Latino laborers targeted
By CANDACE RONDEAUX and
ASJYLYN LODER Farmingville, N.Y.
This bucolic little village a short distance from Long
Islands fashionable Hamptons has fast become the latest front in a
national debate over immigration. While the Bush administration wrestled over
the legal status of some 6 million undocumented Latino immigrants,
Farmingvilles conflict over undocumented immigrants heated up during a
recent conference sponsored by Sachem Quality of Life, an aggressive local
anti-immigrant group that takes its name from a Long Island school district.
Immigration experts have suggested that Sachems appearance
in this working-class town of ranch homes, strip malls and white steeples is
part of a larger nationwide trend: a grassroots push to restrict immigration.
A sachem, according to the dictionary, is a Native
American chief.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 5
million undocumented immigrants were living in the United States in 1996.
Census 2000 estimates that figure may have doubled to include nearly 11 million
undocumented immigrants living in the country. An estimated 3 million are from
Mexico. A corresponding 60 percent rise in the nations Latino population
has fueled a nationwide backlash against Latino immigrants.
The decade-long rise in numbers of undocumented immigrants in the
United States has increased tensions in this formerly tolerant pocket of New
York state and elsewhere in the nation.
Many familiar with politics in Farmingville and Long Islands
Suffolk County believe Sachem has played a pivotal role in ratcheting up the
level of conflict over the towns newest arrivals. What worries watchdog
human rights groups and local officials most, though, is the groups ties
to several national organizations that back immigration restrictions. In early
August, Sachem invited several of those organizations to its Congress on
Immigration Reform at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Heritage Hall in the
neighboring town of Centereach, N.Y. Invitations went to the ultra-conservative
John Birch Society and to American Patrol, an organization listed by the
Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
Grassroots immigration reform groups such as Sachem have popped in
Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina, Utah and Oregon -- states that until
recently had low immigrant populations. Advocates for the new immigrants say
the Sachem conference is part of a growing effort to export anti-immigrant
sentiment to new territories. Devon Burkhardt, a spokesman for the Center for
New Community, a Chicago area faith-based immigrant advocacy group, pointed to
Sachems ties to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Whats happening with these groups is that theyre
finding out that metropolitan areas like San Francisco or New York City are
largely supportive of immigrants and that their vitriolic rhetoric is not going
to work in those places anymore, said Burkhardt. So they are moving
their activities to the Midwest and to the South and other more rural
areas.
According to The New York Times, the burgeoning national
coalition of immigration reform groups led by the Federation for American
Immigration Reform ran over $500,000 worth of media advertisements in the
Midwest and the South in April and May. The ads, which also ran in New York
City in August, condemned the Bush administrations proposal to grant
guest worker status to 3 million undocumented immigrants working in the United
States.
Nothing short of
invasion
During a month-long investigation of conditions for day laborers
in Farmingville, New Community volunteers found Sachem borrowing tactics from
FAIR, using incremental steps to curb immigrants basic rights. Immigrant
advocates believe that Sachems rhetoric is directly linked to an incident
last fall when two Mexican laborers were picked up in Farmingville by two white
men posing as contractors and were beaten senseless in a nearby abandoned
factory.
Recently those sentiments seemed to have crossed county lines. In
an early summer battle to shut down taxpayer funding for a hiring hall in
Farmingvilles neighboring Nassau County town of Farmingdale, Sachem
argued that the influx of immigrants is nothing short of an
invasion.
The hiring hall would have offered some 1,500 new immigrants
English lessons and legal advice.
Workplace Project, an organization that advocates for day
laborers rights, said it is no coincidence that Farmingdales
closure of the center followed on the heels of County Executive
[Robert] Gaffneys veto of a bill to fund a similar hiring
hall in Farmingville.
What we really found with these kinds of groups is there is
a progression of anti-immigrant ordinances, Burkhardt said. Sachem
tried to push an ordinance outlawing congregating in the streets. Then there
was the hiring site. It is clearly designed to ratchet up the anti-immigrant
sentiment in the area.
The Farmingville hall, slated to be operated by Catholic
Charities, faltered largely because of the Sachems activism. The
organization, which claims its list of e-mail newsletter subscribers, recently
hit the 700 mark, organized a call-in campaign that quashed plans to fund the
site with $80,000 from the local treasury. Eric A. Kopp, chief deputy county
executive for Suffolk County, denied that Gaffney had bowed to pressure from
Sachem. Our problem with the hiring hall is in using tax dollars to
provide a facility for what amounts to activities that are outside the
law, Kopp said.
