www.allvoices.com

​If you didn't get an O-boner from President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech last night, you probably didn't watch it.

Per usual, the president killed it -- the man's got a gift for gab.

Unfortunately, talking about doing things doesn't get things done.

For example: his comments on comprehensive immigration reform.

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Image: MCSO

Two of the five men arrested yesterday on suspicion of human smuggling and conspiracy.

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The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arrested five men last night on suspicion of human smuggling and conspiracy, days after a federal judge's ruling on such investigations.

Looks like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, under more pressure than ever to reform his ways, is sticking to his statement that he won't stop his enforcement operations against illegal immigrants.

Arpaio, who's in Iowa stumping on behalf of presidential candidate Rick Perry, will likely comment on the arrests tomorrow, says MCSO spokesman Lieutenant Jesse Spurgin.

In a major racial-profiling lawsuit against the sheriff's office on Friday, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow issued an order that restricts the way the sheriff's office can conduct human-smuggling investigations. Snow ruled that MCSO can't detain someone solely on the belief that the person might be in the country illegally.

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James King

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio looks on as his detention officers kiss their ICE authority goodbye.

​It's official: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office detention officers no longer have the authority to act as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in MCSO jails -- as was announced during an overly dramatic badge-piling ceremony at the sheriff's training facility this afternoon.

That's right, rather than simply collecting the detention officers' ICE badges, throwing them into a box, and sending them back to ICE, Sheriff Joe Arpaio alerted the media so they could watch his DOs walk single-file past a desk and drop their individual badges into a pile...as the cameras of Phoenix's Fourth Estate rolled.

Arpaio says 92 of his detention officers have officially been stripped of their 287(g) authority and will no longer check the immigration statuses of people brought into MCSO jails -- per the request of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano.

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Ray Stern

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is skeptical of the DOJ's report on racial profiling in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

​Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery expressed skepticism today about the claims of racial profiling by the Sheriff's Office, and demanded the return of a jail program to identify illegal immigrants.

The feds announced yesterday they were canceling the 287(g) program in Maricopa County due to findings by the U.S. Department of Justice that Sheriff Joe Arpaio had created a "culture of bias" on his watch, leading to widespread profiling of Latinos by deputies. In the program, deputies trained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau run background checks on inmates using federal computers.

Montgomery said he didn't share the DOJ's belief that "systemic" racial profiling is occurring under Arpaio.

He acknowledged that he has "concerns" about the DOJ allegations. Yet there's no justification for taking away the 287(g) program even if the whole report is true, because serious criminals will end up being released from jail, Montgomery warned during a news conference this morning.

Though Arizona voters in 2006 approved Proposition 100, which denies bail to illegal immigrants arrested for major crimes, such immigrants may now be given release conditions and bond, he said.

"I'm asking the president to direct the Attorney General and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate this program now," he said.

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John Morton, director of ICE.

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The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau isn't ready to comment this morning on the impact of severing ties with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

Which is a shame, because we have some good questions for them. Like, why was ICE supervising operations (see the last couple of pages of its agreement with MCSO) up until yesterday in what the Justice Department yesterday called a "culture of bias." Weren't they part of the culture?

Were the supervisors clueless to what the DOJ called the worst organization for racial profiling in US history? Or did 287(g) supervisors act as secret spies, collecting data on discriminatory policies and reporting it to their own ICE superiors, but not speaking up publicly about them?

ICE has a 287(g) "success stories" page that lists several "successes" of the Maricopa jail program. In other words, ICE is still bragging about the Maricopa program it just canceled.

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newsbelly.com

​Just five months after signing into law the nations "toughest" anti-immigration law, Alabama lawmakers are having "second thoughts amid a backlash from big business, fueled by the embarrassing traffic stops of two foreign employees tied to the state's prized Honda and Mercedes plants."

The backpedaling involves the state's Republican attorney general calling for the repeal of the the strictest parts of the law, Republican lawmakers now saying they want to make some changes and the Alabama governor contacting foreign execs to say they're "pro-foreign" countries, the Associated Press reports.

By comparison, in Arizona, it took almost a year before business leaders told state lawmakers, including the disgraced Arizona Senate President Russel Pearce, who was booted from office during a November recall election, to put the breaks of anti-immigration laws.


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​Four alleged human smugglers were arrested last night when the Department of Public Safety busted up a drop house in Avondale.

Also found inside the home was weed, cash, and 19 illegal immigrants -- many of whom have been arrested before for crimes like drug possession, weapons misconduct, child abuse, crimes against children, and even murder -- the DPS says.

Many of the victims suffered injuries at the hands of their captors that required medical attention.

The DPS raided the house, at 10938 West Locust Street in Avondale, about 7 p.m. yesterday.

As the DPS' Special Operations Unit entered the house, several suspects were seen trying to flee -- some even went crashing through a window in the master bedroom of the house, "severely" cutting themselves.

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​Mary Giovagnoli, the director of the Immigration Policy Center, posted a new blog about the "dramatic reversal in the definition" of the term "anchor baby."

In their initial definition, executives for American Heritage Dictionary didn't include any notation that the phrase was offensive or disparaging. But they have since corrected their entry online at ahdictionary.com and will update the hard copy of the dictionary.
 
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www.todump.com

​Rick Perry's presidential campaign is on life support at the moment, and according to a group of Hispanic Republicans, Joe Arpaio's recent endorsement of Perry could be the final nail in the Texas Governor's coffin.

"We believe the Arpaio endorsement is a colossal blunder from which Rick Perry will never recover, and we call on Rick Perry to leave the presidential race," the group Cafe Con Leche Republicans writes on its website.

Perry, albeit briefly, seemed as though he could win the Hispanic vote in the primary. During a debate with his GOP opponents, the Texas governor defended his policy of giving instate tuition to the children of illegal immigrants who wanted to attend state universities. 

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Mike Stauffer for Sheriff

Scottsdale Lieutenant Mike Stauffer

​As Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio stands by his hawkish approach to solving the illegal immigration problem, Scottsdale Lieutenant Mike Stauffer, the man who hopes to put an end to Arpaio's reign, has come out in favor of a more moderate approach to immigration reform.

Stauffer, a life-long Republican who's running for sheriff as an Independent, announced Friday that he supports Arizona's proposed version of the "Utah Compact," a statement of principals for humane immigration reform.

The "Arizona Compact" is modeled after Utah's, and is being pushed by Valley politico/Tequila Party leader DeeDee Blase.

It's also received tremendous support from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- a rather influential group here in the Valley of the Sun. Read an article about the Compact published in the Mormon-owned Desert News here.

The compact calls for a more moderate approach to dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, and seems to fall in line with the apparent shift in Arizonans' attitudes about illegal immigration.

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