MA: Immigrants straining town resources

[Jean]

Immigrants straining town resources

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By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff
GHS
Sun May 20, 2007, 12:46 AM EDT


Milford - As Milford tackles overcrowding through housing checks and court action, officials are saying the phenomenon has come to a head and is taking a toll on the town.
"This overcrowding is exhausting everyone's resources," said Loriann Braza-Pallaria, a civilian police advocate for the Police Department, who also inspects houses for two Town Hall departments.

Police Chief Thomas O'Loughlin said the department has seen a sharp increase for certain criminal and civil matters, largely due to the influx of Ecuadoran immigrants failing to assimilate. From unlicensed driving to domestic assault and battery, the charges against the immigrants represent a cultural clash that calls for enforcement, he said.

"It creates an issue of applying resources," O'Loughlin said. "We end up in the middle of those situations more often than we saw with the Brazilian population who were here illegally, and more often than we see with our own American population."

"We have seen an increase in the number of cases of domestic violence and a lot of that we're seeing in the Ecuadoran population," he said. "It's cultural. The relationship between men and women in Ecuador, and the values and mores of those relationships is a stark contrast to what those expectations of the values and mores are in the United States."

In the eight years she has worked with police counseling victims and serving as an interpreter of Spanish or Portuguese during investigations, Braza-Pallaria said she has seen instances of domestic violence and sexual assault skyrocket.

"The numbers have tripled in the last year," she said. "The cases are more extreme, the severity of these cases I've never seen."

From reports of aggression to torture, the behavior exhibited by the Ecuadorans is a particular problem in relationships between women and men, who are traditionally domineering, Braza-Pallaria said.

"She has to make food for that person and she's not allowed to have dinner. She's allowed to have the scraps from the husband's plate," she said.

"It's 'that which I was taught.' They learned it and that's how they live," O'Loughlin said, noting policing of the behavior is taxing. "You're kind of constantly in that mode of saying, 'No, you can't do that."'

While local leaders say the behavior may be creating a cultural clash, immigration advocates contend towns should fix the problem by integrating immigrants into their communities.

"It's a big jump to make that an individual is not assimilating because more crimes are being reported," said Ali Noorani, director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "It's unfair to characterize it as 'having trouble assimilating.'

"Assimilation is kind of a red herring. It's something we all like to squawk about a lot," Noorani said. "At the end of the day, assimilation is nothing more than everyone coming around a table and getting to know each other."

That task is a tough one, officials say, given the town's immigration-related problems.

The Police Department has a considerable task in enforcing violations against the increasing number of undocumented immigrants who are driving without a license, O'Loughlin said. During the 2004-2005 fiscal year, police issued 102 charges for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. The next year, there were 145.

"You've literally gone up by 50 percent," he said. "This year, you're up to 172 and you still have another month and a half to go (before the end of the fiscal year). In between all of that, you start to see an increase of your Ecuadoran population."

Through her work as assistant zoning enforcement officer and assistant health inspector, Braza-Pallaria has also seen the effect of the immigrant population on housing.

"They're not complying with town regulations," she said.

A public health perspective is also taken by the town's public health director, Paul Mazzuchelli, who sees immigrants having trouble with local housing regulations by putting up cots in homes that become rooming houses. While that may be common practice in their native land, "We can't accommodate anyone who's going to break a regulation or a law," he said.

Selectmen Chairman William Buckley sees the issue of illegal immigrants touching not only housing and police but schools and hospitals, with uninsured patients using the emergency room as the primary place to receive medical care.

"It's straining the budgets of municipalities, while the federal government wants to sit and talk about it," he said. "The federal government needs to stop sitting on their hands ... They haven't put together solutions that are taking care of communities like ours."

Milford can take its own steps to address the cultural clash if town officials and local immigrant leaders come together, Noorani said, mentioning an "impressive" 10-week community dialogue that just wrapped in Everett.

Something like that initiative could happen here, he said.

"I think it's something that we should really think about," Noorani said. "It just builds so much understanding amongst people who used to feel so much division."

"Everybody wants to make Milford a better place," he said. "The most important thing is the leadership of Milford really reach out to the immigrant community."

http://www.milforddailynews.com/homepage/x1141128223

[redbadger]

"Everybody wants to make Milford a better place," he said. "The most important thing is the leadership of Milford really reach out to the immigrant community."

Is that legal or illegal??????Because if it is illegal I think the people need not reach out unless it is to bus them home

[SOSADFORUS]

Ya give them amnesty then you will really see your town go broke, they
qualifiy for food stamps and every other social program for the poor and down trodden, medicare, in state tuition, the list just goes on. Now isn't amnesty brilliant

[katydid278]

"It's a big jump to make that an individual is not assimilating because more crimes are being reported," said Ali Noorani, director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "It's unfair to characterize it as 'having trouble assimilating.'



Who is this jerk and does he have mush for brains????? It's a big jump to make??? They are giving examples of said crimes and the ones that are going up are due to the foreigners not wanting to follow the laws and customs of this land WHICH IS CALLED ASSIMILATION!!!!!!!!! When you come here and say "Now I live in America and they don't treat their women like dog and it's against the law so I won't do it.......THAT"S ASSIMILATING. When you come here and commit acts that were "allowed" and common in your country and you don't CHANGE to conform you are NOT ASSIMILATING and my dear man it is NOT unfair to call a spade a spade, it is called COMMON SENSE something that is such a rare comodity anymore that I want to pull my hair out!

[lsmith1338]

This guy gets his 2 cents in on every article that is published in the 2 major papers in Boston. He is for OBL and give them all the benefits for free. Maybe we should deport him Tolerance is not the answer here as we cannot afford all of the poor of the world to come to the US and taxpayers pay for it.