or here).  I would take supporters of the bill more at their word as to how the law will actually be used in practice if they were not the same people actively cheer-leading Joe Arpaio at every turn.

There is an anti-immigrant playbook in this country that goes back at least to the 1840′s and the first wave of Irish immigrants.  Typical arguments applied to nearly every wave of immigrants to this country have been 1.  They are lazy; 2. They are going to take our jobs (funny in conjunction with #1); 3.  They increase crime and 4. They bring disease.

To date in Arizona, we have seen all three of the first arguments in spades, but until recently I had not seen #4.  But trust Sheriff Joe to be out front on this, issuing a press release stating:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that he has long argued the point that illegal immigration is not just a law enforcement problem but is a potential health hazard as well.

“This is a risk to our community and to my deputies,” Arpaio says. “Deputies never know what they may face in the course of enforcing human smuggling laws.”

Arpaio says that in the last two months, four inmates, all illegal aliens from the country of Mexico, were confirmed with having chicken pox, placing 160 inmates into immediate medical quarantine.

Earlier Apraio had this to say to GQ magazine (but he’s not a racist!)

All these people that come over, they could come with disease. There’s no control, no health checks or anything. They check fruits and vegetables, how come they don’t check people? No one talks about that! They’re all dirty.

Of course, like many of Arpaio’s fulminations, this release fell somewhere between a grand exaggeration and an outright lie.

Maricopa County health officials denied reports by the Sheriff’s Office that 160 jail inmates had been quarantined two months ago because of four illegal immigrants with chicken pox.

Officials also downplayed a news release issued by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office last night about chicken pox found in immigrants busted yesterday, noting that such minor outbreaks don’t normally make the news.

After our inquiries, MCSO Lieutenant Brian Lee said that Arpaio had, in fact, misspoken when he stated for the news release that a large-scale “quarantine” had taken place.

You know how in movies, when a car goes over a cliff, it always blows up spectacularly when it hits the bottom?  Well, it turns out that this is harder than it looks to duplicate in real life.

I saw Randal O’Toole (known to bloggers at the “anti-planner”) speak at the Goldwater Institute last night on transportation.   He is on a book tour for his new book “Gridlock” and he is really a fascinating speaker.  Highly recommended if he should be speaking near you in the coming weeks.  The really crappy cell phone picture below is of O’Toole on the left talking to Byron Schlomach of the Goldwater Institute.

Exclusionist Conservatives in Arizona are quick to defend themselves against charges of racism.  While I tend to be an pro-immigration hawk, I accept that there are issues, such as the conflict of immigration and the welfare state, where reasonable people can disagree as to solutions without any hint of racism charging the debate.  I really, really resist playing the race card on anyone.

However, if Conservatives really want to discourage charges of racism, they need to  stop playing on fears of immigrant crime as a main argument in their case (example from Expresso Pundit).  Such fears of minority group violence are part and parcel of every racist position in history.   The out-group is always vilified as criminal, whether it be blacks in the 60′s or Italians and Eastern Europeans earlier in the century or the Irish in the 19th century.

There is no evidence either recently or throughout history of immigrant-led crime waves, and in fact as I wrote the other day crime rates in Arizona are improving throughout this “invasion” at a faster rate than the US average. So when Conservatives grab a single example, such as the Pinal County shooting  (for which no suspects have been identified) as “proof” we need immigration reform, they are no different than Al Sharpton grandstanding based on the Tawana Brawley case  (and possibly these cases could be even more similar, update: or perhaps not).

Stop trying to manufacture a crime spree that does not exist.  Sure, illegal immigrants commit some murders.  So do every other group.  There is no evidence they commit such murders at a disproportionate rate.  And yes, I understand there are violent, paramilitary gangs roving Northern Mexico, which currently is in a state of chaos, that we really don’t want to spill over into Arizona.  But this has been a threat for years, and for all the fear, there is no evidence that they are somehow increasing their activities here.  And even if they were, laws that give Joe Arpaio additional power to harass day laborers in Phoenix are sure as hell not going to scare them off.

Conservatives often attack global warming alarmists for using individual outlier events at the tails of the normal distribution (e.g. Katrina) to fan panic about climate change.  So it is interesting to see them doing the same thing themselves on immigrants and crime in Arizona.  [sorry, forgot the link to Expresso Pundit]

Of course, the whole story fell apart when Wagner had to introduce this fact.

While smugglers have become more aggressive in their encounters with authorities, as evidenced by the shooting of a Pinal County deputy on Friday, allegedly by illegal-immigrant drug runners, they do not routinely target residents of border towns.

Sure, that’s the ticket, violence hasn’t increased in actual border towns…of course, roving drug smugglers just used an AK 47 to gun down a deputy in PINAL County a hundred miles north of the border.  But other than that…and the rancher they killed last month…the border towns themselves are pretty calm.

Excuse me, but has anyone on any side of the immigration debate ever claimed that immigrants have never committed a crime?  Forget for a minute that the guilty parties in these two cases are mere supposition without any charges filed yet — particularly the case of the rancher last month.  In 2008 there were about 407 killings in the state.  So, like, one a month were maybe by immigrant gangs and this is a crisis?

From the link above, I looked up AZ and US crime states in 2000, 2005, and 2008.  I was too lazy to do every year and 2009 state stats don’t appear to be online yet.  Here is the crisis in Arizona in violent crime rates:

Oh Noz, we seem not only to have drastically reduced our violent crime rate right in the teeth of this immigrant “invasion” but we also have reduced it below the US average.  This actually understates the achievement, since Arizona is more highly urbanized than the average state  (yeah, I know this is counter-intuitive, but it was true even 20 years ago and is more true today).  Urban areas have higher crime rates than rural areas, particularly in property crime as below:

So our property crime rate is high, but not totally out of line from other highly urban areas.  But the real key here is that during this supposed immigrant invasion, again Arizona has improved faster than the national average.  This is seen more clearly when we index both lines to 2000.

