Free Republic

‘Sheriff Joe is the kind of guy that you gotta love, as long as you have papers,’ Kavanaugh can be heard saying on the recording made public by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ‘Going out with Joe is always an adventure,’ he adds as the audience laughs, ‘because usually when we walk into a restaurant, most of the waitstaff and cooks dive out the back window, and when they don't, I never know what the hell's in my food.’ Those jokes and several similar quips have put Arpaio in the uneasy position of defending a man he calls a friend....

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is likely to veto the state’s controversial measure that could allow businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbians due to religious beliefs, according to three people close to the governor and familiar with her thinking. One of those is longtime Brewer political adviser Chuck Coughlin, who told NBC News: “It’s been her proclivity in the past to focus on the priorities she wants them [the legislature] to accomplish, and this was clearly not part of her agenda.” “She doesn’t want to take any actions that could jeopardize the economic momentum we’ve seen here in Arizona,”...

TUCSON – Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents arrested four convicted sex offenders during Valentine’s Day weekend. Two of the felons were convicted for crimes against children: aggravated criminal sexual assault of a minor 16 years old, and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child of 14-15. The others were convicted of gross sexual imposition and 3rd degree criminal sexual conduct. Two of the subjects were United States citizens. The others, from Mexico, were previously charged, convicted and removed from the U.S. Last month, however, these criminals were apprehended for illegally re-entering the country or smuggling. The suspects were processed for...

Conservative Christian groups in Arizona cheered the passage Thursday of legislation that would allow individuals and businesses in the state to deny service to same-sex couples due to religious beliefs. All eyes have shifted to Governor Jan Brewer, who must now decide whether to sign the bill. Similar legislation died in Kansas last week, but has also been introduced in Ohio, Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. The Arizona law seems to apply to services beyond those tied to weddings, but same-sex weddings are the impetus for these bills. Specifically, they are in response to lawsuits against three different...

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Immigration protesters marched through downtown Phoenix as part of the United We Dream campaign. An estimated 300 activists marched down Central Avenue to the Immigration & Customs Enforcement building where they held a rally. Marchers chanted slogans like "stop the deportations now" and "I'm undocumented and un-afraid". Dozens of Phoenix Police Officers blocked traffic for the protesters, ensured marchers stayed on the sidewalk, and ensured everyone was safe. Some marchers had family members locked up in immigration detention centers. They demanded that the President not deport those family members and tear apart families. Young marchers called on...

Kriston Charles Belinte Chee was shot to death at the Chandler Walmart. (Source: Arizona Department of Corrections) AP or the police made an interesting choice of words in describing the shooting that took place in the Chandler Walmart.  The AP story says: PHOENIX (AP) — A man who shot and killed another man inside a suburban Phoenix Walmart opened fire in self-defense, Chandler police said Monday.  According to Chandler police, Kyle Wayne Quadlin, 25, shot Kriston Charles Belinte Chee, 36, following a fight at a service counter Sunday afternoon. If Mr. Quadlin did not start the fight, it would...

Salvador Sanchez-Orozco penned a suicide note before squeezing his 2-year-old daughter to death and wrapping a dog leash around his neck in an attempt to kill himself, court records show. The Tacoma-area man pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Thursday in the death of Daveena Sanchez. Pierce County prosecutors also included a special allegation that the victim was particularly vulnerable, which opens him up to the higher end of the sentencing range. Commissioner Meagan Foley ordered Sanchez-Orozco, 26, jailed in lieu of $2 million bail. He has an immigration hold and is barred from contacting his wife or her family,...

PHOENIX - A new state bill would make it against the law for an illegal immigrant to use public resources

TUCSON - A 28-year-old man accused of driving drunk and killing an 18-year-old man in an accident on the south side has been in the country illegally for years with a checkered criminal history. News 4 Tucson learned that Juan Miguel Hernandez-Rodriguez, who was arrested and booked into the Pima County Jail on Saturday, also had an immigration hold placed on him. Hernandez-Rodriguez faces four felony charges, including 2nd degree murder, after a fiery accident on 6th Avenue near the rodeo grounds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed that Hernandez-Rodriguez is a Mexican national and was previously detained at...

Feds deny requests from 3 states to require proof-of-citizenship on voter registration forms WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. Election Assistance Commission found Friday that heightened proof-of-citizenship requirements likely would hinder eligible citizens from voting in federal elections, handing down a ruling that denied requests from Kansas, Arizona and Georgia to modify the registration form for their residents. The decision came just hours before a court-imposed deadline in a lawsuit filed in federal court by Kansas and Arizona that seeks to force the commission to modify state-specific requirements for registering to vote in those states. Georgia, which has a similar...

