The Migrant Trail: Walk a mile in their shoes

Illegal immigrants. Beheadings. Drug trafficking in the desert. Gang violence in Mexico. SB1070. Yada, yada, yada...

Rightly or wrongly, Arizona's SB1070 pushed immigration and border issues to the forefront in this election season.

Misinformation about immigration and the border abounds. For people who want to know more about migrants, gangs, the drug trade, and how it all relates to Americans, I suggest these movies:

- El Norte

- Sin Nombre

- Maria Full of Grace

- Traffic

- Plan Columbia

Watch these and then tell me who the real victims are. I'll give you a hint: It's related to poverty... on both sides of the border.

Arpaio on a hit list? So, what else is new?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a media whore.

The big news out of Maricopa County yesterday was that (reportedly) a Mexican drug cartel has put a $1 million reward on Arpaio's head.

So, what else is new?

Arpaio has built his nationwide reputation as the toughest sheriff in the US on the backs of inmates and immigrants. I suspect there has been a price on his head for many years-- thanks to his notoriously poor treatment for inmates and his immigrant sweeps in Phoenix, as well as in the deserts around it.

CNN and other major news channels are carrying the story ab out Arpaio's text message threat today. I found a link to the text message image on theNoisy Room blog.

Right off the bat, I'm suspicious of this text message. Do drug dealers have particularly bad spelling skills? Here is an excerpt:

"Miyon d dolares por la k?besa d arpayo i dies mil dls por kualkier amerikano ..."

I can't even count the numbers of spelling errors in this message fragment. I can understand that Mexican drug dealers may not be able to spell English words very well, but this text looks like really poor Spanglish. I can see spelling a few words wrong to make the message harder to trace, but, personally, I think this looks like a hoax.