EthnicMajority

(UPI) Hispanic leaders in Phoenix say Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio should resign following a court ruling that his officers engage in racial profiling.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow also said in his decision Friday that being in the United States illegally is not grounds for arrest.

Antonio Bustamente of Los Abogados, the Arizona Hispanic Bar Association, called Snow's ruling "monumentally important," The Arizona Republic reported. Bustamente appeared with other leaders at a news conference Monday at the El Portal restaurant in Phoenix.

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(The Hill) Democrats are counting on enthusiastic support from Hispanics to propel them to victory one year from now, even though a lack of progress on immigration reform under President Obama and increasingly harsh rhetoric from Republicans has left many Hispanics disenchanted with both parties.

Increasingly, no party or candidate with an eye toward Washington can afford not to appeal to this fastest-growing voter bloc in the country. Hispanics supported Obama by a two-to-one margin in the 2008 election over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), then set a record for midterm voter turnout in 2010 when 6.6 million Hispanics showed up to the polls, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Obama remains much more popular with Hispanics than he does with the overall population. A poll released Nov. 8 by Univision/Latino Decisions showed 48 percent of Americans overall approved of his job performance; among Hispanics, it’s 66 percent.

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(Los Angeles Times) Increased immigration from South Asia helped fuel the rapid growth in the number of Asian Americans over the last decade as well as an influx of Asians to states such as Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data released Wednesday.

Growing numbers of Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis and other South Asians highlight the increasing diversity of Asian Americans in the U.S. and the need for policymakers to understand that diversity, according to “A Community of Contrasts,” published by the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.

Looking at Asian Americans as a single group masks the distinct social and economic needs of the various ethnicities involved, said Dan Ichinose, director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center’s Demographic Research Project. For example, while 23% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans lack health insurance, only 8% of Japanese Americans do.

And while 26% of Hmong Americans and 20% of Bangladeshi Americans live below the poverty line, only 6% of Filipinos and 8% of Indians do.

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(FoxNews) The NFL’s decision to pick Arizona this week to host the Super Bowl in 2015 has outraged some Hispanic activists who had organized a boycott of the state after a controversial immigration law passed last year.

“In light of Arizona’s hate-based legislation, the action taken by the NFL serves as an endorsement of the state’s abhorrent actions against the Latino and migrant communities,” said Margaret Moran, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest Hispanic civil rights group in the country.

“Instead of supporting efforts that would encourage stakeholders and community leaders to build alliances and re-direct state politics away from hate-based legislation, the NFL has chosen to prove an economic shot in the arm to state that will only continue to oppress an already disadvantaged community.”

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(Phoenix Business Journal) The National Football League    across the country and the Arizona Cardinals in the Phoenix market are stretching their leads over their competitors when it comes to marketing to Hispanic fans and fostering their loyalty.

“Without question, Hispanic sports fans are migrating to the Cardinals in greater numbers,” said Ray Artigue, CEO of the Artigue Agency communications firm in Scottsdale and a former executive with the Phoenix Suns    . “Historically baseball loyalists, Hispanics are also becoming football fans. And, research shows that the NFL is starting to dominate this audience segment.”

Artigue is also former head the sports MBA program at Arizona State University    .

Cardinals vice president Mark Dalton points to an ESPN poll showing Hispanic fans list the NFL as their favorite American sport. Twenty-six percent of Hispanic fans in the ESPN poll say the NFL is their favorite sport compared to 9 percent each for baseball and basketball. That mirrors other polls of all U.S. sports fans showing the NFL as the most popular sport.

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(Minneapolis Star Tribune) One of the nation's most prominent Hispanic groups is calling off a boycott of Arizona it imposed in May 2010 over the enactment of a controversial immigration law.

The National Council of La Raza says it's canceling the boycott because it successfully discouraged other states from enacting similar laws.

The Washington-based group says it and two associated groups will ask other organizations to suspend their Arizona boycotts.

La Raza says the boycott spurred political results in Arizona. That included an increase in Latino voters and defeat of a measure that would have changed how U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are granted citizenship.

The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/oev88V) says Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's office sent La Raza letters last month asking it to end the boycotts and work toward immigration reform.

(NPR) Just as the Tea Party drew heavily on a public backlash against government spending, another new political movement — the Tequila Party — aims to use the latest crackdown on illegal immigration to motivate Latinos to vote in 2012.

Arizona Republican DeeDee Garcia Blase formed the National Tequila Party Movement as an answer to a Tea Party influence she blames for increased political opposition to immigration.

The group has no aspirations to become a third political party. Its focus will be registering as many of the nation's 21 million voting-age Latinos as it can, targeting young voters in presidential battleground states.

Unlike the Tea Party groups, which have generally aligned with Republicans, the Tequila Party pledges no allegiance to either major party. Blase has dropped her affiliation as a lifelong Republican — and plans to resign as president of Somos Republicans — to protest the Republican-led immigration enforcement law passed in her home state of Arizona. The Tequila Party held its launch party in Tucson last month.

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(Examiner.com) Phoenix Latino civil rights groups Chicanos Unidos Arizona, Nuestros Reconquistos, and Take Back Aztlán met at the Phoenix Public Library Monday morning to support Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity efforts . There has been some backlash against her efforts, but Cecilia Maldonado of Chicanos Unidos Arizona feels Michelle Obama is doing the right thing.

“Latino children need to learn about the negative effects of obesity, especially since they are already discriminated against because of their skin color. Michelle Obama has pledged to help get the message to Latino children and we praise her for that.

Manuel Longoria of Nuestros Reconquistos believes that places like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and other fast food restaurants should be banned. “These fast food places have caused millions of heart attacks and are bad for children of all races.”

(Fox Phoenix) Controversy always follows Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration raids, and now one of them is proving costly.

Maricopa County has agreed to pay out $200,000 dollars to two men who were caught up in one raid.

They were detained along with others who were in the country illegally — the only problem is — they weren't illegal immigrants.

This stems back to an incident that took place two years ago, on Feb. 11, 2009. Julian Mora and his son Julio claim their civil rights were violated when they were stopped and detained during that illegal immigration raid.

A federal court judge ruled that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office violated the 4th Amendment in stopping and arresting the Moras, and Thursday, the two received compensation.

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(Fox Sports) Major league players still oppose Arizona's controversial immigration law, though their union boss said not to expect any boycott of Tuesday's All-Star Game.

"Our nation continues to wrestle with serious issues regarding immigration, prejudice and the protection of individual liberties," Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Michael Weiner said in a statement released on Friday. "Those matters will not be resolved at Chase Field, nor on any baseball diamond; instead they will be addressed in Congress and in statehouses and in courts by those charged to find the right balance among the competing and sincerely held positions brought to the debate."

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law in April 2010, legislation that sought to give state law enforcement officers authority to enforce immigration law. But lawsuits — including one led by the Department of Justice — have kept key provisions of the law from being implemented.

That's good enough for the MLBPA, which railed against SB 1070 a year ago and said it would take "additional steps necessary to protect the rights and interests of our members." About a quarter of major league players are Hispanic.

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