HOENIX (CBS5) - Arizona remains front and center in the debate over immigration, but the big news this week came from Washington D.C., when U.S. House Speaker John Boehner cast doubts on whether immigration reform will happen this year. Immigration reform activist Erica Andiola was not surprised. The undocumented immigrant and co-founder of the Dream Action Coalition has been leading the fight for change. "We want to be able to understand the politics, but at the same time it's frustrating," said Andiola. "I know they're still thinking about elections and how it will affect their party, but for us undocumented...

Reuters) - Dozens of inmates in Arizona jails run by a sheriff who has been a controversial figure in the national immigration debate have been put on a diet of bread and water for desecrating U.S. flags that hang in each cell, authorities said on Friday. Maricopa County lawman Joe Arpaio, who has been called "America's toughest sheriff," said 38 inmates were currently getting these meals twice a day as punishment for destroying government property while in custody at six jails. "These inmates have destroyed the American flag that was placed in their cells. Tearing them, writing on them, stepping...

BISBEE — The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the reported shooting death of a suspected illegal immigrant by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas said the incident happened around 9 p.m. Thursday approximately one-half mile east of Highway 80 near Apache.The scene of the incident was about 25 miles north of the border and slightly south of Portal, she said. “Sheriff’s deputies and investigators responded to the scene and located a Hispanic male, possibly in his late 20s, who had been shot,” Capas said Friday. According to initial information that county deputies and investigators gleaned at...

A 77-year-old man who was in the home shot at the suspect with a shotgun about 3:19 a.m., said Sgt. Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department. The man told police his house had been burglarized the day before, Thompson said. The intruder, William Thomas Mackey, 30, died at the scene, Thompson said. A pickup truck he drove was found in front of the residence, but Thompson said it was not clear if Mackey was involved in the burglary the day before. "I heard some commotion with all the dogs barking," said a woman identified only as Sandi. She said...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A veteran lawman who oversees embattled police departments in Detroit and Oakland was appointed on Friday to monitor the operations of a controversial Arizona sheriff whose deputies had racially profiled Latino drivers. Robert Warshaw, a former police chief in New York and North Carolina, was appointed by a federal judge to enforce a sweeping court order against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a prominent but divisive figure in the national debate on immigration reform. A federal judge ordered Arpaio in May to stop using race when making law enforcement decisions, in response to a lawsuit that tested...

Second amendment supporters at Arizona Capitol in 2013 A recent poll from the Seattle Times ran through the blogosphere with decidedly positive results for second amendment activists.   In spite of splitting the second amendment supporters with two answers, the total came with 79% in favor of a strict reading of the second amendment (no infringements) and 18 percent in favor of the status quo.   Only 7% were for increased restrictions on second amendment rights, even worded as a "background check" measure. It appears that many people have been educated and have become more sophisticated in their understanding of the...

Jose Patiño is a 25-year-old Dreamer from Arizona who recently appeared in “The Dream is Now” documentary. I was sitting in the kitchen with my mom and her prayer group when one of her friends, Lucero, got a call about her son, Luis, who is in detention. As my mom serves us menudo (spicy Mexican stew), I ask Lucero what happened to her son. She tells me that Luis was detained after a police officer stopped him and discovered he didn’t have a driver’s license. He is now in the Eloy Detention Center. Despite having two U.S. citizen children and...

Armed Arizonans at an Anti-IRS Rally This story in Arizona follows a classic defense of others scenario.  A suspect pulls a gun and points it at an unarmed security officer.   A former Marine, 61 years old, sees the situation and pulls his own gun.  He is concerned not only for the security officer, but his wife, who has just left the store and arrived at the scene.  He orders the suspect to "freeze", but the suspect points her gun at the former Marine, who fires.  The suspect and confederate then flee the scene on a motorcycle.   It...

At the Pima County morgue in Tucson, Ariz., anthropologist Robin Reineke was going through the personal effects of the hundreds of unnamed migrants who try to cross the border between the United States and Mexico each year but instead wind up here among the dead. Reineke co-founded and is the executive director of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, which helps families of border crossers find missing loved ones. It's "important for us to think about the human cost of our border today, the human cost of immigrations," she said.Reineke keeps a locker room filled with personal effects found with...

PINAL COUNTY - An illegal immigrant is arrested in Pinal County and it's discovered he had gained access to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. On Thursday, Dec. 26, at 7 p.m., a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy stopped a 2006 Ford Expedition westbound on Interstate 10 near milepost 180 for a traffic violation. The driver of the vehicle identified himself, using an Arizona Identification Card, as 37-year old Armando Villalobos of Phoenix. The deputy did a routine license and warrant check. Villalobos returned with a "No License" status and a felony warrant for his arrest out of Texas. The warrant showed he...