Thread: NY:An anti-illegal alien strategy takes root and thrives

The Greg Ball effect: An anti-illegal alien strategy takes root and thrives
By DEBRA WEST
(Original Publication: August 12, 2007)

To understand the force behind politics in Putnam County these days, you just have to talk to Matthew Neuringer. Neuringer, a 20-year-old who graduated from Carmel High School in 2005, is running for a seat on the Southeast Town Board. It may be his first run for elected office, but Neuringer is no neophyte. Last year, he orchestrated the bitter, contentious and wildly successful campaign of Assemblyman Greg Ball, a Republican who trounced a long-term incumbent in the primary and then swept the general election like a force of nature.

One key to Neuringer and Ball's success is that they identified the concern local voters cared most about - illegal immigration - and then hammered the issue nonstop - even though a state lawmaker's ability to influence the issue is pretty limited; especially if, like Ball, you're a Republican in a Democrat-dominated Assembly. Still, he told the Editorial Board, he has proposed several bills in Albany on immigration.

Ball's win can be credited to textbook campaign strategy. In fact, Neuringer got 17 college credits for running Ball's campaign. Drexel University, where Neuringer attended before transferring to Fordham University in the Bronx, accepted the work as independent study.

"I got an A,'' said Neuringer, who works part time as Ball's legislative aide. "Actually, it was pass-fail. I passed.''

Now Neuringer is back as the architect behind another anti-illegal immigrant campaign, this time his own. It's SOS, for Save our Southeast, and his running mates are David Michael Rights, for town supervisor, Dwight Yee for Town Board member and Bill Mangieri for Brewster village mayor.

The slate faces challengers in the Sept. 18 Republican primary. Rights is running against Lorraine Mitts, a lawyer and current Southeast Town Board member, and John Degnan, the current Brewster mayor. Neuringer and Yee want the GOP nod over Town Board hopefuls Jim DiBella and Roger Gross, who are on Mitts' slate.

In heavily Republican Southeast, political races have traditionally been decided during the GOP primary.

Seize more than the day
Illegal immigration is the most explosive political issue of the day: a crisis played out locally, on street corners in small towns across the nation. The resentment against illegal aliens is so widespread and so easy to ignite that it provides a ready-made campaign theme for politicians in even the smallest villages.

As with many communities in Westchester and Rockland counties, Southeast and its Village of Brewster are struggling with an influx of mostly Hispanic immigrants, many of them here illegally. The immigrants, who hang around up and down Main Street waiting for work, often speak little English and are assumed to live in overcrowded, unsafe apartments. Many long-time residents complain that the newcomers have changed the character of village life, don't pay taxes and put a strain on public services.

Friday, President George W. Bush announced new plans for an administration-led crackdown, including tougher border control and employer-enforcement measures. He said he might even enlist state and local police in the effort. For many in the Lower Hudson Valley, fuming for at least a decade at the federal government's impotence on the issue, it must feel like "too little, too late.''

Nationwide, as Congress twiddled its thumbs on immigration, local politicians rushed in with their own proposals. In places like Mamaroneck in Westchester or Hazleton in Pennsylvania, local laws intended to drive illegal aliens out of town, or just stop them from gathering to wait for work, have been found by courts to be discriminatory and unconstitutional. Fighting the legal battles have cost small municipalities millions of dollars in legal fees and created widespread confusion. Not to mention division.

Choose your words wisely
The Save Our Southeast ticket proposes a town consumer affairs board that will only license contractors who agree to hire documented workers. Violators could be fined up to $5,000. Despite that proposal, winning SOS candidates would choose their words more carefully if they took office.

"Once elected, I will not use the specific words ('illegal immigrant' or 'day laborer') because those words are what trigger lawsuits,'' Neuringer told the Editorial Board. "I may continue to use the words 'contractor' and 'landlord.' We will be responsible legislators.''

But after a flurry of flyers and robo-calls filled with claims about "illegal aliens" bringing violent gangs to town and sullying a local beach, it may be hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

SOS' anti-illegal immigrant drumbeat has been so loud that opponents Degnan and Mitts haven't been able to get their messages heard. Forget talk of usual town issues - taxes, traffic, zoning, land use and development. Those have all been pushed to the background.

Degnan, 47, who was elected mayor in 2005, formed a village police department and established regular meetings between police and the Hispanic community. He installed video cameras on Main Street and is working on moving village hall to 50 Main St., a renovation project that he touts as a sign of Brewster's resurgence.

"I've got such a full agenda of positive things for the Village of Brewster,'' Degnan said. As town supervisor, he would advocate that the town and the village work together to revitalize Brewster.

And yet, it's unclear how many people have heard Degnan's message. He keeps getting tripped up by SOS' false charges, including one that called him a slumlord who contributes to the overcrowded housing problem. His tenants say he is not. Eleven of Degnan's tenants, including a disabled Vietnam veteran who uses a federal Section 8 housing subsidy, wrote to The Journal News expressing their anger at an SOS flyer.

"We are American citizens and proud residents," they wrote. "We are not illegal immigrants, welfare cheats or living in overcrowded apartments."

That's one danger of painting with a broad brush, particularly in a county like Putnam, where demographics are changing rapidly. According to Census figures released last week, from 2000 to 2006, the percentage of Hispanics in the county increased by 62 percent (3,715 people) and the percentage of African Americans increased by 68 percent (1,115 people).

