The job is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous as illegal aliens use more remote paths to avoid stepped up enforcement along the vast U.S.-Mexico border, according to testimony delivered recently by the director of Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality. The state official, Henry Darwin, recently testified before an Arizona Senate committee in charge of border security and other related matters.

Each year illegal immigrants leave behind an estimated 2,000 tons of trash—including soiled diapers, plastic bottles and abandoned vehicles—in public Arizona lands along the border, Darwin said, and it’s becoming tougher to clean up the huge mess. “These are dangerous areas,” Darwin told the panel. “These are known areas of illegal immigration, illegal drug trafficking.”

Getting cleanup crews and equipment to these increasingly remote portions of the desert is, not only tough, but also hazardous. Camp sites set up by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers are the most difficult to clean up, Darwin said, and rain often washes trash into drainages before state workers have a chance to clean it up.

The problem is so severe that the state created a special web site dedicated to trash along Arizona’s 370-mile border with Mexico. It includes pictures of southern border areas covered with piles of waste as well as alarming statistics. For instance, the thousands of tons of trash discarded by illegal immigrants annually is having a detrimental environmental impact and affecting the area’s human health and the economic wellbeing.

Listed examples include strewn trash and piles, illegal trails and paths, erosion and watershed degradation, damaged infrastructure and property and loss of vegetation and wildlife. There is also lots of vandalism, graffiti and damage to historical and archaeological sites. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers pick up the exorbitant tab to clean it up. This so-called “landfill fee” ranges from $37 to $49 per ton in southern Arizona and that doesn’t even include costs for materials, equipment, labor and transportation.

For years American taxpayers have financed never-ending cleanup efforts along the southern border. That’s because millions of pounds of trash and human waste are left by illegal immigrants who cross through federal and state parks during their trek from Mexico into the U.S. A few years ago the federal government invested $63 million to clean up 25 million pounds of trash in the country’s most prized national forests, including Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and California’s Cleveland National Forest.

The effort barely put a dent on the problem because federal officials say the trash piles up at a much faster rate than it can be cleaned up. This continues to “cause extraordinary damage to natural resources and facilities,” according to congressional testimony delivered a few years ago by a high-ranking U.S. Forest official.

The case comes from San Luis, a Mexican border town in southwestern Arizona with about 25,000 mostly Hispanic residents. U.S.-born Alejandrina Cabrera, who graduated from a public high school in Arizona, is running for a spot on the town’s council yet she barely speaks English. Her attorneys claim that forcing her off the ballot over the language barrier is a violation of her civil rights.

But since 1910, Arizona law has required “that ability to read, write, speak, and understand the English language sufficiently well to conduct the duties of the office without the aid of an interpreter shall be a necessary qualification for all state officers. . . .” Additionally, a measure making English the official state language was approved by an overwhelming 74% of Arizona voters in 2007.

This week Yuma County Superior Court Judge John Nelson ordered Alejandrina’s name stricken from the March ballot after a lengthy hearing that started in the morning and continued into the night, according to a local newspaper report. The judge heard testimony from a sociolinguistics expert who said Cabrera failed to demonstrate English proficiency and Cabrera was not able to respond to questions posed to her in English in court proceedings.

Judge Nelson ruled Cabrera wasn’t qualified to run for office because her English language skills were “only a minimal survival range.” The case reached court after the San Luis City Council approved a motion earlier this month asking for verification that Cabrera meets the state requirement that any person holding public office must speak, write and read English.

In the days leading up to the court hearing, Cabrera was quoted in a mainstream newspaper story admitting that she speaks “little English” and, though she graduated from an Arizona high school, she spent much of her childhood in Mexico.  She said in San Luis, few speak English; “You go to a market, it’s Spanish,” Cabrera said. “You go to a doctor, it’s Spanish. When you pay the bills for the lights or water, it’s Spanish.”

