
John Moore / Getty Images
Immigrant inmates line up for breakfast. Striped uniforms and pink undergarments are standard issue at the facility.

John Moore / Getty Images
An immigrant inmate exercises while another sits on his bunk at the Maricopa County Tent City jail on March 11, 2013. Striped uniforms and pink undergarments are standard issue at the facility.

John Moore / Getty Images
A deputy leads a tour group at the Maricopa County Tent City jail.
The tent jail, run by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, houses undocumented immigrants who are serving up to one year after being convicted of crime in the county. Many of the immigrants have lived in the U.S. for years, often with families. Most will be deported to Mexico after serving their sentences.
Sheriff Arpaio has come under scrutiny for his record on immigration enforcement, including lawsuits accusing him of civil rights violations and racial profiling. He recently won his sixth four-year term as sheriff.

John Moore / Getty Images
An immigrant inmate reads on his bunk at the Maricopa County Tent City jail on March 11, 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona.

John Moore / Getty Images
Immigrant inmates eat breakfast at the Maricopa County Tent City jail.

John Moore / Getty Images
A minister leads immigrant inmates during a Protestant church service at the Maricopa County Tent City jail.


Arizona temperatures fall at night as soon as the sun goes down. I know these people must be cold. Inhumane.
We need thousands more of these encampments to help throw out the millions of illegals all over the country- there's our reform plan!
Hey profreedom STUFF IT! The first people that need to go into these jails/prisons are the white angos from the original settlers that stole the lands and murdered the Native people of this country Native people of the Americas THE INDIANS this does include Mexican, Salvadorian ect.. the Native people of the Americas!!! Bigoted Gringo Garbage!
E. Reyes - This country is now The United States of America - deal with it. These people should come here legally. Just because someone is against illegal immigration does not mean they are a bigot. These illegal immigrants need to obey the law and come here the right way. They are a drain on our economy and they are breaking the law. We cannot support 11 million illegal aliens, we are in financial trouble and they are a big part of the problem. The immigration laws need to be reformed but these illegal aliens need to obey our laws if they want to become citizens. Also, you are the ones who seems to be a bit of a bigot, just sayin...
On every rural and national media where I draft my commentary or blogs, write about their anger and frustration about illegal immigration but does nothing to curb this very troubling financially draining issue? Hundreds of thousands of average Americans who are either citizens or green card holders have a lot to complain about, but remain silent when it comes to contacting directly their Senate or Congressional House members in Washington. These usually prudent people put up a merry dance on the internet or even print newspapers but do not contact their Representatives at either the federal or state level. Have they no sense of commitment to the honest immigrants, who had to hire an immigration attorney, pay fees, take a medical examination, and check any criminal backgrounds, while illegal aliens are smuggled in and use their children to live of the rest of us. How are they able to do this? By smuggling their unborn or ready to conceive babies into our country through a highly controversial border, or passing undetected immigration agents as tourists, visitors or students. Once inside our nation they claim instant citizenship for the child/children, which give them access to all the citizen rights. Hundreds of billions of dollars in your taxes in education, section 8 housing and health care and free baby deliveries. While citizens work to put food on the table, the illegal mothers are akin to parasites feeding of the host—the United States population. Once here they deliver as many babies as they can, because they know the federal, state and municipal government will support them. Food stamps for each child, women, infants and children (WIC) and a lump sum they collect with their EMT card of around $600.00 for each infant. THIS IS LEGAL THEFT.
The traitors have drafted a law that will give these criminals all a Path to Citizenship, while honest immigrants sit at home in some foreign country sometimes for years waiting to be processed. The gang of 8, is about to sign a financial death warrant, because all these 11 million to 25 million plus illegal aliens, who can later sponsor their aging parents will need welfare, health care and a place to live. According to the reputable Conservative “Think Tank” giving a legitimized path to stay in America will cost us $2.4 TRILLION DOLLARS by the time they have been processed and assigned a Social Security number. Even with that breathless amount of money the hordes that enter America daily is costing the state’s $113 Billion dollars annually, that taxpayers are given the bill. The only winners in this mockery of our “Rule of Laws” are the profit takers, corporations, agriculture who pay nothing for their upkeep. Visas for top skilled workers should be tightly scrutinized and manual Guest labor should be regulated and must leave when their visa runs out. Right now both skilled workers are poorly officially organized and illegal Guest Workers not at all?