John K. Bingham, director of immigrant services for the Long
Island branch of Catholic Charities, doesnt agree that the hall posed a
threat to law and order in Farmingville. Bingham points to the success of some
35 other hiring halls that have been set up across the country to accommodate
the influx of immigrant laborers. There were already two successful sites
that [Gaffney] could have looked at. But essentially he vetoed the positive
experiences of Long Island communities that had already dealt with this issue
in a positive way, said Bingham.
Sachem members say that county officials should not
encourage illegals to come to Farmingville. They complain that the
day laborers that gather each day along Farmingvilles main street to wait
for work evade taxes and crowd Americans out of the labor market. The
immigrants often work a 12-to-14-hour day at $10 an hour without benefits.
Often their wages are withheld and they are forced to live in crowded and
overpriced housing. Sachem accuses immigrants of dragging down property values,
raising the crime rate and endangering children.
The groups arguments are a familiar refrain for
anti-immigrant organizers like Glenn Spencer and Barbara Coe. The two were
featured speakers at the Sachem conference. When Spencer founded American
Patrol, and Coe started the California Coalition for Immigration Reform about
seven years ago they had similar complaints about the large influx of mostly
Mexican immigrants arriving in their Southern California towns.
Coe and Spencer are frequently credited with being the co-authors
of Californias controversial Proposition 187, legislation aimed at
barring undocumented immigrants from receiving health and educational benefits
from the state. Although the Supreme Court struck down Proposition 187 in 1996
as unconstitutional, Spencer and Coes decidedly dystopian view of
immigration still holds sway in large parts of California and elsewhere in the
nation. Spencers comment that the Mexican culture is based on
deceit has been widely publicized by watchdog organizations, and during
the conference he stated that he stood by those words. In her remarks to the
100 or so supporters gathered at the hall, Coe also said she would brook no
retreat, referring to immigrants as the people who take our jobs, trash
our environment, rob, rape and murder us and then demand we reward them for
sharing their drugs and disease with us.
Immigration experts say that Coe and Spencers initial
success with Proposition 187 was largely an outgrowth of Californias
sudden swing toward recession during the early 1990s. You have to look at
[former California Gov.] Pete Wilson, who won reelection by bashing
immigrants, said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National
Immigration Forum, a Washington-based policy advisory group. State
employment had gone down nearly a third at that time. His legacy is a
Republican Party that can no longer gain a foothold in California.
Anti-immigrant politics dont work well in the long run.
As in California, immigrants frequently become targets during
difficult economic periods. While the unemployment rate in Farmingville has
remained low in recent years, several key employers in the area have closed
shops in the towns trademark strip malls. Sharry says he thinks the
current panic over a national economic downturn is an important factor in
Sachems success. What I hope is that in two years people will say
whatever happened to those people. But then, who knows? Maybe therell be
a recession and Farmingville will become a new clarion call for nativist groups
that want to see an end to immigration, said Sharry.
The economic factor
Clearly, economics is an important factor in reformulating the
nations immigration policy. The debate has reached heartland states such
as Iowa, where a sharp decline in the overall population has combined with
concerns about the states dwindling labor force and a shrinking economy.
Those developments drove Iowas Gov. Tom Vilsack to propose a pilot
program that would attract immigrants, primarily from Mexico, to the state.
The measure provoked widespread protests from local groups backed
by national organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration
Reform and American Patrol. Although proponents of immigration reform complain
that the plan will jeopardize jobs in places such as Mason City, Iowa, the
fears appear to be overblown since, according to census figures, the overall
unemployment rate in the area is just over 2 percent. Relatively low
unemployment rates in Iowa have led several large employers and unions to back
Vilsack and the Bush administrations amnesty plan. The big
difference between Iowa and Farmingville is that in Iowa you have political
leaders who are standing up to these groups, Sharry said. Politicians are
especially keen to resolve the issue and capitalize on the policy change to
capture the nations increasingly powerful Latino voting block.
Suffolk County officials and local community activists claim that
Sachems power stems more from its visibility at town meetings and public
events than from genuine support from people in the community. Still, Ray
Wysolmierski and Margaret Bianculli-Dyber, Sachems founders and most
vocal members, are now household names in much of Farmingville and surrounding
Brookhaven Township. Were not going to allow ourselves to be
invaded, said Wysolmierski. The psychological terrorism that is
otherwise known as political correctness is not going to work here. What
were saying is take your sensitivity training and put it where the sun
dont shine.
Sachems members say they are simply defending their right to
live without all the effects of urban sprawl.
