Latino Group Wants Targeted Sanctions For AZ

WASHINGTON--After close consultation with Arizona elected officials and community leaders, the boards of the NALEO Educational Fund and NALEO are calling for targeted economic sanctions against the state, in light of the anti-immigrant SB 1070 law:

“While U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton recently blocked implementation of some of the more egregious portions of SB 1070, it is only a temporary injunction. Furthermore, several other provisions were allowed to go into effect. Therefore, we call for the following sanctions:

Move the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Phoenix.
Ask all persons outside of Arizona to refrain from recreational travel to the state.
Urge all groups to refrain from holding conferences, meetings or similar events in the state unless the gatherings are related to fighting SB 1070 or other anti-immigrant measures.
Boycott Arizona-based companies that support SB 1070 or other anti-immigrant measures (including policymakers who support these measures) and that have no significant record of support for the Latino community.
NALEO is examining companies that meet the criteria above and as part of the examination of companies’ support for anti-immigrant causes, we will take into account the activities of company owners who derive a significant financial benefit from the companies.

We understand there is a call for a boycott of Budweiser products because they are distributed by Hensley & Co., a company the boycott proponents claim as supporters of anti-immigrant policymakers. NALEO is in the process of researching these claims, but whatever our research reveals, we do not believe it will justify imposing sanctions against the Budweiser products distributed by that company.

Such sanctions are essentially a boycott of Budweiser’s producer, Anheuser-Busch. This would be contrary to our economic sanction policy. We do not believe that Anheuser-Busch has supported SB 1070 or other anti-immigrant measures. In addition, Anheuser-Busch has a history of substantial and long-standing support for the Latino community, through their contributions and workforce diversity policies. Boycotting Budweiser products is not an effective strategy to achieve fair immigration policies in Arizona, and will in fact unfairly penalize a company that has been a strong partner of the Latino community.

NALEO also recognizes that Arizona’s law highlights the pressing need for federal legislation to fix our nation’s broken immigration system. We urge Congress to make comprehensive immigration reform a reality.”

ABOUT NALEO

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials is the leadership organization of the nation's more than 6,000 Latino elected and appointed officials. NALEO is non-partisan and its members represent all political affiliations.