Officials checking 'refuge' details
Questions linger on sanctuary vote
By Katheleen Conti, Globe Staff | June 21, 2007

Chelsea may have been recently declared a sanctuary city for immigrant and refugee residents, but concerns have been raised as to just what that means.

City Manager Jay Ash said he is holding meetings with the City Council and representatives from several community organizations to clarify the new designation.

"The councilors passed a largely ceremonial resolution" on June 4, said Ash, adding that the purpose of the meetings is to "give a clear understanding for residents to see what that actually means."

At the moment, the resolution is a statement from the council and the administration aimed at "undocumented residents, to recognize the rights that they have," Ash said.

Police Chief Frank Garvin said he is concerned that the resolution may give people a false sense of protection in terms of enforcement of immigration laws.

"I'm not sure everybody understands what this means," he said. "Somebody better straighten this out. What we're doing is we're saying symbolically that we're a city of a lot of" immigrants "and we respect them, but until the laws change, we have to uphold the current laws."

The City Council's president, Roseann Bongiovanni, who is the associate executive director of the Chelsea Collaborative nonprofit social services organization, presented the resolution to the council. It was approved by a 10-1 vote.

Gladys Vega, the collaborative's executive director, said her organization helped create the language of the resolution, which states that Chelsea "supports a just and fair immigration reform that respects individuals and allows proper and affordable navigation channels for individuals to become permanent residents and eventually naturalized citizens." Vega and Bongiovanni were unavailable for further comment this week.

Yessenia Alfaro, community organizer for the collaborative's Chelsea Latino Immigrant Committee, said that the "sanctuary city" designation does not mean that Chelsea is opening the door for undocumented immigrants. "We're just respecting people from wherever they come from and asking the police officers not to be part of any raids," she said.

"It will benefit all the residents. We have a variety of people, not just Hispanics."

According to the latest US Census statistics, about 50 percent of Chelsea's population was Latino in 2000. Ash said the number is now close to 60 percent. He said there is no deadline to clarify the resolution, and that he does not know if it would affect city ordinances.

Signed by Bongiovanni and councilors Roy Avellaneda, Paul Nowicki, Marilyn Vega-Torres and Brian Hatleberg, the resolution calls for the fair treatment of immigrants in the workplace, and rejects the use of the words "illegal" and "alien" in Chelsea "to describe any human being."

"What I think of it as, we're against what's going on with immigration raids like what happened in New Bedford," Vega-Torres said. "If something like that happens in the city of Chelsea, the city wouldn't approve of it because the city of Chelsea has always been so diverse."

Councilor Stanley Troisi voted against the resolution, saying he felt it blurred the lines between legal and illegal immigration.

"My grandparents were immigrants, but they came from a designated port of entry, they had health and criminal checks, et cetera," Troisi said. "People who go by all the rules deserve something better than those who don't go by all the rules."

Garvin said he is sympathetic to the concerns of the immigrant community, especially since the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of a New Bedford leather goods factory in March that led to the arrests of 361 workers, some single mothers, accused of being in the country illegally.

However, Garvin, who said his input was "never sought" in the wording of the resolution, said that unless immigration laws are changed on a national level, his officers will cooperate with federal and state immigration enforcement agencies if they require assistance.

"It's my preference, because of the number of community groups that we work with, that this is resolved, but the law is the law, and we fully intend to obey the law," the police chief said. "I know in places like California in some cities they kind of stopped doing things" such as traffic stops "because a large number of people had no license, and they cut back" on enforcing some laws on the books.

"We would never do that. We're just going to enforce the law, provide public safety, and we will assist federal, state or any agency."

In a statement released by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Homeland Security arm created in the wake of 9/11, a spokeswoman said that "ICE is mandated by Congress to enforce a wide range of federal immigration and customs laws. ICE will continue to enforce these federal laws in Chelsea and in other communities throughout the country. We look forward to continued cooperation with the city of Chelsea."

In Marlborough, officials are taking an opposite approach to that of Chelsea, recommending using local funds to open a federal immigration office there because of an influx of illegal immigrants.

Cambridge's 22-year-old sanctuary declaration, which was renewed last year, calls for a hold on federal immigration raids and emphasizes immigrants' human rights. Not all cities and towns that declare themselves sanctuary cities outline specific local legislation. Most such declarations are nonbinding.

Last week, the US House of Representatives approved an amended Homeland Security bill that would cut emergency funding to communities with the sanctuary designation.

Chelsea resident Merlin Peña, who in 1980 fled to the United States to escape from El Salvador's political unrest and violence, said the resolution won't stop federal immigration raids, but it helps to show that "we're not criminals."

"We come to this country because of the lack of opportunity in our countries. People are dying of hunger in our countries," Peña said. "It was different when Italians and the Irish came -- it was really organized. But now people have no chances to get a job or go to school."

Peña said that there is some level of protection in having the resolution, "because if ICE does these abuses in the city, like deporting single mothers to Texas, we have the support of the City Council and the city manager."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... e_details/

It sounds like this headline should be: "City having second thoughts on 'sanctuary city' designation."