Below is an article covering the Anti-Arpaio march that took place in Phoenix on Saturday, January 16.  Click "read more" to read the rest of the article and to read quotes from Jennifer Allen, Border Action's Executive Director.

By Valeria Fernández

PHOENIX, Arizona, Jan 17, 2010 (IPS) - Over 20,000 people marched in the streets of Phoenix Saturday in the first mass mobilisation of the year, calling for an end to the criminalisation of undocumented immigrants and the passage of immigration reform legislation.

Arizona is considered ground zero for the immigration debate due to its severe anti-immigrant policies and the controversial figure of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose deputies conduct frequent immigration sweeps in Latino neighbourhoods.

"We're not going to allow him to continue to abuse us and treat us as if we were criminals, when we're workers," said Salvador Reza, an organiser for PUENTE, the movement behind the march. "The message is clear for the [Barack] Obama administration: You need to put a stop to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's circus."

The largest march to protest Arpaio's criminalisation of immigrants in the history of Arizona came on the heels of a grand jury criminal investigation led by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that is focusing on abuse of power by his office.

Arpaio is also the subject of a probe by another division of the DOJ on the use of racial profiling during his immigration sweeps.

The protest destination was a five-jail complex administered by Arpaio, including an outdoor jail known as "Tent City", where hundreds of immigrants have been detained.

Celia Alejandra Alvarez, 29, attended the march. She was among the women who had been incarcerated in the jail following one of the sheriff's raids of a landscaping business last February.

"The pain you live in there is shameful," said Alvarez in a speech outside the jail in front of thousands of people.