All those complainers better speak up now or this country is in even worse financial trouble, than we are now. Hundreds of thousands more can be expected to be climbing border fences, crossing the desert, lakes, rivers at the border in the hundreds of miles of nothing but some rusty barbed wire. They will arrive in large numbers on planes on passenger planes to disappear, until the new immigration amnesty is signed. April seems to be the deadline for any action from the halting this illegal immigration bill.
Don't insult the citizens and legal resident with your pro-illegal alien diatribe from this group of 8 traitors? After the so called immigration reform package, we should ALL be issued with a federal photo ID identification card with a thumb print and retinal scan and a real double layer fence as the 2006 Secure Fence Act imposed. Any person who believes America has been invaded by penniless, illiterate foreigners, where English is not the principle language any more. EVERY AMERICAN Should sign a petition against the Gang of Eight's proposal and other nonchalant lawmakers who are in disagreement with the 23 million unemployed Americans at: NumberUSA YOU can also contact every Representative demanding no Amnesty and no Path to Citizenship at 202) 224-3121, the Central Washington switchboard. YOU THE CITIZEN VOTER/ LEGAL RESIDENT HAS MORE INFLUENCE OVER CONGRESS, IF THEY CALL AND DEMAND NO PATH TO CITIZENSHIP.
IT IS TIME TO SPEAK UP OR SUFFER THE FINANCIAL AND IRREPAIRABLE CONSEQUENCES.
Dave Francis: Yeah, and in the meantime shoot all the AMERICANS who smuggle those illegals, and pay them meager salaries so they can fill their greedy pockets while you go and buy their products. Let's kill all the AMERICAN drug addicts that purchase drugs coming from abroad, they are parasites for you anyway. Why would you want to give visas to top skilled workers? If the AMERICAN companies have more pleasure sending their jobs overseas where they are going to save more costs on labor and then increase their profit margin. Ask yourself why Walmart buys everything MADE IN CHINA while it posts record profits (an example, you cannot compete with a guy in China getting paid 19 cents an hour when over here you have to pay mandatory 7.65). Second, there is not such a thing as a 'reputable' conservative think tank.
Don't insult the people's intelligence with your hatemongering discourse. Let's for starters seize the companies that sent their jobs overseas to make more money at the expense of the american worker? But, heck... it sounds too communist for your taste. You are such a hypocrite looking at the problem from one side only...
With so many wonderful oppurtunities for them in their own country, I don't know why they even come here, to face such abuse and hatred, the law, the risks of getting here, at all. As the song goes, 'people are strange', I guess that must apply here.
Leon: Opportunities for whom? They have no opportunity in their countries as long as they maintain a system that benefits one group and not everyone. That is the reason why Latin America is turning to the far left. I lived over there and unfortunately, if you are from European descent you have a standing chance, if your descent is from the natives your chances to succeed in those countries are very slim. Countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, even Peru or Ecuador, they all share the same dilemma. A powerful European class and a minimized native class. In Peru you will find that the middle class Peruvian will have their 'maid', and that maid is...? Yeah, descendant from the natives (you will not find anyone of European descent doing domestic chores). Ecuador has the same problem, few families owning most of the land and the production and the rest of the locals sharing the crumbs. That is why when you see guys praising the masses against what they call the 'capital', people follow them blindly. Because they are tired of having a rich European class, supported by the military and with the blessing of the church. Those people see no other option than to take the risks and come over here to find a future (at least here, even being illegals, is still better than the prospect in their own countries). Look at the picture over the article and tell when you find any illegal immigrant from European descent. Those come in planes, do their regular shopping, go to Disney on vacation and then return to their homes abroad, they don't want to stay here when they are living the life over there. But people do not understand that part of the problem, they tend to think that those people love to leave their roots, their families, their traditions and sometimes their language to come over here to leave under the rug.
justiceforall-2038290, the point I was trying to make is that for most of them, they have to take their chances here, because there, they have no chance at all. they're desperados. Sad that a nation as 'blessed' (ya, right, the United States makes its own luck) as ours by a god thingy 'of love', care so little about the plight of our neighbors, most all of whom have had their nations exploited by, for our benefit and to their detriment, (God???).
I recently read Bradbury's: And The Rocks Cried Out. Some Europeans would be so, so deserving.