Arizona's GOP Candidate for Governor Calls for Forced Labor Camp for Undocumented Immigrants

EFE, a Mexican news service, described Goldwater's plan as a "concentration camp" for migrants:

Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater and candidate for governor in Arizona, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a Mexican news service, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."

Goldwater claims that his comments were taken out of context.

At an April anti-immigration rally:

"Build us that wall now!" Goldwater said, referring to a proposal to add 700 miles of fences along the U.S.-Mexico border. He promised then that if elected, he would put illegal immigrants in a tent city on the border and use their labor to build the wall.

Clips from American Chain Gang, a feature length documentary, profiles the experiences of the prisoners and officers of the recently revived male chain gang and the world's first female chain gang.

This film examines the conditions of these people as they participate in these intense and highly controversial programs. American Chain Gang, investigates the impact of the controversial practice of chaining inmates during forced chained labor. Five prisoners and two officers are profiled before, during and after their release from the chain gang, thus documenting the true impact of the modern chain gang.

The documentary investigates this controversial prison policy through the words and actions of those who it most effects. By giving equal time to both prisoners and corrections officials, the film provides an objective perspective of these environments. However, by presenting the long term effects of this publicity-driven and punitive practice, it ultimately documents the consequent futility and hostility of this controversial prison policy:





Critic's Praise for American Chain Gang:

"American Chain Gang is a bracing look at the resurgence of the work-detail in prisons, stopping first with the sweat-dripping all male chain gangs out straight out of Jim Crow before moving on to innovations like an all female gang in Arizona, a dubious first in the history of corrections."
-- Gary Dauphin, The Village Voice

"Irving's documentary offers sad evidence of the increasing mean-spiritedness of American penology."
-- Steven Holden, The New York Times

"Sharply crafted," "American Chain Gang is a powerful, disturbing documentary about a practice that makes certain corners of the United States seem as enlightened as the Soviet Gulag."
-- Godfrey Cheshire, New York Press

"Irving gives to his first feature-length film a true grasp of documentary style, economical and tough. His film provide an unblinking look at a harsh world that many of us never give much thought to, let alone see."
-- Jerry Renshaw, Austin Chronicle

I don't know what it is that has caused their lack of empathy, whether they've all been beaten, buggered and raped, or were given toys like this to play with when they were children .....

Republicans' Leggos:


.....but there is no excuse for Republicans' refusal to progress and grow.


Filed under: Don Goldwater, Republicans, immigrant, immigration, Arizona, fence, wall, forced labor, illegal, undocumented, chain gang, American, leggos