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Leaders bringing immigration debate closer to home

BY TARA MALONE and LARISSA CHINWAH
Daily Herald Staff Writers
Posted Monday, December 04, 2006

As local communities confront illegal immigration and its day-to-day effects, many suburban residents seek relief from an unlikely place - village hall.

Immigration reform remains stalled in Congress. Letters to national lawmakers and marches in Chicago's Loop sent a message, but one dulled by time and distance.

Today, many look for locally elected officials - whose front door is a mere knock away - to press for change.

Elgin and Carpentersville are among the first locally to lend their shoulder to the cause.

Sitting in the heart of the Fox Valley - a region first defined by European immigrants and now home to a burgeoning Hispanic population - these two towns will not be the last, experts say.


Thousands of protesters congregated outside a Carpentersville village board meeting in October to complain about a proposed ordinance that would have cracked down on illegal immigrants. The measure was tabled. (John Starks/Daily Herald)


Yet whether local efforts galvanize to prod federal lawmakers into action - and which direction that action might take - remains unclear.

No magic formula exists. Whether their voice gets heard depends on how many local leaders echo the hue and cry, and who within the newly reconfigured Congress listens, said Sharon Alter, a political scientist at Harper College in Palatine.

"The question is whether their strategy will get them a seat at the table," Alter said. "At this point in time, I don't think so."

Odds of the local discussion quieting anytime soon are unlikely. Not when schools, hospitals and neighborhoods struggle to serve a population growing in number and diversity.

"If something is not being dealt with at the national level, people will figure out how to deal with it at the local level," said Maria de los Angeles Torres of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Latino studies department. "That's where life evolves."

Many suburban leaders say they are aware of the issue but have no plans to act. Yet.

Members of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus will consider taking a formal stand on illegal immigration when they meet later this month, Executive Director David Bennett said. Their message likely will mirror that delivered to federal lawmakers by Carpentersville and Elgin during the past two weeks.

"We're looking for the federal government to step up and do its job. I think that's a pretty universally held view," Elgin Mayor Ed Schock said.

The effort thrusts them in the middle of a national trend.

No fewer than 94 cities, counties and townships in 23 states floated immigration-related resolutions during the past eight months.

Some target landlords and business owners who rent to or hire undocumented workers, such as a measure now tabled in Carpentersville.

"This is not about a race to see who can get it done first," said village Trustee Paul Humpfer, the leading architect of the measure. "It is about getting a good law that would hold up in the courts."

Others would shield illegal immigrants from deportation until Congress enacts reform, as Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado sought.

The flurry built to a frenzy last July.

City leaders in Hazleton, Pa., backed an ordinance that, like the one vetted in Carpentersville, took aim at landlords and business owners. Legal challenges ensued. Whether the measure stands on firm constitutional footing is pending in federal court.

"Hazleton was the tipping point," said George Goehl, with the Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C. "A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon."

City and village halls became a battleground within the immigration debate. With everything from mayoral to county board seats up for grabs in next year's local elections, the issue isn't likely to disappear.

"Folks feel, at the end of the day, pushing pro-immigrant ordinances at the local level is a nice way to build a fabric for the immigrant rights agenda at the federal level," Goehl said.

Proponents of tighter immigration controls employ the same logic.

With Hazleton as a rallying call, they laud local enforcement efforts. Anything less, contends Dave Gorak of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, is meaningless.

"Yes, it's a federal policy, but where are all the negative elements of this being felt? At the local level. That's where a lot of change comes from," Gorak said.

Carpentersville Trustee Judy Sigwalt, for one, hopes to set an example.

Sigwalt and Humpfer championed the ordinance cracking down on undocumented immigrants earlier this fall. The measure remains tabled. A resolution backed last month called for "meaningful and practical immigration reform."

"We should be a leader in anything that pertains to illegal immigration, anything that pertains to the quality of life for our citizens. ... It is hitting us all," Sigwalt said.

Carpentersville is a town of 37,000 that skirts the Fox River. More than 40 percent of its residents today are Hispanic, up from 17 percent in 1990, census figures show.

With a quarter of its 100,000 residents foreign-born, Elgin is one of the largest ports of entry among immigrants in the Chicago region. In 1900, the ratio was about the same, Elgin historian Mike Alft said. The countries the immigrants leave behind have changed over time.

Neither town is unique.

Chicago's suburbs now are home to more Latinos than Chicago is, research shows.

Along with Elgin, suburbs like Aurora, Mount Prospect, Naperville, Palatine, Schaumburg and Waukegan are home to the region's largest clusters of immigrants, according to Roosevelt University's Institute for Metropolitan Affairs.

The fact is not lost on many local leaders.

"Certainly some of the challenges and benefits our community faces are felt and already in the process in other communities," Waukegan spokesman David Motley said.

For others, where immigration is less pervasive, the discussion remains one relegated to village halls in other villages.

"I can say that this probably is not even on our radar," Lisle Mayor Joe Broda said.

• Daily Herald staff writer Jill Jedlowski contributed to this report.