Thread: The immigration system is dangerous (commentary)

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ ... 805.column

The immigration system is dangerous

Joseph Dolman
April 20, 2005


They were standing in the shadows yesterday morning under the No. 7 elevated train at Roosevelt Avenue and 69th Street in the heart of polyglot Queens - perhaps 50 young Latinos, who lined the street and watched and waited.

As golden shafts of sunlight filtered through the tracks and dappled the pavement before them, they waited patiently for the vans to roll up. When one came along, a couple of guys would walk over and dicker with the driver. Then a few more would emerge from the shadows to exchange words.

The van door would either slide open and the men would pile in for a long day - we may guess - of way-off-the-books labor at bargain prices. Or the driver would close his window and glide off without a deal, leaving the men to return to their vigil in the deafening din below the No. 7 line.

This is a scene that unfolds countless times a day in every part of the metropolitan region. As we know, it's not just the city's economy that purrs along with a humongous assist from illegal labor. So do more than a few homes and factories and businesses on Long Island.

And here is the truth about that: The whole immigration system is as corrosive and as dangerous as it can possibly be - not just to native Americans but to illegals as well. They can spend their working lives here and still wind up on the fringes of American life - bereft of basic civil rights. Meanwhile, nearly four years after 9/ll, the United States still has borders it can't control.

But if you listen to the civic fuss regarding the latest influx of illegal workers in the New York region, you'd be tempted to think that the big downside involves minor disorders from the curbside labor markets - whether in Queens or on the streets of Farmingville or Southampton.

And you'd be wrong.

The worst thing about illegal immigration is not the reality of strangers hanging around on the streets. Rather, the worst thing about illegal immigration is that it makes us something less than a nation of laws.

Say you're a local official such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg or Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy. You essentially have a choice when it comes to illegal aliens.

You can ignore federal law, and order your cops and school officials not to report illegals to federal agents unless they have committed criminal acts. This is the course Bloomberg and his recent predecessors have taken. Or you can take Levy's approach and consider deputizing a few local officers to assume some functions of U.S. immigration agents. Neither course is good.

Even illegals need local cops they can trust. The plan Levy pondered (and then scrapped) would have killed any trace of that trust. But how bad are laws that localities must ignore in the name of justice?

Answer: Really bad.

The result is near mayhem. While officials in the Northeast promise sanctuary to illegals, states such as Utah have begun to deny illegals driver's licenses. And in the desert Southwest vigilantes keep an eye on unguarded stretches of border.

Bottom line: Immigrants are a net plus to New York and to the nation. If the laws that spell out their status don't work, then we should quickly fix them.

"We find it impossible to work with a system that has no respect for the law," Judith Golub, spokeswoman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told me.

The group has put a reform plan on the table that is far more explicit than what President George W. Bush has proposed.

It is not for blanket amnesty. It is for more closely guarded borders - courtesy of regular federal border guards. It would be willing to grant legal status to illegals here now, but would ask them to learn English. It would not let them jump ahead of legal applicants. It would set up tough penalties for workers and employers who violate the law. And it would put a heavy emphasis on family unification.

Today's immigration laws are every bit as ineffective and at least as dangerous as the 1920s Prohibition laws. Folks like Bloomberg and Levy can't make them work. Which leaves Congress. Hello, anyone home?

Email: nycdolman@aol.com

Truer words have never been spoken!!!

And until we remove this issue from Congress, it is going to be open to Mexican Checkbook Diplomacy. If we can get a National Referendum on Immigration, we will change that although, nothing is perfect. Still.. that would be better than what we have now.