Nadia Marin-Molina, director of Workplace Project, said it is
unfortunate that Sachem has been able to export its agenda to other
communities. The problem right now, Marin-Molina said, is
that Sachem is spreading fear and hatred. What you have in Farmingville is not
just the employers that are the problem: Its a group of anti-immigrant
neighbors who are organizing against the workers. They follow workers with
their video cameras. Workers will get spit at in the streets. They have stones
thrown at them. Kids on their bicycles will try to run them over. They figure
that theyre illegal so they have no rights.
Despite the conflict and media attention generated by Spencer and
Coes participation in the conference, Young and others discounted fears
that groups like American Patrol have found, in Sachem and other local groups
around the country, a base for national support. I think that part of
whats happened is that theyve been driven out of California
essentially, said Young, and theyre trying to set off prairie
fires in other communities around the country, like on Long Island.
Ed Hernandez, of Brookhaven Citizens for Peaceful Solutions, said
local immigrant advocates had devised a new strategy to cope with Sachem
organizers. Hernandez and other local organizers emphasized that it was
important to them to minimize the possibility of violence and the negative
media attention that follows conflict. We dont need to disrupt the
community further and perpetuate the violence or the potential for
violence, Hernandez said.
In lieu of a counter-protest, Brookhaven Citizens for Peaceful
Solutions and other organizations opposed to Sachems message held a news
conference outside County Executive Gaffneys office in nearby Hauppauge
the day before the conference was to begin. About 40 people showed up with
signs voicing their support for Long Islands immigrant day laborers.
Immigrant advocates expected a subdued event reflecting the diversity of
opinions about immigration.
Despite their hopes for a peaceful gathering, the sudden
unannounced arrival of Spencer and several Sachem members turned a routine news
conference into a near street brawl. Spencers impromptu lecture on
immigration reform boomed from the sidelines as several day laborers and
journalists jockeyed to get a better view of him. While representatives from
Catholic Charities, Workplace Project, United Day Laborers of Long Island and
other immigrant advocate groups called for tolerance and peace, a shouting
match between Spencer and immigrant advocates nearly drowned out the speakers
on the podium.
Patrick Young, director of the Long Island Refugee Center and an
organizer of the news conference, pointed out that Sachem had used similar
tactics last year when immigrant advocates organized a nighttime vigil for the
two Mexican laborers who were hospitalized in serious condition after being
attacked by two white men last fall. News cameras at the vigil captured images
of an angry Margaret Bianculli-Dyber charging toward a crowd and screaming for
immigrant invaders to go home.
We purposely are meeting here so that we would minimize the
possibility of any type of outburst like this, Young said at the
beginning of the news conference.
Regardless of Sachems influence in Brookhaven, its
obvious that not all share its outlook. The Rev. Allen Ramirez, a pastor at the
nearby Brookville Reformed Church has worked closely with the day laborers of
Farmingville for more than a decade. [Sachem] is not a group made up of
soccer moms or people who are concerned about quality of life in
the neighborhood, Ramirez, said. Their real agenda is ridding the
area of all people who happen to have a different skin color than
theirs.
Savage beating
The day before Sachems weekend conference, Israel Perez
Arvizu, a Mexican day laborer, testified in Suffolk County Criminal Court about
the savage beating he and another day laborer endured at the hands of the two
white men. I thought I was going to die, Arvizu said. Hernandez
said of the beating, It serves to highlight what the damage can be from
groups like this coming into the community.
Spencer and others argued that the beating was an isolated event.
Out of the 11 million illegal aliens in the United States, they point to
two who were beaten up? Spencer said. Im sorry that the two
people who did that are probably not the finest people in the world, by
definition. But two? With 11 million violating our laws and hurting America,
its shocking the restraint the American people have shown.
Such comments worry Ramirez. Unfortunately, it seems like
things have to get worse before they get better, Ramirez said.
Its like with the civil rights movement in the 60s. You had
to see the water cannons and the dogs harassing protesters before people woke
up and said injustice is injustice no matter what the law says.
Meanwhile, Sachem members planned to participate in a vigil
against amnesty for illegal immigrants and a guest worker program for Mexicans.
The vigil was to begin Sept. 2 in front of the Department of Justice in
Washington. The vigil, organized by a group called Virginia Coalition for
Immigration Reform, was to coincide with Mexican President Vicente Foxs
visit to the United States Sept. 3-6.
Candace Rondeaux and Asjylyn Loder are freelance reporters
residing in New York City.
Brookhaven Citizens for Peaceful
Solutions www.geocities.com/bcpsolutions/
Center for New Community www.newcomm.org
Federation for American Immigration
Reform www.fairus.org
The National Immigration
Forum www.immigrationforum.org
Sachem Quality of Life www.sqlife.org |
National Catholic Reporter, September 7, 2001
[corrected 09/21/2001]
|