Immigration debate focuses on alleged plotters

Thursday, May 10, 2007
By ELIZABETH LLORENTE
STAFF WRITER





The arrest of three illegal immigrants linked to the foiled plot against Fort Dix is likely to emerge as a flashpoint in the red-hot national immigration debate, both sides predicted Wednesday.

"This plot proves the point we have been trying to make," said Gayle Kesselman of Carlstadt, co-chairwoman of New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control. "We don't have effective border security -- our borders are broken, we have non-enforcement of immigration laws, including laws that are supposed to protect us from terrorists."Immigration advocates acknowledge that the alleged plot could prove a setback for them, but countered that it illustrates the need to offer a way for most of the nation's illegal immigrants to obtain legal documents.

FORT DIX PLOT
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"I hope this Fort Dix plan doesn't influence the crux of the immigration debate, but I think it will," said Amy Gottlieb, director of the immigrant rights program of the American Friends Service Committee in Newark. "It will lead to more scapegoating of illegal immigrants, and more negative perceptions of them. It's very easy for people to raise the immigration issue on every social problem in the United States."

Immigration officials declined Wednesday to provide details about how three brothers -- ethnic Albanians Shain, Dritan and Eljvir Duka from the former Yugoslavia -- entered the United States. But the brothers seemingly had lived in the U.S. for at least a decade, attending high school here, owning a pizza shop at one point, and, more recently, a roofing business.

Proponents of stricter immigration laws said the apparent ability of the suspects to lead seemingly ordinary lives shows how easy it is to live here despite an illegal status.

Kesselman and Ron Bass, founder of the Linden-based United Patriots of America, said the U.S. needs to penalize those who "aid and abet" illegal immigrants. They want tough enforcement against landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, employers who hire them and businesses that cater to them. Some banks, for example, allow them to open accounts, obtain credit cards and mortgages.

"We have Congress considering an amnesty bill, but this Fort Dix plot should put an end to any ideas about amnesty," Kesselman said. "We bring millions of illegal people into this country by offering them jobs, health care, education, and it's the legal American citizen who is paying for this. We don't know who is here and what they're up to."Bass put it this way: "We cannot be the soup kitchen for the whole world."

"Our system is supposed to keep the bad guys out, and give us a way of deciding who we want here," he said. "It's a system that allows us to check you out."

Gottlieb said an aggressive crackdown would only drive illegal immigrants "further and further underground."

And that, said Gottlieb and other advocates, would hinder efforts to investigate crimes, including terrorist plots.

"If we have a legalization program, we'd have people come out of the shadows," she said. "They wouldn't feel the need to create false identities, and they'd be caught and identified if they were involved in criminal activity."

Gottlieb added that in the alleged Fort Dix plot, "the fact is that there were three other suspects [other than the brothers] who were here legally and were planning to carry out the attack."

In Morristown, where advocates are fighting a proposal by the mayor to deputize local police to enforce immigration laws, activist Stuart Sydenstricker also would like to see a legalization program.

"Some people call for just removing 12 million people out of the country," said Sydenstricker, of Wind of the Spirit, a Morristown group that helps undocumented immigrants. "That's not feasible, and besides, the economy will go into despair. Immigrants are mostly not criminals; they are providing labor this country needs and that Americans will not do.

"Legalizing them means they'll have backgrounds checked, any criminal background will be found, the information on them from their country of origin will be verified," he said. "And illegal immigrants who may know something about criminal activity would be more likely to go to police."

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

* * *
By the numbers
States with the highest number of illegal immigrants:

California 2.6 million

Texas 1.5 million

Florida 850,000

New York 600,000

Arizona 425,000

Illinois 400,000

Georgia 400,000

New Jersey 400,000

North Carolina 350,000Virginia 275,000

* The figures are estimates based on data from the Pew Hispanic Center and Current Population Survey, 2005





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