As if to justify this, the same article points out that more than 90% of the population in San Luis is Mexican-American and that “Latino civil rights leader” Cesar Chavez died there. Typical of mainstream media coverage of these sorts of matters, the story seems to omit a very important fact; San Luis is in the United States of America.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that that the Court of Appeals, State of Arizona, Division One has reversed a ruling by the Maricopa County Superior Court that shielded from release Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s security detail logs (Judicial Watch, Inc. v City of Phoenix (No. CV 2010-015452)). Now the City of Phoenix must redact information it deems sensitive and release the records to Judicial Watch within a “reasonable timeframe.”

According to the appellate court ruling issued by the three-judge panel on December 22, 2011:

Judicial Watch, Inc. appeals the superior court’s denial of special action relief after the City of Phoenix refused to produce activity logs created by the Phoenix Police Department detail assigned to protect Phil Gordon, Mayor of Phoenix. The City cross-appeals the court’s ruling that the Mayor’s privacy interest in the worksheets did not overcome the presumption favoring inspection.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment to the extent it decides that on this record, the City failed to demonstrate that the Mayor’s privacy interest outweighs the public’s interest in inspecting the worksheets. We reverse the judgment, however, insofar as it concludes that the City is not required to redact security-related and confidential information and then produce the worksheets for inspection. We remand with instructions to enter a judgment requiring such redaction and inspection within a reasonable timeframe.

The City of Phoenix argued that redacting sensitive information from the records (deemed “worksheets” by the city) was not “necessary” because the resulting documents would be identical to the public annotated calendar previously released to the public. The City also argued that the process of redacting the information was not “feasible” because it would be “unduly burdensome” for city officials. After reviewing the security logs and the annotated calendar, the court concluded “that redaction of security-related and confidential information from the Worksheets would result in a document containing information that is different than any reflected in the Annotated Calendar.” The court also ruled that the City has “not met its burden” to demonstrate that the process of redaction would be “unduly burdensome.”

“This decision has a potential to increase government transparency for the entire state of Arizona. We’re pleased the appellate court has finally put an end to the run-around perpetrated by the City of Phoenix. From the beginning, this was nothing more than a simple open records request and there is no reason to conceal these records unless Mayor Gordon has something to hide,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We look forward to receiving these records and to completing the public record regarding allegations Mayor Gordon has misused his taxpayer funded security detail.”

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on December 11, 2009, seeking “all activity logs for Mayor Gordon’s Security Detail.” After the City of Phoenix stonewalled the request, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on May 17, 2010. Judicial Watch believes these records could, among other things, shed light on possible misuse of taxpayer resources to further a personal relationship between Mayor Gordon, scheduled to leave office on January 3, 2012, and his chief campaign fundraiser Elissa Mullaney. Gordon admitted in December 2009 to a romantic relationship with Mullaney. (Both Gordon and Mullaney are married but separated from their spouses.) Press reports have suggested that Gordon’s security detail was used to transport Mullaney at taxpayer expense, which could be in violation of the law.

Since 2005, Mullaney’s company has also received more than $340,000 in fees to raise funds for Gordon’s campaigns and to work on other City initiatives. Mullaney received $200,000 of these funds after she and Gordon initiated their relationship. Former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Thomas A. Zlaket, hired by Gordon to review the matter, cleared the Mayor of any wrongdoing in this specific instance, noting the state’s conflict of interest law does not cover girlfriends, only family members.

Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis singled out Alabama this month, reminding state officials that their new law to curb illegal immigration invalidates employment contracts for undocumented aliens who are guaranteed the federal minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Alabama’s law took effect earlier this year and requires everyone to prove legal residency to get a job, enroll in school, register a car or rent housing. 

Shortly after the measure took effect, the Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged it in court, claiming that it conflicts with federal immigration law and undermines the federal government’s “careful balance of immigration enforcement priorities and objectives.”  The DOJ also hates that the law is designed to affect virtually every aspect of an “unauthorized immigrant’s daily life” and that it criminalizes their “mere unlawful presence.”

