Fear, anxiety, and it is no exaggeration to say real terror, are being spread through the country by increasingly punitive laws designed to make life even harder for immigrants. The acceleration of raids, incarceration, deportation and persecution of immigrants at every level of government is only growing in tandem with the blanket media coverage being given to anti-immigrant hate groups that originated the Minutemen and other hard right anti-immigrant groups, including the fundamentalist religious right.
It makes it more important than ever for progressives to bring support, help and succor to the immigrant community. To stand up for the immigrant community is not just humane, but a civic duty to stand for those truths we say we hold self-evident that all men and women are created equal, which we say forms the hard wired kernel of our democracy. To stand up for the immigrant community now, is to stand in respect and allegiance to the legacy and history of our nation, which is a history of immigration. To fight for the rights of immigrants, urging generosity and well-earned amnesty to regularize immigration status is to continue our forebear's fight against the deep historical tendency of white Americans to despise and hold immigrants in hateful contempt.
All across the country in the past few days demonstrations of solidarity with immigrants have been taking place, which is encouraging, but not nearly enough to fight this recalcitrant tendency of our patrimony.
Of the many articles appearing in newspapers, I link to two below**, the last one suggesting the political climate is being intentionally created by these raids at just the time when a tepid bill for comprehensive reform of immigration is on the brink of being brought out of committee to the Congress and to the nation.
These raids serve the purpose of the right's propaganda that immigrants of color are vectors of disease and crime; that they are criminal; that they are illegal, that they are lowering our standard of living, corrupting our culture and threatening our language.
This ideology articulated by Samuel Huntington and broadcast daily by Lou Dobbs is being taken up and championed by Know Nothing vigilantes being given respectability and assisted by many people, including Democrats like Steve Levy as well as Huntington and Dobbs who have bought into the distortions, half truths and deliberate disinformation.
The political strategy coming out of the recent picketing by the Farmingville Minimen against the jornaleros at the shape-up site on Horse Block Rd. Their 2 closest and most vocal supporters in the Suffolk Leigislature (Carracappa & Eddington) are sponsoring a bill they will try to get approved by the Public Safety Committee to bring before the legislature. This law will make it a crime to stand (loiter) on the side of a county road to solicit work, under guise of public safety. What admirable protective solicitation!
They will hold hearings on the law on Thursday 3/1 and Tuesday 3/6 at 9:30 am in the Wm Rogers Legislative Bldg, 725 Veterans Hwy in Hauppage.
The last anti-immigrant bill passed by the legislature saw the Minimen sign up for the first 40 speaking slots, getting there at 8 am. Since they held most of the seats and the first 2 hrs of speakers, except for a sprinkling of opponents, they were able to give the distinct impression the overwhelming majority of Suffolk residents agreed with their ill tempered, anti-immigrant racism.
They completely spooked the legislators into believing they had little political choice but to go along with their hysteria. The next 3 hearings, the LIIA did muster up the majority of speakers and held by far the most seats, but to little avail because the legislators had decided their vote and had made their deals on that first day's hearings. The Minimen & Sachem Quality of Life cohorts did not even show up for the last two hearings, because they were confident they held the majority of legislators, which they did 16 to 4.
Please call the members of the Legislature Public Safety Committee to tell them to stop the shameful discrimination and persecution of immigrant day laborers and be sure to write a note to:
Jay Schneiderman
email: Jay.Schneiderman@suffolkcountyny.gov"
P.O. Box 1827, Sag Harbor, NY 11963
Phone: 852-8400 Fax: 852-8404)
Ed Romaine
Edward.Romaine@suffolkcountyny.gov
423 Griffing Avenue, Suite 2, Riverhead, NY 11901 Phone: 852·3200
Fax: 852·3203
Tell them you were ashamed of their last anti-immigrant vote which seems to have only encouraged this mushrooming anti-immigrant hatred; that if we do not expect a profile in courage, then they might show a modicum of familiarity, if not respect for our Constitution.
* New Haven Register: Immigrant Supporters Forum in Danbury
Arizona Republic: Fence in courage, Fence out chaos
Also see "Who Would Jesus Deport?"
