Tucson, AZ – The usual evening at the University of Arizona might involve young males playing war simulations on video game players. That is unless there is a public presentation and discussion of armed indigenous groups battling Mexican drug cartels.

Tucson, AZ – A significant grouping of communists recently joined the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). Centered in Tucson, the group ranges from a well-read high school student up to a comrade in his late seventies with lifelong experience in the Communist Party-USA. They include students, workers and educators from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, united in struggle for immigrant rights, workers and unions and against U.S. wars and oppression. Rings of other activists and revolutionaries are now discussing this bold move by the Arizona communists.

Tucson, AZ – On Wednesday evening a dozen activists protested outside the Federal Building and Tucson City Hall to demand the charges against 65 year-old Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh be dropped.

Tucson, AZ – NAFTA and corporate lawyers, SB1070 Supporters, anti-ethnic studies activists and developers are threatening Tucson's birthplace – the original Chuk Shon – which is the land and communities on the Santa Cruz River at the base of Sentinel Peak.

_Undocumented students arrested in McCain’s office, held for deportation _

Tucson, AZ – Arizona has seen an explosion of Chicano and Mexicano led student resistance to racist laws and in defense of the right to a quality education. Nowhere is this more evident than in the city of Tucson, which is singled out for attack by racist elements of state government. The struggle has attracted attention across the nation. Since the state House and Senate adopted the anti-immigrant and anti-Latino law, SB1070, thousands of students have walked out of school in protest and there has been a wave of youth-led direct actions.

Tucson, AZ – Around 15,000 people took to the streets here May 1 to celebrate May Day and to demand an end to racist anti-immigrant attacks at all levels of government, including an end to the hated SB1070 (the harshest anti-immigrant law in the nation), an end to border militarization and in support of immigration reform that is humanitarian rather than punitive.

Tucson, AZ – “This law is unwise. This law is stupid, and it’s racist. It’s a national embarrassment…if I were a Hispanic person in the state, I would be humiliated and angered.”

Tucson, AZ – Arizona’s Apartheid bill, SB1070, was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer, April 23. The law gives local and state police the authority to stop anyone, anywhere, to demand proof of citizenship based only on “reasonable suspicion.” In Arizona, “reasonable suspicion” of being an undocumented immigrant means being Latino and speaking Spanish. The bill also lets citizens sue government institutions for not enforcing immigration law aggressively enough.

Tucson, AZ – “They have every right to be here. This is about civil rights. And the youth are leading the way.” Those were the words of Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Elias as we talked across the street from where over 100 students had gathered to protest Arizona’s SB1070 – the harshest, most anti-immigrant legislation in the country.

Police-state laws pending

Tucson, AZ – “Tucson today is the moral equivalent of Birmingham, Alabama in 1961,” said Mike Wilson, border rights activist and Tohono ‘O’odham tribal member, at a rally at the Federal Building here, April 15. The rally was held in response series of raids that took place the same day in Phoenix, Tucson, Rio Rico and Nogales, and in the Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora. The raids targeted people traveling on shuttle services, but whole neighborhoods were affected, with traffic brought to a virtual standstill while agents occupied urban areas in the biggest such operation in the seven-year history of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE).