AFOP Issues a Resolution Opposing SB 1070

National Organization’s Board of Directors Stand in Strong Opposition to the Arizona Legislation

Washington, D.C.—June 8, 2010, Today the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) adopted a resolution in opposition to Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (SB 1070), which was signed into law on April 23, 2010.

AFOP’s mission, since it was founded in 1971, is to improve the quality of life for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families by providing advocacy for the member organizations that serve them. The Arizona state law, scheduled to go into effect on July 28, 2010, does not address border security concerns and raises significant fears regarding its propensity for racial profiling.  Hence, as the law is contradictory to the mission of AFOP:

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs’ Board of Directors stands in strong opposition to the State of Arizona’s SB 1070 and pledges to support any and all efforts to repeal and reverse this unjust law.

“This is an unprecedented step for our Association, but these are very troubling times for the people we serve,” said Ernie Flores, President of AFOP. “The AFOP Executive Committee strongly believes that extraordinary actions and statements are needed to counteract the growing hostility and divisiveness created by this law, and those of its kind, toward immigrants in general, and Hispanics in particular.”

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs is the national federation of nonprofit and public agencies that provide training and employment services to migrant and seasonal farmworkers. For additional comment or interview, please contact Ayrianne Parks at 202.828-6006 ext. 140 or Parks@AFOP.org

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Full Text of the AFOP Resolution:

THE ASSOCIATION OF FARMWORKER OPPORTUNITY PROGRAMS’ (AFOP) RESOLUTION IN OPPOSITION TO THE STATE OF ARIZONA’S SB 1070

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs’ (AFOP) mission is to improve the quality of life for migrant and seasonal farm workers and their families by providing advocacy for the member organizations that serve them. An overwhelming majority of migrant and seasonal farm workers in Arizona, the Southwest and the United States of America are Latino immigrants from Mexico, Central America and South America.

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) has been an advocate for migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States since 1971. The thread that binds the Association is the concept that training and education can provide the launching pad to a better and more stable life for the workers who plant, tend, and harvest the crops that Americans consume at their tables.

WHEREAS On Friday, April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB 1070, an act of legislation that criminalizes undocumented migrant peoples and workers while mandating racial profiling by police officers. Among other disturbing measures, the law obligates local police to visually determine people’s immigration status, demand identification from those deemed “suspicious,” and incarcerate those who cannot produce it.

WHEREAS SB 1070 criminalizes day laborers and their employers. The law will lead to a hardening of racial mistrust, fear, and harassment of both documented and undocumented people, with numerous consequences for Mexican-American, Latino, and Indigenous peoples.

WHEREAS Many people of good faith have risen in strong opposition to SB 1070 including: U.S. President Barack Obama has called the law “misguided” and promised a federal review of its constitutionality. Allessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the Arizona ACLU, condemned it for “giving police officers the green light to harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign”; and even the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposed it for the way it could erode trust with potential witnesses, become too costly, and distract officers from doing more serious police work. On April 20 and 22, 2010, U.S. Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called for a convention boycott of the state of Arizona:

“We are calling on organizations not to schedule conventions or conferences in the state until it reverses this decision. This is a specifically targeted call for action, not a blanket rejection of the state economy;”and

WHEREAS the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs is opposed to racism of any and all kinds, especially when sponsored by states, and stands in solidarity by all who are targeted by this law and all who oppose it; and

WHEREAS SB 1070 does not propose concrete solutions that address the increase in crimes to persons or property from illegal border crossings; and

WHEREAS the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) finds Arizona’s recently passed racial profiling law (SB 1070) to be morally repugnant, discriminatory, illogical, economically and politically shortsighted, racist, and against the values of social and racial justice which have always motivated the work of our discipline and organization; and

WHEREAS, the State of Arizona’s SB 1070 is contradictory to the mission, vision and guiding principles of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs,

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs’ Board of Directors stands in strong opposition to the State of Arizona’s SB 1070 and pledges to support any and all efforts to repeal and reverse this unjust law.