Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in downtown Phoenix Feb. 28 to protest Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and policies that critics charge violate basic human and civil rights. Organizers estimated the number of marchers at more than 5,000. Soon after the march began, Phoenix police blocked traffic to Central Ave. and allowed demonstrators to fill the street, because of their overwhelming numbers—despite the fact that the march had lacked a permit).

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco Feb. 27 denied an appeal by the Department of Justice seeking to stop a lawsuit brought by an Islamic charity alleging it was the subject of an illegal wiretap by the National Security Agency (NSA). The denial upholds last month's ruling by US District Judge Vaughn Walker allowing the case brought by the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation to go forward.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has called for a review of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workplace immigration raid that occurred in Bellingham, WA, on Feb. 24. In a hearing one day later, Napolitano told lawmakers that she was not made aware of the raid which resulted in the arrest of 28 Mexicans and Central Americans. The ICE raid on the Yamato Engine Specialists plant was the first since President Barack Obama took office, and sparked protests by local immigrants' rights groups. Most of those arrested are being detained at a federal facility in Tacoma and face deportation.

From the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Feb. 16:

ALBANY, NY — On February 12, 2009, in Orchard Park, Buffalo, NY, forty-four year-old Muzzamil Hassan, a prominent Muslim businessman, was arrested for having allegedly beheaded his wife, thirty-seven year-old Aasiya Z. Hassan. What was Aasiya's crime? Why, Aasiya was having Muzzamil served with divorce papers. And apparently, on February 6, Aasiya obtained an order of protection which had forced her violent husband out of their home.

A trial started last week in federal court in Tucson against vigilante rancher Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald—all charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of undocumented immigrants who crossed through his sprawling property along the Mexican border near Douglas, AZ. Attorneys for the immigrants—five women and 11 men—accuse Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, brutalizing one, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape. The 16 migrants are seeking $32 million in actual and punitive damages.

The blog Green is the New Red notes Feb. 5 that environmental activist and mother of two Marie Mason was sentenced to 21 years for her role in an arson attack 10 years ago at a Michigan State University biotech lab—in which nobody was injured. The FBI nonetheless hyped the case as "domestic terrorism." Lansing's WLNS TV reported that the town was on "high alert" following FBI warnings that Animal Liberation Front "terrorists" might attend the sentencing at the federal courthouse. Three days earlier, an FBI press release announced guilty pleas from four young men who carried out racist assauls on New York's Staten Island the night of Barack Obama's election victory. As we noted, one of the victims, a teen-aged Liberian immigrant, had his scalp ripped open with baseball bats. The press release informs us that another, "whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American," was run over with a car and remained in coma for weeks. Three of the men received 10-year terms; a fourth who held out before copping a plea received 12 years. Mason, like the Staten Island thugs, also copped a plea—but on significantly harsher terms.

On Feb. 4, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County marched shackled immigrants in black-striped jail uniforms through the streets of Phoenix from the Durango Jail to a new Tent City he has erected to hold them, surrounded by an electric fence. The degrading spectacle was a blatant publicity stunt to promote Arpaio's new Fox Reality Channel TV program. Meanwhile, Arizona's ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano, the new Homeland Security secretary, has called for a review of immigration enforcement measures—including 287g, which allows local police to enforce federal civil immigration law. Maricopa County has entered into a 287g agreement with the federal government that gives Sheriff Arpaio broad powers to detain immigrants—whether or not they are accused of committing criminal offenses.

Details are still sketchy of an inmate uprising at a privately-operated federal detention facility in West Texas Jan. 31. Reports in the US and Mexican press suggest the revolt, involving hundreds prisoners at the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos erupted after complaints of poor medical treatment went unheeded. Initial accounts report the uprising spanned two days, with inmates setting fires and possibly even seizing guards' radio communication equipment. An unidentified Reeves County official earlier told El Diario de El Paso the situation was “dangerous” inside the facility managed by the Geo Group.