TPD no longer will call Border Patrol to schools
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Tuesday morning's protest, and a quick response by police and school officials to review the issue of immigration laws being enforced at schools, was a good lesson in civic responsibility and respect.
"This could have been ugly or a lesson in civics. You conducted yourselves well," Tucson police Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor told about 100 protesters, mostly from Catalina High Magnet School, where a student thought to be under the influence of drugs and cited for narcotics possession was sent back to Mexico along with the rest of his family.
The Nov. 1 incident at the school resulted in rumors that Border Patrol officials were raiding schools.
Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer told the protesters "What you did will result in a real look at what happened and the requested change."
Now, he said, "I challenge you to another level: Schools need to be places where this issue needs to be discussed. Campuses need discourse, just like TPD and TUSD. Do that."
And, he urged, "write. Write to newspapers. Write blogs. Put your writing skills to work and send them to where they will be head by a larger group."
Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Coalition de Derechos Humanos and winner of the 2005 Human Rights Award from the Mexican Commission on Human Rights, brought another perspective to Tuesday's event.
She was an example of how someone can step up and ask these type of questions to police and school district officials:
Did the police give the Miranda rights to the family before they ascertained by them that they were in the United States illegally?
Would TUSD officials physically stand at the school gates against Border Patrol officials if they were coming on campus?
Patti Lopez, TUSD's highest ranking minority as deputy superintendent, spoke with students after the TUSD-TPD meeting.
She asked students to help get the word out that all students need to obey the law. "If you, or anyone does something illegal, there will be consequences." And sometimes, those consequences are increased for illegal immigrants.
As the protest began to break up, Superintendent Pfeuffer went around asking students, "What are your plans for the rest of the day?" Most said they were going to school.
"Do you have ways to get back?" he said.
There were cars to take some of them. Pfeuffer and other district officials decided to take others, and Pfeuffer even left money of his own with some who wanted to take the city bus.
There was a district truant officer at the protest, but he wasn't taking names. Instead, he also was loading his car to take students back to school.
A TUSD spokesperson said students participating in the march can be given an "excused" absence if their parents call the school or send a note saying they were out of school for "personal" reasons.
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The Tucson Police Department will no longer call the Border Patrol to schools or churches when officers determine that suspects in their investigations are illegal immigrants.
The decision was prompted by protests sparked by the deportation to Mexico of a man and the voluntary return with him of his wife and two sons. The family had told police they had been here illegally for six years.
The incident occurred after police were called to TUSD's Catalina High Magnet School on Thursday because one of the sons in the family allegedly was found in possession of marijuana there.
School officials said the 17-year-old also appeared to be under the influence of a narcotic substance.
On Tuesday morning, more than 100 students, mostly from Catalina, gathered outside TPD headquarters, 270 S. Stone Ave., to protest the removal of the boy and his family by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Police called Border Patrol officials after they had been told by the family that is had been in the country illegally, police officials said.
But the students, some carrying signs including "Migra (immigration agents) out of our schools," said they should not be afraid they might be yanked from their classrooms by immigration police.
In Arizona, public school districts are forbidden by law to deny an education to any school-age child living here, Tucson Unified School District officials said.
The district's stance on the issue was clear: "We don't want immigration laws enforced on our campuses," said TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer.
He, deputy superintendent Patti Lopez and police officials including Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor, met as the protesters waited in a orderly fashion outside the station.
Pfeuffer said Villaseñor came out to speak with students after their meeting and pointed out that police never would have called the Border Patrol if police hadn't been called to the school for criminal activity.
Villaseñor said police have to ask the question of citizenship when they are taking someone into custody.
Community activist Isabel Garcia questioned that action. And, she added, "You should not have called Border Patrol onto campus."
Villaseñor said Tuesday afternoon that TPD would no longer call the Border Patrol to churches or schools, although it will cooperate with the Border Patrol.
The removal of the family prompted rumors of high school immigration raids, which were hotly denied by police and TUSD authorities.
The peaceful demonstration started about 10:15 a.m. and lasted about two hours.
"We should be safe in school," said Ener Lopez, 14, a ninth-grader at Catalina, 3645 E. Pima St.
Araceli Sanchez, also 14 and a ninth-grader at the school, conceded the arrested 17-year-old student and his family were in the United States illegally, "but, he was just another student."
"We think that shouldn't be allowed, because school is where we're supposed to be safe," said Mario Portillo, 16, a Catalina 11th-grader whom students identified as one of the protest organizers.
"No matter if you're an illegal alien, you have the right to an education," Portillo said.
"How can we learn if we've scared the Border Patrol is going to come for us," said senior Jorge Guerrero, 18.
Pfeuffer told students at the demonstration that although "the school's got to be a safe place. . . . Obviously, we can't condone illegal activity."
Citizen Staff Writer Carli Brosseau contributed to this article.
1. There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools, no
special ballots for elections, and all government business will be
conducted in our language.
2. Foreigners will NOT have the right to vote, no matter how long they
are here.
3. Foreigners will NEVER be able to hold political office.
4. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no
food stamps, no health care, nor any other government assistance
programs.
5. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount
equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
6. If foreigners do come and want to buy land that will be okay, BUT
options will be restricted. You are not allowed to own water front
property. That property
is reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
7. Foreigners may not protest; no demonstrations, no waving a foreign
flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his
policies. If you do, you will be sent home.
8. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be hunted down
and sent straight to jail.
Harsh, you say?...The above laws happen to be the immigration laws of
"MEXICO"!
and people wonder why we can't progress?
prime example right here.