Immigration backers push for new laws
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

By ELIZABETH LLORENTE
STAFF WRITER

PATERSON -- Immigration advocates said Tuesday that they will push for state laws and policies allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, attend college at in-state tuition rates and collect unpaid wages from employers.

The leaders -- who included activists, lawyers and pastors -- convened at Passaic County Community College in the first of a series of "Town Meetings" that the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey (LLANJ), an umbrella group of Hispanic organizations, plans to hold around the state.

However, at the same time, proponents of strict immigration measures are campaigning to get New Jersey towns to have their police deputized as federal immigration agents.

Their so-called 287G program favors training and empowering local police to enforce immigration laws and lay the groundwork for deportation.

Both the advocates and those who favor a hard line against illegal immigrants attributed their efforts to push for local policies to the collapse two weeks ago of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate.

Mahonrry Hidalgo, head of the LLANJ's immigration committee said federal inability to reform the immigration system has "put the onus on states and local communities to deal with immigrants."

Hidalgo said the priority must be to convince cities to "declare themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants" and added that a national Latino clergy group would soon announce a list of churches in New Jersey that will serve as safe havens for people facing deportation.

Gayle Kesselman, co-chairwoman of the Carlstadt-based New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control, which is leading the 287G campaign, said the federal government has "colluded in illegal immigration by allowing it to go on by inaction."

New Jersey has an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants, most living in North Jersey.

The advocates plan to lobby for a state bill that would allow illegal-immigrant students to pay in-state college tuition rates. They also plan to renew their fight for a state-issued card allowing illegal immigrants to drive. New Jersey is among the majority of states that require people seeking a driver's license to prove that they are in the United States legally.

Noting the anti-illegal immigrant drive, Hidalgo termed the advocates' new effort "trying to be proactive instead of waiting for the abuses to occur and then just reacting to them."

Kesselman called the advocates' new push "the definition of chutzpah."

"We have people who are not supposed to be in the country in the first place," she said.

"They're taking jobs away from U.S. citizens and driving down wages, and on top of that they want more services paid for by tax-paying legal residents."

Proponents of tough immigration control are going door to door in Bergenfield -- home to a large day laborer population -- to collect signatures supporting 287G. And on July 19, they plan to make a presentation on 287G before the Bogota Borough Council, in the hope that officials will apply for the program.

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

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