FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Immigrant Rights Groups Will Hold
Press Conference Outside Joe Arpaio Speech on Saturday

Groups from across the state say
“Arpaio’s Not Welcome in Florida!”

(Orlando, FL, November 12, 2011)
Saturday at 4pm at the Orlando Airport Marriott, groups from around the state
will be holding a press conference to denounce the Eastern Orlando Tea Party’s
invitation of infamous anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio, from Arizona’s
Maricopa County, as the keynote speaker at their election year kickoff event, “Choosing
Liberty 2012” taking place Saturday inside the hotel.

QUOTE
From LCLAA

The
event website promotes the sale of Arpaio’s “Pink Merchandise”, referring to
the pink underwear  he forces his inmates
to wear as humiliation. This is one example of Sheriff Arpaio’s draconian and
racist tactics, which include chain gangs, feeding inmates surplus &
spoiled food, and a tent city outside the jail that Arpaio has called “a
concentration camp,” where at least one inmate has died from heat.

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a clear example
of how local law enforcement can abuse immigration powers by increasing raids,
racially profiling anyone that looks immigrant, and creating fear in the
community instead of protecting it from real crime,” says María Rodriguez
from the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

Arpaio
was instrumental in the passage of Arizona’s SB1070 in 2010. The law, which has
been partially enjoined in federal court, mandates that police investigate
immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion,” a provision which many have
deemed the legalization of racial profiling. Florida immigrant rights activists
helped spur the state to reject similar provisions in Florida this past
legislative session, staging protests and sit-ins in the capital building.

“Here
in Lake Worth, we’ve already seen the chilling effects of Secure Communities.
We proved it last year, and we’ll continue to demonstrate that Florida is no
place for racist laws or Arpaios,” said Radym Davis of the Palm Beach
Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

The
invitation of Brandon Darby, an activist-turned-FBI informant, as a presenter
at the Tea Party event has also sparked reactions from the environmental
movement.

“What is the
Tea Party celebrating by exalting Arpaio and Darby, two people whose main goal
has been imprisoning innocent people? This sounds more like the British empire
than the American Revolution.”  —Panagioti Tsolkas, activist with
Everglades Earth First!

Contact:

Victor Sanchez

Central Florida LCLAA  (Labor Council for Latin American Advancement)

Chapter President

 407-924-1802