Degnan has charged that a recent teen crime spree aimed at Hispanic residents and a deli - eggs, bottles and a rock were thrown - was inspired by the SOS team's angry rhetoric. The conflict has further escalated tensions in the village.

Maria Davila, a recent immigrant from Peru, is legally in the United States on a religious visa with her husband, Rolando, who is pastor of the Brewster Seventh Day Adventist Church. Every Saturday, Rolando preaches in Spanish to a congregation of about 60 who meet for worship in rented space in the First United Methodist Church on Main Street.

"We know, as Hispanics, we have to face this situation,'' Maria Davila said. "We pick up things that are going on around town and, lately, we haven't gotten good news. But these are very hard-working people. They know this is happening, but they can do little to change things.''

As for Ball, the GOP Assemblyman whose style inspired the SOS campaign, he is glad to see the issue of illegal immigration front and center in Putnam.

"Before I came on the scene, this was an issue that local politicians were unwilling to talk about," Ball said.

No question, Ball's repeated rallies and SOS' energetic campaigning have ignited political debate throughout Putnam County, where incumbents have usually lingered long in office. This year, there are more primary races in Putnam than there have been in at least 30 years, according to Democratic Election Commissioner Bob Bennett.

Truth or dare
Debate is one thing. But oversimplification, such as SOS' "Stop the Hiring Site'' rally last month, is another.

Rights, the SOS supervisor candidate, claimed that a hiring site "for illegal aliens'' was planned by Degnan and Mitts. There is no active plan for a hiring site. It was an idea that was discussed by the bipartisan group Team Brewster in 2005 and then set aside because no land could be found. Using public money for a hiring site was discussed, but there also was discussion of getting nonprofits to run it. Degnan still favors the plan.

Ironically, Degnan got the hiring site idea from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. ICE met with local leaders at former Rep. Sue Kelly's office a couple of years back and distributed a brochure on how to establish a day laborer hiring site. Other communities, including Mount Kisco, have hiring sites run by a nonprofit agencies, and they have been successful in easing community tensions. Mitts said she opposes a hiring site.

"We visited other shelters,'' Mitts said. "I didn't foresee a community center. I didn't want to give English classes. I wanted to solve the traffic problem. Period.''

Then there are Consular ID cards. SOS sent out a robo call saying Degnan and Mitts were issuing photo IDs to illegal immigrants. Degnan does favor IDs, called consular cards, that are issued by an immigrant's country. He says the cards, which include a photo and local address, would help law enforcement better track offenders.

When town employees first saw them, Mitts said, they accepted them as proof of residency for entrance to the town lake.

"We had a policy in place for resident identification, but we didn't contemplate consular ID cards,'' Mitts said. "No one ever heard of them, but you can't just turn people away, you'd get sued. We had to research them. When it became clear that they didn't have to show any proof of identity to get those cards, we (Southeast officials) decided not to accept them.''

About 50 people who presented consular cards as identification were turned away from the lake this year, Mitts said.

Relevant or not?
Mitts, 43, who believes illiegal immigration is the town's biggest concern, is furious about the tactics of SOS.

"Once a lie gets out there, people believe it,'' Mitts said. "People have said to me, 'Well, they wouldn't just lie.' But they do. Most people can't get their mind around the fact that somebody in this context of public debate, someone running for government office, would say something that was completely and utterly untrue. But they do.''

Rights is surprisingly soft-spoken, given the harsh tone of his campaign's rhetoric. Corporate counsel for a biotech company, Rights, 46, lost a primary for town supervisor in 2003. He said that corruption and incompetence in local government made him run for office, and that there are many issues that need to be aired. That may be. Yet even Rights' ideas have been drowned out by his own campaign's noise.

Rights says his opponents have focused unfairly on his recent driving-while-intoxicated charge. He crashed his car on Milltown Road in June, and police said he refused a breathalyzer test at the scene. He was airlifted to Westchester Medical Center, where he was treated and given a blood test that police say showed he had a blood alcohol content of 0.12 percent, or 1.5 times the legal amount to drive. The town judge has recused himself, and the case is pending in Putnam County Court.

Rights declined to discuss the incident with the Editorial Board.

Mitts and her team did issue a mailer with graphic photos of Rights' crushed car. Considering that Rights' campaign has called his opponents everything from slumlord (Degnan) to puppet (Mitts), Rights' complaint that his opponents are being unfair seems thin-skinned.

After all, this is a textbook anything-goes campaign.

Debra West is a member of the Editorial Board.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs ... /OPINION01

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. ICE met with local leaders at former Rep. Sue Kelly's office a couple of years back and distributed a brochure on how to establish a day laborer hiring site.

Wow! ICE Pushing Day Labor sites? Has anyone ever heard this information before? It is a first for me!

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. ICE met with local leaders at former Rep. Sue Kelly's office a couple of years back and distributed a brochure on how to establish a day laborer hiring site.

Wow! ICE Pushing Day Labor sites? Has anyone ever heard this information before? It is a first for me!

W

No, but funny, I didn't even catch that since that is exactly what I expect our government to do.

ICE giving out brochures on how to start a day labor site... Isn't that a conflict of interest ?

Just shows their true intentions and it is NOT to arrest Illegal Aliens.