Asinine, revolting and inflammatory comments by Hispanic Director of New Jersey:
State filling federal void in addressing immigration issues
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/7/07
BY DANIEL SANTO PIETRO

The failure of the federal government to develop a sound and practical immigration policy has left states like New Jersey struggling to find ways to cope with a rapidly growing immigrant population, many of them undocumented and living in mixed-status families.

A few weeks ago, Attorney General Anne Milgram unveiled an important public-information initiative to warn immigrants of deceptive legal practitioners preying on the desperation of many by promising them a quick and painless path to residency and citizenship.

This step and several others recently taken by the Corzine administration are essential given continuing federal neglect of immigration issues. Inaction by Congress is a travesty for the estimated 12 million to 15 million undocumented workers nationwide and the 500,000 who call New Jersey home. At the same time, the general population is denied the opportunity of identifying the immigrants living among us. This is not good for anyone. The immigrants remain in a precarious situation, subject to exploitation by unscrupulous employers and without access to a host of vital safety-net services.

This spring, the politicians in Washington decided they would rather stereotype and stigmatize immigrants than come up with a practical solution to the immigration crisis. The earliest we may see immigration reform could be 2009.

New Jersey has to fill this void until then by developing policies to incorporate this community fully into the economic, political and cultural life of the state. The new immigrants are here to stay and have become a productive portion of our work force. Because of the leadership of Gov. Corzine, New Jersey is in the forefront of trying to bring immigrants into the mainstream.

The appointment in August of a blue-ribbon panel to study the challenges faced by New Jersey and the immigrant community is the most visible evidence of this enlightened policy. However, even prior to that, the state began to move in the right direction. In June, Commissioner Kevin Ryan of the Department of Children and Family Services issued a policy statement that all children in crisis will receive services, regardless of their immigration status.

In recent weeks, the Department of Labor and Work Force Development took steps to ensure that fair wage hearings to determine whether employers have cheated their employees of part, or all, of their wages will be held at locations across New Jersey, rather than just in Trenton.

The past system forced employees to miss a day of work, sometimes several, to travel back and forth to Trenton for the proceedings. The Department of Labor has also pledged to streamline a process that has often dragged on for months.

All of these proposals were suggested by a panel of experts convened earlier this year by the Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey and the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey to study the impact of immigration on New Jersey. We congratulate Corzine and his administration for listening and responding to the community.

Now it is our hope he will find solutions for our other proposals to grant in-state tuition to undocumented youths who have resided for years in New Jersey and to extend all immigrants legal driving privileges.

Daniel Santo Pietro is executive director of the Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey, New Brunswick.
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