One may wonder why climate change alarmists only wave around anecdotes rather than averages.  If we really are seeing more drought or floods, show us the averages.  The problem is that their story can’t be seen in the averages, so they are forced to rely on anecdotes to inflame the population.   The same appears to be true of our Arizona immigration panic.

Update: Some doubts emerge about Pinal County deputy shooting update: or perhaps not

Via Valley Fever:

There is a report circulating right now, which — if true — confirms what many Arizona residents have been dreading for years: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will run for governor of the state of Arizona.

ABC 15 is reporting that Arpaio already has made the decision to take the plunge and will announce his candidacy on Monday.

According to “several high-ranking sources within the Sheriff’s Department,” all the necessary paperwork “has been filled out and is ready to file.”

Unfortunately, he may well win.  There are two things an outsider needs to know about people in Arizona

1. They have an insane, irrational fear of Mexican immigrants, who they see as disproportionately made up of gang lords who make Tony Soprano look like a pansy.  Of course, no one seems to have any actual personal experience with such violence or to be an actual victim, but they heard that the lady who put her cat in the microwave was threatened.
2. They believe that only Joe Arpaio has been standing between them and total annihilation at the hands of the brown-skinned hordes.

Yes, Arpaio is not only liked here, he is freaking beloved by a near majority of the population.  He is the single most potent Republican name in the state — one only has to look at the number of candidates seeking his endorsement.  For example, we have people running for the US Congress in this state who tout Arpaio’s endorsement on their every poster.  Think of that — US Congressmen running around seeking a sheriff’s endorsement.

Just check this out.  A local Republican privately thinks Arpaio is a dangerous idiot, but he still seeks his backing in the election

Bill Montgomery, the candidate for Maricopa County Attorney backed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, strongly questions Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s mental fitness and leadership ability in a secret tape made by county officials….

To Stapley [one of the county officials at the taped meeting], the Republican candidate made himself out to be a real Arpaio critic.

But, as we learned, Montgomery later teamed up with Arpaio in hopes of giving a boost to his campaign. Montgomery mailed a letter from Arpaio to the sheriff’s supporters a couple of weeks ago, in which Arpaio praises the candidate and pledges to help him get elected.

We sort of feel bad for Montgomery in this situation — no one likes to have a private conversation recorded without their knowledge. Yet getting beyond the ethics (and politics) of why the tape was made, Montgomery does come off looking fairly two-faced.

He’s willing to take every cent Arpaio can raise for him, yet described the sheriff to Stapley as kind of a dottering old fool.

He also said he’s not thrilled with Thomas’ monolithic focus on illegal immigration. Yet that focus, of course, is shared by Arpaio.

Fellow Arpaio-haters will love this:

Montgomery related how he’d been talking about serious issues during a meeting with Arpaio when the conversation suddenly turned to ”stories about his family, past Valentine’s Days, that sort of thing.”

An aide popped in to prompt the sheriff out of his daydreaming, and “it was a little bit like — I don’t want to disparage him — but a little bit like someone coming into a nursing home and saying visiting hours are over now.”

From our new SB1070 Immigration Law here in AZ (sorry for the caps)

B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON’S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).

Supporters have said this is not about profiling or harassing people with brown skin.  So what, other than skin color, does constitute probably cause in this case?  Low rider suspension?  Mexican music tapes?

Anyone who things Joe Arpaio will not use this to demand that everyone with brown skin has to show their papers has not been paying attention.  I have driven around for 3 years with a broken tail light and never been stopped.  Had I had brown skin, I would have been stopped years ago.  This is the man who went into tony, lilly white Fountain Hills on a crime sweep and somehow 75% of the those arrested were Hispanic.

Here is one example, where deputies entered a local business, zip-tied and detained everyone who had brown skin, and then later released those who could provide their papers:

Deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office raided a Mesa landscaping company early Wednesday morning, arresting nearly three dozen people suspected of being in the country illegally.

The raid on offices of Artistic Land Management, on Main Street just west of Dobson Road, happened about 4:30 a.m., according to one worker who was handcuffed and detained before being released when he produced documentation that he was in the country legally….

Juarez estimated about 35 workers were handcuffed with plastic zip-ties while deputies checked for documents. Those who could provide proof they were in the country legally were released, while others were put on buses and taken away.

Update: More from the bill, with language Conservatives would tend to oppose on absolutely anything except immigration

E. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.

Update #2: Steve Chapman also doesn’t know how to spot an illegal immigrant.  But that’s OK, neither does our governor:

After signing the new law requiring police to check out people who may be illegal immigrants, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was asked how the cops are supposed to know when someone should be screened. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like.”

No kidding. But she has a lot of company in her ignorance. When I called University of Arizona law professor Marc Miller and told him I wasn’t sure what some of the law’s provisions mean, he replied, “Neither is anyone else on the planet.” We will find out what it means after it takes effect, not before.

The last sentence seems awfully reminiscent of the health care bill.

From Steve Chapman:

It’s no surprise that Arizonans resent the recent influx of unauthorized foreigners, some of them criminals. But there is less here than meets the eye.

The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.

Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona.

Babeu’s claim about police killings came as news to me. When I called his office to get a list of victims, I learned there has been only one since the beginning of 2008—deeply regrettable, but not exactly a trend.

Truth is, illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans. Most come here to work, and in their desire to stay, they are generally afraid to do anything that might draw the attention of armed people wearing badges.

El Paso, Texas, is next door to the exceptionally violent Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and easily accessible to illegal entry. Yet it is one of the safest cities in the United States.