Solis, a former California congresswoman with close ties to the influential open borders movement, has vowed to help all illegal immigrants who have worked in Alabama and “whose right to the federal minimum wage or overtime pay has been violated.” In a DOL blog post this month she assures that the Obama Administration is fighting the state’s immigration control law but until the “courts strike it down” it is “critical that all workers in Alabama know their federal rights.” 

Here is another interesting excerpt from Solis’s article: “Our federal government—under both Republican and Democratic presidents—has long held that all people working in this country have the right to the federal minimum wage, regardless of immigration status…Farm workers must have their wages paid on time. Employers must provide their terms of employment in writing. And, if an employer provides housing or transportation, it must be safe.”

The nation’s Labor Secretary goes on to criticize the Alabama measure for making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to enter into a business transaction, such as signing an apartment lease or getting utility service. “Imprisoning those who seek shelter and basic sustenance runs counter to the universal rights of all free people. It’s beneath the dignity of this great nation,” she wrote.

Solis ends the piece with a tear-jerker, quoting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Geneva speech where she reminds the world that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Governments cannot confer these rights because they are the “birthright of all people,” according to the Clinton speech quoted by Solis. “These basic rights extend to immigrants living in Alabama,” Solis concludes.  

Since Obama appointed her to run the DOL Solis has launched a number of costly initiatives to help illegal immigrants and her agency has given the open borders most powerful group, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), more than $5 million to promote its leftist agenda via a network of community organizations dedicated to serving Latinos.  

Under Solis the DOL launched a special program with 1,000 investigators dedicated to enforcing labor and wage laws in industries that typically hire lots of illegal aliens without reporting anyone to federal immigration authorities. The agency has also dedicated nearly $11 million to foreign-language programs that help workers with “low literacy or limited English proficiency” and entered formal agreements with Central American countries vowing to preserve the rights of their migrants working in the U.S.  

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“Under a newly enacted Arizona law, the Legislature has been authorized to defend S.B. 1070….Through this Motion, the Legislature now seeks permission to intervene as a defendant (joining the State of Arizona and Governor Brewer) for the purpose of defending its enactment, S.B. 1070, and the interests of the people of Arizona,” the Arizona State Legislature argued in its “Motion to Intervene,” filed on February 11, 2011, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. “The Legislature…has a paramount interest in seeing that [the law’s] enactment is upheld.”

In addition to its “Motion to Intervene,” Judicial Watch also filed a “Proposed Answer in Intervention” with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona legislature. The court filing counters the allegations proffered by the Obama Justice Department in its original July 6, 2010, complaint challenging S.B. 1070. Among the Arizona legislature’s key arguments:

• “[The Arizona Legislature] has a right to protect its citizens.
• “Arizona has a right to self defense under the Constitution, particularly when the federal government fails to protect it,”
• “[The Arizona Legislature] complied with all relevant federal, state, and local laws, including the Arizona Constitution and the [U.S.] Constitution” in crafting S.B. 1070.
• “S.B. 1070 is not preempted by federal law or the Constitution. SB 1070 does not conflict with federal law, does not constitute an improper regulation of immigration, and Congress has not fully occupied the field.”

On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law S.B. 1070, legislation that, among other provisions, makes it a crime to be in the State of Arizona without proper documentation. On July 6, 2010, the Obama Justice Department filed a lawsuit challenging the law and requesting a preliminary injunction preventing the law from being enforced. On July 28, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton allowed some provisions of the law to be enforced while granting the Obama administration an injunction on other key provisions until the Court could determine whether or not these provisions are constitutional. The State of Arizona appealed Judge Bolton’s ruling which is now under review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“The Arizona State Legislature represents the people of Arizona and is right to defend S.B. 1070 against the Obama administration’s legal assault. The people of Arizona have suffered the effects of rampant illegal immigration for far too long. The Obama administration has taken a dangerous and nonsensical approach to illegal immigration, failing to secure the borders while at the same time attacking Arizona for simply trying to enforce the law and protect its citizens. We look forward to standing with the Arizona State Legislature, Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce, Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams and the people of Arizona in defense of the rule of law,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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