May 8, 2008 8:12 PM
It is common to hear immigrant rights advocates throughout New York State bemoan the victories of anti-immigrant forces in states and cities around the the country. Hazelton, Oklahoma, and Danbury are just some of the places where, they say, we just weren't able to win.
Today the battle is met in Suffolk County New York. IR-1105 would close down many businesses if they are found to employ undocumented immigrants. This will lead to massive discrimination against anyone who looks "foreign", meaning Latino or Asian. It will also lead to a widespread loss of jobs within these communities, the economic and political collapse of some smaller immigrant communities, and the most important triumph for the anti-immigrant forces since the defeat of drivers licenses last Fall.
And this defeat will be even more dangerous because our opponents are being led by Democratic elected officials.
Suffolk County's immigrants have to endure the scorn and harrassment of County Executive Steve Levy, a man who rode his populist vision of an immigrant-free Suffolk County to an electoral landslide of a magnitude that Saddam Husein could only dream of.
He is serving as a model for other Democratic politicians. Levyism holds that a Democrat who moves against immigrants loses a small slice of the Latino vote, but picks up whopping percentages of traditionally Republican voters. And he wants to try this theory out on a statewide scale in two years.
If you are in a statewide immigrant group, please remember that Suffolk is part of the state your organization represents. Failure in Suffolk will directly degrade the lives of 200,000 immigrants in that county and could set the stage for similar battles in counties across the state. In just two years, Levyism might just move from the county seat to the state capital.
Pat,
Terrific work.
By mo May 8, 2008 10:55 PM