Elon James White: There’s ‘Criminalization of Brown Folks’ Who Cross Border

Elon James White, CEO of This Week in Blackness, who has spent time on the US-Mexico border and shot footage along the border said there is a “criminalization of brown folks when they cross over into our system” on Saturday’s “Melissa-Harris Perry” on MSNBC.

“When we went down there [the US-Mexico border] we went to Tent City, we went to the border, — on the migrant trail, to see exactly what people who were trying to cross over are going through, and find out also some of the issues that, when they are actually here, — with the illegal raids, what’s going on and what’s, what ends up happening to them. The criminalization of brown folks when they cross over into our system” he stated.

White added, when asked about Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R), “Arpaio, which, a lot of people obviously know as being basically the hand of terrorism against people of color, migrant work folks down in Arizona. When you enter into Maricopa County, where he’s sheriff, literally his name is plastered all over everything. It’s less of him being a Sheriff, and it’s more like a brand of terrorism is the way I look at it.”

Alfonso Aguilar, the Executive Director of the American Principles Project’s Latino Partnership said that while he supports immigration reform, thinks Arpaio’s behavior has been “despicable,” it is a “total fallacy” to think Obama’s immigration action will solve the problem and blasted the president for not supporting a guest worker program considering that the majority of people who cross the border are doing so to work, not for humanitarian reasons.

Later, White tweeted that he “wasn’t blaming Arpaio for our deportation policies,” but stood by his comments that Arpaio is “the hand of terrorism.”

(h/t The Right Scoop)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett