City's sanctuary status mocked Cambridge, MA
The Boston Globe
City's sanctuary status mocked
Signs send illegals to Cambridge
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | July 5, 2006
When Cambridge recently renewed its status as a sanctuary city for all immigrants, including undocumented ones, the news barely caused a stir around here.
But the move has made the city a target for an immigration control group based in Washington , which is starting a national campaign urging undocumented immigrants to flood into the Massachusetts city. ProjectUSA is raising money to pay for a billboard in northern New Jersey that it hopes will be the first of many across the country.
The proposed billboard would read: ``Attention: Illegal Aliens. Cambridge, Mass. is a sanctuary city. For help getting there, contact projectusa.org/NJ-mass transit."
The ProjectUSA website also makes mock offers of support for the journey, providing bus schedules and fare information for trips from Newark to Boston. It gives contact details for Cambridge officials in case immigrants need rides from the bus station and help accessing city services. And it invites New Jersey residents and others who would like to be rid of undocumented immigrants to pitch in for their bus fares to Massachusetts.
``I hope we have billboards from coast to coast directing people to Cambridge," said Craig Nelsen , executive director of ProjectUSA. ``Cities like Cambridge have made a very public display of their virtue so we're going to give help to people to take advantage of it. We're going to authenticate their virtue by having them exercise it."
He joked that he would put the billboards, complete with maps, right on the Mexican border if he could.
The billboard campaign is another sign of how the debate over illegal immigration is increasingly being played out at the local level, in this case over sanctuary status of cities. With Congress deadlocked, cities and towns are increasingly taking on the issue themselves. Some, including Burlington, Vt. , Maywood, Calif., and San Antonio have moved to declare welcomes for undocumented immigrants.
In some cases, declarations of cities and towns as sanctuaries explicitly state that local law enforcement officers should not involve themselves in immigration matters . Other declarations have been less specific expressions of support for the causes of undocumented immigrants.
Cambridge's May 8 declaration, which renewed a sanctuary city designation first established in 1985, called for a moratorium on immigration raids by federal authorities pending comprehensive reform, affirmed the human rights of undocumented immigrants, and condemned legislation passed by the US House in December that would crack down on illegal immigration.
Nelsen said he would like to expand the campaign to target other cities that have declared themselves welcoming to immigrants.
``It's outrageous that these localities can just decide they're going to opt out of the law of the land," Nelsen said.
He wants to start with Cambridge, he said, because the city council has been particularly ``sanctimonious" in its declaration of support for undocumented immigrants. Cambridge Vice Mayor and State Representative Timothy J. Toomey comes in for particular criticism from Nelsen. The website depicts Toomey, who Nelson says was most fervent in his support of the city's sanctuary initiative, with two glowing halos on his head. It provides a map to his house in East Cambridge, and his home number. Toomey did not sponsor the resolution, and it was passed unanimously by the nine city councilors.
When Cambridge recently renewed its status as a sanctuary city for all immigrants, including undocumented ones, the news barely caused a stir around here.
But the move has made the city a target for an immigration control group based in Washington , which is starting a national campaign urging undocumented immigrants to flood into the Massachusetts city. ProjectUSA is raising money to pay for a billboard in northern New Jersey that it hopes will be the first of many across the country.
The proposed billboard would read: ``Attention: Illegal Aliens. Cambridge, Mass. is a sanctuary city. For help getting there, contact projectusa.org/NJ-mass transit."
The ProjectUSA website also makes mock offers of support for the journey, providing bus schedules and fare information for trips from Newark to Boston. It gives contact details for Cambridge officials in case immigrants need rides from the bus station and help accessing city services. And it invites New Jersey residents and others who would like to be rid of undocumented immigrants to pitch in for their bus fares to Massachusetts.
``I hope we have billboards from coast to coast directing people to Cambridge," said Craig Nelsen , executive director of ProjectUSA. ``Cities like Cambridge have made a very public display of their virtue so we're going to give help to people to take advantage of it. We're going to authenticate their virtue by having them exercise it."
