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Sanctuary sought in Bridgeton
By MILES JACKSON
Staff Writer
mjackson@thedailyjournal.com

BRIDGETON -- They have jobs, work hard, pay taxes and ask for little in return.

The three men all are residents of Mexican descent living in the United States illegally and are board members of the Committee for Agricultural Worker Assistance, which his known by the acronym CATA.

But it's not assistance they seek, not government handouts or special programs to provide monetary or material assistance.

All they want, they say, is to be left alone, free from the harassment of police and immigration authorities.

And they want to make it official.

CATA members are asking the municipal government in Bridgeton to declare the city a "sanctuary" where public funds couldn't be used to enforce federal immigration laws. There are a handful of sanctuary cities in the state, including Trenton and Newark.

They also want city officials to refuse assistance to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, an agency known to those in the immigrant community as ICE.

City officials say they realize the contribution of Bridgeton's Mexican community, but add that they've taken an oath to uphold the laws of the state and the nation.

"We just can't refuse to abide by federal laws," Mayor James Begley said.

But the CATA members, and others in the city's Mexican community, say it takes seven years or longer to obtain papers to work in the United States, and that papers are almost impossible to get while living anyplace but a major city in Mexico.

"It's important that we convince the people of Bridgeton that we are good people," said Fabian Martinez, a 21-year-old worker for a landscape company who is in the country illegally. "But ICE has come into the city, knocked down the doors to some of our homes and taken the men away."

By taking away those immigrants, ICE has disrupted the family unit, the basic building block of the Mexican community where family ties are strong and the absence of a father in a home is a severe hardship economically and culturally, immigration advocates say.

"All the raids do is separate families," said Claudio Lopez, a middle-aged man with the callused hands of someone who does manual labor who also is in the country illegally. "They are separated with no idea when they will be together again."

Jose Mendez, a 20-year-old landscape worker in the U.S. illegally, said he and the other men pay state and federal income taxes, as well as Social Security taxes.

"We'll never be able to collect the benefits from Social Security or many other programs paid for by those taxes," Mendez said. "And we can't get papers to work here even if we're doing a job nobody else wants."
'It's really hurtful'

Still, the three men said they suffer an outpouring of abuse from people who have created an atmosphere of hate for the Mexican immigrants who are harvesting crops, manicuring lawns and holding some of the nation's most difficult jobs.

Martinez said he was working along a road, putting in plants for a major landscaper, when a car of Anglo-Americans passed by, throwing bottles and insults at him and fellow Mexican workers.

"How do you think that makes us feel?" Martinez said. "It's really hurtful, especially when you have a radio station calling all Mexicans 'cockroaches' and 'trash.'"

"We're not asking for anything but respect," he added.

City officials said the Mexican community benefits Bridgeton's economy, but also note that they can't -- and won't -- ignore federal laws.

Burl Kimble, acting police chief in Bridgeton, said his officers don't ask about the immigration status of anyone.

"We enforce the local and state laws," Kimble said. "We don't go looking for violations of immigration law to enforce."

Kimble said his department has made an effort to reach out to the Mexican community after a city police officer was accused of assaulting and robbing an immigrant last year.

"A vast majority of the Mexican immigrants in our community are good hardworking people who just want to live in peace," Kimble said. "We don't look for immigration violations, but we can't turn a blind eye on all federal laws."

"But what would happen if we just kicked 11 million people out of this country?" Kimble added. "It would cause major economic upheaval. There has to be some way to let these people stay in this country legally."