Home > Our Blog > Patrick Young’s Testimony at Hate Crimes Task Force Last Night

Blog Post

Patrick Young’s Testimony at Hate Crimes Task Force Last Night

Posted September 23, 2009 by Patrick Young, Esq.

Last night i testified before the Suffolk Hate Crimes Task Force in Riverhead. The meeting was extremely contentious and Ted Hesson will have a full report on it. I just wanted to provide you with a bit of what I said.
The Task Force has become controversial, in part, because one of its members has denounced the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on Suffolk’s Climate of Fear. The member has attacked the methodology and conclusions of the report.
I asked the Task Force members if they were still in doubt as to whether there have been hate crimes in Suffolk against Latinos, and as to whether there is doubt that the hate crimes issue has been handled badly by county government. Because victims of hate crimes have not just been interviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, they have been interviewed by the New York Times, Newsday, and Public Radio as well. Does a task force member attacking the messenger really serve the purpose of reducing hate crimes in Suffolk and increasing trust between the police and the immigrant community?
Here is the text of the rest of my remarks:
There has been a great deal of discussion of how the rhetoric of hatred has helped create a climate in which some young people came to believe that violence against immigrants is acceptable.
We know that Suffolk politicians often refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegals”. At your last meeting, some of you may have seen Latinos wearing t-shirts that said that “No Human Being Is Illegal”. Now you might think that phrase originated with La Raza, or some similar group. It doesn’t. It originated with Nabel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Ellie Weisel.
He knew that once you describe people as “illegals”, you set them up as proper targets to be hunted by thugs.
Weisel said “You must know that no human being is ‘illegal’. That is a contradiction in terms. Humans can be beautiful or more beautiful. They can be fat or skinny. They can be right or wrong. But ‘illegal’? How can a human being be ‘illegal’?
We also hear little children, born in the United States, described as “anchor babies” by the County Executive.
Now this cannot refer to the child’s legal status. The child is not in the country illegally.
Everyone born in the United States with the exception of the children of diplomats, soldiers from invading armies, and certain Native Americans, is a U.S. citizen. This is not based on statute or custom, but on the 14 Amendment to the Constitution.
The 14th Amendment was passed because some states tried to make citizenship conditional on your parent’s legal status. How could the children of slaves be United States citizens?
So Congress passed and the states ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868 and settled the question.
When Suffolk politicians refer to children born in the United States as anchor babies, they do not just attack immigrants, they also stygmatize all Latinos. Because even if a Latino can show a birth certificate from the U.S. there will always be a suspicion that he is an “anchor baby”, a second class citizen.
This task force must have the courage to speak the truth to power. Tonight we have talked about what factors make some of our young people into hate criminals. We need also to consider how the next generation of Suffolk’s young Latinos, who have seen their parents spat upon by thugs and villified by politicians, are being molded by the climate of fear.
Please sign petition to stop the hatred in Suffolk.