He joked that he would put the billboards, complete with maps, right on the Mexican border if he could.
The billboard campaign is another sign of how the debate over illegal immigration is increasingly being played out at the local level, in this case over sanctuary status of cities. With Congress deadlocked, cities and towns are increasingly taking on the issue themselves. Some, including Burlington, Vt. , Maywood, Calif., and San Antonio have moved to declare welcomes for undocumented immigrants.
In some cases, declarations of cities and towns as sanctuaries explicitly state that local law enforcement officers should not involve themselves in immigration matters . Other declarations have been less specific expressions of support for the causes of undocumented immigrants.
Cambridge's May 8 declaration, which renewed a sanctuary city designation first established in 1985, called for a moratorium on immigration raids by federal authorities pending comprehensive reform, affirmed the human rights of undocumented immigrants, and condemned legislation passed by the US House in December that would crack down on illegal immigration.
Nelsen said he would like to expand the campaign to target other cities that have declared themselves welcoming to immigrants.
``It's outrageous that these localities can just decide they're going to opt out of the law of the land," Nelsen said.
He wants to start with Cambridge, he said, because the city council has been particularly ``sanctimonious" in its declaration of support for undocumented immigrants. Cambridge Vice Mayor and State Representative Timothy J. Toomey comes in for particular criticism from Nelsen. The website depicts Toomey, who Nelson says was most fervent in his support of the city's sanctuary initiative, with two glowing halos on his head. It provides a map to his house in East Cambridge, and his home number. Toomey did not sponsor the resolution, and it was passed unanimously by the nine city councilors.
``If you have any trouble at all, need a ride from the bus depot in Boston, or don't think your basket of goodies is big enough, just get a hold of Tim," the website instructs. ``He'll straighten things out for you."
Toomey derided Nelsen's initiative, saying he is motivated by racism.
``It would almost be comical if it wasn't so scary," Toomey said. ``These people have an agenda, and it doesn't include people of color, and it's as simple as that."
Toomey said Nelsen is distracting from ``the real issue, which is how to get meaningful immigration reform in this country. This is very divisive, and it doesn't serve any public purpose, and it's sort of sad."
Others in Cambridge defended the city's sanctuary status.
``ProjectUSA is a 21st-century version of the Know Nothing Party," said Council or Brian Murphy , referring to the anti-immigrant, anti-Irish party of the 1850s. ``Cambridge is proud to be a sanctuary city, and we welcome the free publicity."
Elena Letona , executive director of Cambridge immigrant services organization Centro Presente, which helped push the Cambridge resolution and is moving for similar declarations in nearby cities and towns, called Nelsen's initiative ``ludicrous" and a stunt to attract attention.
The accusation of racism is ``a wild and baseless claim," Nelsen said. ``It's what people say when they don't have anything substantive to say."
Nelsen chose to start his campaign in New Jersey because it is one of the most crowded areas of the country, he said, and a magnet for undocumented immigrants. He will not say exactly where in New Jersey he would like to place the first billboard, concerned that publicity about its location might scare off the owner. A company that owns a billboard in Arizona recently rejected his attempt to place an ad critical of US Senator John McCain, who co-sponsored the Senate immigration reform package with Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
His group has bought advertising on scores of billboards across the country since it was founded in 1997, at an average cost of about $2,000 a month. Some of them have warned about immigration contributing to unchecked population growth. Recently purchased billboards have targeted congressmen in their districts, including Republican Tom Reynolds of New York and Democrat Leonard Boswell of Iowa, saying they support ``amnesty for illegal aliens."
Nelsen's current proposal is driven in part by what he sees as liberal hypocrisy.
``To have the Cambridge City Council get up there and assert their moral superiority when they don't even have an illegal alien population to speak of because it's so expensive to live there," he said. ``It's just grandstanding."
