Well? A success if you are looking at it from under your cone of white sheet GOP ignorance, I suppose? The numbers don't lie:
Hispanics flee Arizona ahead of immigration law
Arizona's tough new immigration enforcement law is fueling an exodus of Hispanics from the state seven weeks before it goes into effect, according to officials and residents in the state.
Though no one has precise figures, reports from school officials, businesses and individuals indicate worried Hispanics — both legal and illegal — are leaving the state in anticipation of the law, which will go into effect July 29.
Schools in Hispanic areas report unusual drops in enrollment. The Balsz Elementary School District is 75% Hispanic, and within a month of the law's passage, the parents of 70 students pulled them out of school, said District Superintendent Jeffrey Smith. The district lost seven students over the same one-month period last year, and parents tell Smith the Arizona law is the reason for leaving.
TRENDS: Ariz. Latinos register as Democrats
CENSUS: Ariz. immigration law makes count tougher
POLL: More Americans want tight immigration laws
IN CALIFORNIA: Boycotts over Ariz. immigration law
"They're leaving to another state where they feel more welcome," he said.
Since intimidating legal immigrants and long time citizens that just happen to look exactly like "illegal immigrants" was always the real goal and intent of this legislation... I believe that it must be considered a complete success by the worst of the worst this nation has allowed to fester in politics as the bigots in Arizona will have a better chance of seeing their little part of the country stay under the control of the white right kind of GOP people.
Just to be clear:
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."
[update]
For anyone that does not understand this typical GOP election strategy for what it is, voter suppression, and how Arizona has been trying to do this for a while, read Mother Mags comment.
[end update]
Some further reading on this subject:
What if Arizona "Show Me Your Papers" was never about racism?
And what if it was all about the vote? It would make more sense than just bowing down to the crazy and racist aspect of the Tea Party types. Greg Palast goes into an area he knows quite a bit about and has written on often in the past: Voter Suppression:
Behind the Arizona Immigration Law: GOP Game to Swipe the November Election:
Our investigation in Arizona discovered the real intent of the show-me-your-papers law.
by Greg Palast for Truthout.org
[Phoenix, AZ.] Don't be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.
I don't buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.
What's new here is not the politicians' fear of a xenophobic "Teabag" uprising.
What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote -- and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.
Voter suppression and voter caging is a subject anyone that has followed ePluribus Media over the years understands too well.
Voter Suppression
Mark Johnston
June 26, 2007
Voter suppression in America may have affected our last three Congressional and last two Presidential elections. The efforts uncovered so far have been aimed at suppressing minority votes or those who traditionally vote for Democratic political candidates. Have there been more? We don't know. But available to see if further investigation is warranted.
"Caging" is a method of voter suppression in which first-class mail is sent to registered voters to confirm their addresses. If the letter is returned to the sender, the name and address on the returned mail is entered into a database known as "caging list." A document, "State Implementation Template III.doc," last saved by Christopher Guith, attorney and Bush-Cheney2004 campaign official, provides a template of plans for challenging voters at the polls based on caging.
Read On...
and...
Palast, Progressives and Investigative Journalism
ePluribus Media Staffwriters: Mark Johnston, Standingup and Aaron Barlow
July 5, 2007
Investigative journalist Greg Palast, one of the most vigorous of all progressive reporters and winner of six Project Censored Awards, originally brought story of the "caging lists" from Duval County, Florida to widespread attention in his report for an October 26th, 2004 BBC Newsnight program. By doing so, he tried to open up a conversation critical to the future of voting rights in America. "Caging" may be just one way of manipulating the voting roles, but it is possible to use it for keeping a percentage of the poorer, less stable potential voters from exercising their rights.
Over two years have passed since the BBC's original report on the emails, and the story had seemed to fade. Yet, because Palast had based his story on "caging" spreadsheets sent to Tim Griffin, the Director of Research and Communications at the RNC headquarters, it wasn't surprising when the issue was resurrected after Griffin's appointment as U.S. Attorney for Western Arkansas in 2006. The claims that the RNC had engaged in using "caging" to disenfranchise black soldiers sent to Iraq along with thousands of voters from African-American neighborhoods or other minority voters in Democratic precincts were being made across the Internet, on progressive radio and even in congressional hearings. Unfortunately, other than that done for the reporting of Greg Palast, there was no known analysis of the names and addresses on the caging lists with the actual data available from the voter registration files. Until recently, that is: The full analysis is covered in the ePluribus Media Journal article Voter Suppression on June 26, 2007.
For that story, we had contacted the Duval County Director of Elections office to acquire a copy of the voter registration file. Subsequent conversations and requests for additional data (including the lists of voters purged from December 1, 2004 through June 22, 2007) led us to identify discrepancies in some of what had been previously reported about the racial and party make up of the lists. Though we respect Palast and the work he has done, we felt compelled to provide additional analysis.
Read On...
H/T to Crooks and Liars for the heads up on this interview of Greg Palast: