Thread: The dangers of Dustin Gold, New Haven's anti-illegal immigra

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Beware of the "Watchdog"
The dangers of Dustin Gold, New Haven's anti-illegal immigration zealot. By Betsy Yagla.
By Betsy Yagla
Kathleen Cei PhotoDustin "Digger" Gold dresses well and speaks well, creating an aura of authority.
Dustin Gold claims to be waging what appears to be a one-sided war against "corruption and illegal immigration" in the Elm City.

Gold wasn't on anyone's radar screen before the Elm City ID program launched this past summer, allowing undocumented city residents access to library cards, bank accounts and other services. Suddenly, he's everywhere: on the radio, organizing meetings, collecting union members' signatures on a petition. Still, as much as he's in the public eye, few people know anything about him. That's led to some conspiracy theories.

Gold's is a young, prominent voice. Via news outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters, he's appeared in newspapers around the country complaining about New Haven's immigration policies. Gold's articulate arguments are a boon to area residents disgruntled by New Haven's actions. Before this, the main anti-immigration spokesmen were sensationalistic cranks easily written off by the media and politicians. By contrast, Gold comes across as reasoned, likeable and intelligent. Whether or not he can change the direction of city policies, critics and followers alike are paying attention.

Gold knows how to work the media system to his advantage. He's cagey, which creates interest. He dresses well, speaks well and carries himself well, which creates an aura of authority: He seems to know what he's talking about. His polished website is constantly updated with stories, blog posts, video and audio, so there's reason to visit again and again. He's constantly in touch with reporters who not only listen to him but quote him. Practically any time there's a local story on immigration, Gold is quoted, giving him more and more cred.

While the federal government refuses to act on our national immigration quandary, New Haven is doing what it can to ameliorate the problem. Two recent examples—the creation of the Elm City ID and the police policy of don't-ask, don't-tell regarding immigration status—are fueling Gold's fire.

The day Elm City IDs were first offered, Gold told CNN, "The federal government does have a policy. They don't enforce the policy, which does not give a municipal politician the right to bend and work the rules."

Gold thinks the city's Elm City ID card is a disaster. He mocks it with his own glossy red, white and blue 960 WELI "Legal I.D." that boasts "I am a proud, legal citizen of the United States of America!" and "I am a resident of the great state of Connecticut!"

In fact, Gold mocks everything he can about current New Haven policy and the man behind it: Mayor John DeStefano. "I'd like to thank the mayor for [launching the IDs], because it woke me up to a lot of other issues," says Gold. "It was probably a mistake on their part."

Gold's obsessiveness is playing out in creative ways. His website announces soon-to-be-for-sale T-shirts that play off the infamous stenciled face of Che Guevara: instead of Che underneath the red-starred beret, it's DeStefano's face. The cleverly sensationalistic shirts read, "John DeStefano for a socialized New Haven."

And, in a not-so-veiled threat, Gold's site also features a "watchdog clock" constantly counting down the seconds until the "dethrowning [sic] of DeStefano." Gold claims to have a political candidate in mind who would run against DeStefano in the next election, but he won't say who it is. Gold also claims to be assembling candidates to take on the 25 aldermen who voted to create the Elm City Resident Card, but again he won't name names.

It's hard to pigeonhole Gold. Selling Guevara-DeStefano shirts and passing out fake ID cards, one could easily call him a goofy wacko. But then he turns around and speaks in a logical and lucid manner about contemporary politics.

That's why Gold's scary. He's walking that line, appealing to the respectable media outlets who need a credible source on immigration and also talking to and recruiting zealous xenophobes.

Gold, the 26-year-old founder of Community Watchdog Project (CWP), lives in North Branford, but he's obsessed with the goings-on in New Haven. He is regularly heard on Jerry Kristafer's morning talk radio show for "Watchdog Wednesday"—short, chatty sessions in which Kristafer praises Dustin "Digger" Gold's exposing of more so-called corruption. Through his continued weekly appearances on Kristafer's radio show, Gold is keeping his presence and his viewpoint on immigration alive in the area.

Together, Gold and Kristafer criticize and call out well-known members of New Haven's leftist society (like New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and his community services administrator Kica Matos).

Someone else Gold is seemingly trying to threaten is John Jairo Lugo, a political refugee from Colombia who heads Latinos Unidos en Accion and was a driving force in creating the city ID cards. After a November panel discussion at Yale on immigration in which Lugo took part, Gold went on the radio to badmouth him.

"He is anti-American," announced Gold. "I don't know if you can retract someone's citizenship. I know sometimes there are supervisors from ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] who listen to our show," he continued. "You need to look at John Jairo Lugo. He is spouting anti-Americanism. And this is how he repays the favor."

Strange, isn't it, to threaten someone for exercising something as American as the right to freedom of speech?

Gold told me in a later phone conversation he thought Lugo was "spouting anti-American hate speech" and "it needed to be looked into."

That's not the only run-in Lugo and Gold have had. "I don't know anything about him, but he knows a lot about me," says Lugo. Several weeks ago, Lugo said, "When I left my house last week, he was in front of my house. He was passing by really slow in his car and he waved at me. Maybe that was just a coincidence." It was: Gold says he was at a funeral nearby.

Gold has been showing up at immigration-oriented community events like Yale's "solidarity week" in early November, and he's currently trying to organize his own series of debates. Lugo thinks Gold is trying to use his presence—and a camera and digital recorder—at public events as an intimidation tactic. Often, Gold has a camera with him and photographs people at protests and meetings, says Lugo. "[Undocumented immigrants] get scared when they see someone taking pictures. I think that tactic is used by all these national anti-immigrant groups."

Gold also records conversations at community events like one in which Rep. Rosa DeLauro and CWP members got into a yelling match about her voting record on immigration. "Where did you get that?!" she repeatedly yelled while Gold and others grilled her, police-style, with detailed questions about her votes and national policy. Both sides sounded hysterical. That series of recordings has since been removed from CWP's website. There were dozens of other catalogued recorded conversations and interviews on Gold's website that also disappeared following a website redesign.

At a December immigration talk at New Haven's Wilson Courtland Library in the Hill neighborhood, Gold had Anthony Marenna, a young North Haven resident, digitally recording the three people with strong ties to the Latino community. Marenna was sitting directly in front of the microphone into which participating audience members spoke. He turned around and stuck the recorder in front of the pro-immigrant faces. CWP members seemed to be only interested in people who didn't agree with them.

The Golden Rule

At that immigration discussion at the library, fewer than 10 CWP members showed up, but they dominated the discussion. There were nine questions posed to a panel of four statewide politicians. Only three of the nine questions came from people not affiliated with CWP.

"I couldn't believe it," said Shawn Upton after the debate. Upton owns his own landscaping business and employs immigrants; he's in favor of giving them more rights. "One after another they got up and all said the same thing. I wish a white male who was born here would have gotten up and said something positive," said Upton.

After the library debate, CWP member Alan Felder spoke passionately with Werner Oyanadel, a Chilean immigrant who is a policy analyst for the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission in Hartford, who tried to respond calmly to Felder's claims that immigrants are hurting the black community.

"By advocating for comprehensive immigration reform we would tackle the problem of people coming here illegally," Oyanadel told me later. "If the result is that their wages are respected and the rights of all workers are respected then the job market would be better. That's the American way." Oyanadel cited a speech Al Sharpton made to La Raza, a nationally prominent Hispanic organization, in which Sharpton compared the struggle for immigration reform to the civil rights struggle.

"I totally disagree with him 100 percent," Felder said later. "You cannot compare their struggle with the African American struggle in this country. If you look at history, ever since emancipation African Americans have been competing against immigration."

While Felder and Oyanadel were talking, Gold was having a tiff with Father James Manship of St. Rose of Lima, the Fair Haven church that stepped up to the plate in organizing and helping the devastated neighborhood after the June 6 immigration raids by federal agents (a raid widely construed as retaliation against the Elm City ID plan). That church was the site of rallies, protests and a standing-room only mass in support of the 32 detained immigrants.

"What percentage of your parishioners are illegal?" Gold asked Manship. Gold is a tall guy and could easily have used his height and bulk to physically intimidate someone by leaning into and over them. He didn't do that. Instead, in this accusatory conversation, Gold's insolent words were spoken calmly and his body language was innocuous.

"I don't ask that question," responded Manship with a shrug. Manship was obviously upset by the question and he was trying to keep his cool.

"You agree they're illegal?" prodded a sneering Gold who went on to tell Manship he was profiting from immigrants, especially after the June 6 raids that greatly affected Manship's community and brought about an outpouring of financial support funneled through the church.

"What about you?" Manship shot back. "You're doing the same thing, profiting from donations you solicit on your website."

Gold admitted his group had only seen about $75 in donations since forming in September.

"No donations. What does that tell you?" Manship quipped.

A week after their discussion, Gold posted this to his website underneath a photo of Manship that originally ran on the New Haven Independent website:

"You thought DeStefano's version of socialism was bad? Well then, ladies and gentlemen, you have yet to meet Father Karl Marx...I mean, Father James Manship. The ideologies of these buffoons are so similar it makes it difficult to tell who is who at the communist zoo without a photograph."

Golden Days

Gold was born and raised in Connecticut, moving from Branford to North Branford where he now lives. His dad was a New Haven police officer in the '70s and is now a private investigator, as is Gold. "I'm licensed," he says, "but I don't do any of that work." But when contacting agencies like the Department of Social Services for his "investigations," Gold does identify himself as a private investigator.

Gold studied at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, graduating in 2002 with a degree in industrial design. He now runs his own web design company, Think Tank Creative Group (thinktankcreativegroup.com), based in Branford, when he's not out fighting illegal immigration and running investigations.

Gold's own family is full of immigrants. His maternal grandmother was a Japanese immigrant, who met Gold's grandfather when he was a soldier in WWII. His mother's grandparents were Scottish and English. On his father's side, one half of the family were Austrian Jews and the other Italians.

"As far as I know, they came here legally. I haven't done a lot of research into it; the ones that go back a few generations are harder to figure out. But I know my grandmother did and I know my Austrian family members did. I've seen their immigration papers."

Gold's intense interest in immigrants began on Sept. 11, 2001, he says.

"Originally I was more interested in border security," he explains. "I started paying attention to politics after 9/11, in college. When I started paying attention to the war, I was trying to figure out why we say we're protecting this country, but we don't protect our own borders. I was never looking at the illegal immigration issue."

But, as intensely involved as Gold is on a local level—personally criticizing and belittling nearly everyone who's had any impact on New Haven's immigration policies—he has no clear plans for how to fix the problem. He's just throwing stones. There are no national immigration plans he supports.

"As far as on the national issues, I think they're jerking around too much. They wanted to push amnesty, which failed. And the DREAM Act; that failed, too," he says. "I think we need border security on the north and south end. Then we can discuss the people who are already here. I don't think they should get any amnesty; I don't think they should be put in the front of the line [of people waiting to immigrate legally]. The policies, the way they are now, are too difficult, and that encourages people to come here illegally, so that needs to be talked about."

Gold's not a fan of any presidential candidate, on the left or right, even though the Republicans have been competing to show how tough they'd be on immigration. "They can't be trusted," he says. Gold used to be a registered Republican, but now he criticizes the war and calls President Bush a "dingbat."

Gold first became involved locally through a meeting in East Haven, organized by Bill Farrel of Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform. He's since distanced himself from SCTIR, a group seemingly more interested in theatrics than politics: They supplied protestors with bright yellow hard hats for demonstrations against the Elm City ID card. Gold declined to wear the hat. At the library debate, Farrel brought a hand-painted banner of DeStefano, with text that read, "Like Pres. Bush says let's bring 1000's of illegals into New Haven for jobs Americans won't do." He wasn't allowed to display his art.

Gold is different from Farrel. He's looking for a different type of attention. Gold often wears a dark suit and tie, which give him an air of sophistication (Farrel wears American-flag ties and work boots). He doesn't want to work with groups like SCTIR or the vehemently anti-illegal immigrant activist Paul Streitz of Darien, he says, because they're not diplomatic. He wants to work with the community and create allies.

Gold can make a lot of sense—at least when he's talking to me. He's measured, polite, even funny sometimes, and he's quick to laugh. But when he's on the radio rallying the troops, when he's blogging essays full of spin or when he's at a protest or debate with the enemy, he's more confrontational. He's even vaguely threatening: Gold says nasty things but in a calm, conversational tone. It's scary listening to him contort the truth so confidently.

Gold's Fold

In forming CWP, Gold's spending a lot of time with people two or nearly three times his age. CWP has attracted a wide range of people from different ethnic, racial and age groups. Their motivations are different yet their goals are similar.

Veronica Kivela, a 68-year-old North Haven member of CWP, is concerned about the lack of patriotism in this country. She worries what will become of us and she's glad someone Gold's age is so dedicated to the cause. If he's the future of political activism in Greater New Haven, she can relax. "It's refreshing to someone my age to see someone in his age group who will carry the flag," she says

Kivela continues in a passionate tone: "We've stopped teaching our children patriotism. We've stopped teaching our children to salute the flag," she says. "Thank God we have people like Dustin."

Kivela says she sometimes spends up to eight hours a day working on CWP projects. Kivela's retired; she can afford to spend that kind of time on projects. Gold has always been a workaholic, he says, and his politics come before friends. There was a time when he was spending more time working on CWP than running his website business.

"He puts more time, energy and effort into [CWP] than anybody else," says Alan Felder, a 43-year-old plumber and CWP member. Felder and Kivela both proudly wear their $30 official blue?and?yellow CWP jackets with their names embroidered.

Felder became interested in the issue after a visit last year to the construction site of what was to become Westville's new Wintergreen apartment complex. What he saw disturbed him—the majority of the construction workers at the site were Hispanic, not African American like Felder, he says.

"My job is in danger," Felder tells me.

I argue that, since he's a Yale unionized employee, his job is not in danger.

"It's not so much my job, per se," he responds. "It's a known fact that illegal immigrants take these jobs that go to people who are uneducated and unskilled. They take those jobs. I don't fall into that category, but still I'm affected by it because I'm in the construction trade. I'm in-house, but outside of Yale I do work and I'm affected by it. Me and my community are affected by it."

Visiting the Wintergreen site opened his eyes, Felder says, and prompted him to get involved. Once he found out his union, Local 35, sends a portion of their dues to UNITE HERE, which in turn lobbies for broader immigrant rights, Felder began circulating a controversial petition on campus.

It's unlikely that Felder, Gold, Kivela and other CWP members would have become friends or allies under different circumstances. But Gold sees this nation's problems through the lens of immigration, and he's able to connect patriotism and jobs to his issue. "Immigration is just a spoke in the wheel," he likes to say.

Fool's Gold

John Lugo is one of a few members of New Haven's immigrant-rights faction to suggest Gold may be receiving help—monetary or tactical—from national groups that oppose immigration. New Haven's right-wing has never been terribly large or organized, and Gold's omnipresence is beginning to make immigration activists antsy.

It's not far out to believe New Haven is being monitored or infiltrated by national anti-illegal immigration organizations. All the national attention and hysteria focused on the city after DeStefano announced the launch of the Elm City ID Card program and the subsequent immigration raids in early June caught the eye of these groups—Lou Dobbs berated DeStefano on CNN, the BBC, Fox News and MSNBC reported on the ID in July, and the Minot Daily News (that's Minot, North Dakota) wrote a negative editorial about the ID cards on July 25.

So we are being monitored by the media, but these national groups aren't spending too much time or effort here.

One such group, Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, took the time to create fliers in Spanish inviting Hispanic immigrants to New Haven: "Come to New Haven, CT for sanctuary. Bring your friends and family quickly," reads the flier. A flier, though, isn't reason enough to conclude national organizations are trying to make a change here in New Haven. ALIPAC created the fliers to "throw these traitors out of office," the group's president William Gheen told me in an e-mail. (That flier, obviously, didn't work: DeStefano was re-elected in November.) Gold's website links to ALIPAC's website, but ALIPAC doesn't return the favor.

Another major immigration organization on the national scene is the Center for Immigration Studies. CIS brands itself as a "research organization," but they are clearly not in favor of immigration rights. Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at CIS, says she's spoken once with Gold. Gold wanted an opinion on New Haven's police policy of not asking people about their immigration status and not enforcing administrative warrants.

"That's my area of expertise," Vaughan says. "When Gold called me I was already familiar with what he was talking about. We didn't speak for that long but he wanted to know if it was a generic sanctuary policy or if it was like an actual sanctuary policy." For the record, Vaughan is against the policy, calling it "obstructive."

CIS doesn't have anyone working in the New Haven area, says Vaughan, but she monitors immigration news and has read up on New Haven's immigration policies.

It's unlikely Gold's getting any help and he says as much. "For instance, with CIS, I'll talk to a couple people there—they've done a lot of research and if I'm looking for advice, I'll talk to them. But I don't get any money support or guidance," he says.

"[The national groups] are all looking for donations," he adds. "Some of them, I don't think they even do anything. And if you call them, they won't help any smaller groups. They just ask for your money and you get their newsletter."

Since Gold likes to commit puffery once in a while—if he were getting help, he would have bragged about it quite a lot—I'm inclined to believe him.

Gold Digger

Gold has made some pretty big claims about what his group has accomplished since forming in early September. In doing so, he's proven to be a master at twisting the truth. One accomplishment he is particularly proud of—and one of the first in his timeline of fighting corruption and illegal immigration in New Haven—is his "extensive research" into malfeasance at the Community Action Agency. By that he means the agency's providing of home heating assistance to undocumented immigrants by generating false Social Security numbers.

A whistleblower contacted the state about CAA's "corruption" in early summer, prompting the state Department of Social Services—the funnel through which CAA gets funding for the home heating program—to look into the charge.

The way Gold tells it, the whistleblower complained, grew tired of waiting and contacted Gold. He took over the investigation and announced what he'd learned on Kristafer's morning show.

"The state was supposed to be conducting an investigation [into CAA]," Gold told me later. "They were ignoring it. From the governor to the attorney general to the chief state's attorney's office to the Department of Social Services. They tried to run a bogus investigation and cover it up." Gold asked a few state legislators to listen in on his Sept. 7 radio revelation and "within three hours they were in a meeting with the governor."

During his investigation, Gold "peppered" the state with phone calls and requests, says DSS spokesman David Dearborn. "Most people don't call the commissioner, the deputy commissioner, the director of this, the director of that," says Dearborn. "He called probably half a dozen people. Normally there would be one call—to me or to the director. We got the sense he was an activist or a gadfly."

Dearborn's timeline of events differs from Gold's. DSS received two referrals from Auditors of Public Accounts, a legislative agency that conducts audits of all state agencies, regarding whistleblower complaints at CAA, one in May and one in June, Dearborn says. The review was completed over the summer and handed back to the APA and to the attorney general's office in September.

At that time, the state was still looking into what happened at CAA, said Dearborn in November, who faxed the Advocate a cover letter to an August report about the June whistleblower complaint to prove the state had been actively investigating. Dearborn couldn't share the whole report, he says, because the state was still investigating. Last Thursday, the state raided CAA's offices and Gold called me that evening. He was excited. "I just got a tip the General Inspector's office is raiding CAA," Gold boomed into the phone. "I told you, didn't I?"

Dearborn came away from their contact thinking Gold was both pleasant and genial. But he's quick to add "the notion that Mr. Gold is responsible for the state's response on this is delusional."

Gold has other ongoing investigations that he wouldn't tell me about. He'd hinted to me, back in early November, that CAA would be raided. About his other investigations, Gold says he's handed over all his research to the FBI and the State's Attorney's office. Once he's done that, it's out of his hands, he says, and he's not allowed to talk about it.

Another Gold investigation, he'd have you believe, proves that DeStefano "put the squeeze" on New Haven Savings Bank for $25 million when the bank converted to a publicly owned company. That $25 million was for the city—to fund the First City Bank. So, when DeStefano asked the First City Bank to fund the Elm City ID program to the tune of $250,000, DeStefano was actually using city money for the IDs, Gold argues.

"Thus, funds that were to be used for the residents of New Haven were diverted to the creation and promotion of the Elm City ID Card," concludes Gold on the CWP website. Gold's theory is becoming more and more popular since DeStefano has yet to debunk the idea that he will take over the First City Fund after he completes his next two-year term as mayor.

Gold's bank conspiracy theory has a few big holes in it. The $25 million was intended to create a savings bank to replace NHSB, not go directly into city coffers. So when DeStefano asked the organization for the money, it wasn't city money he was asking for. The First City Fund was supposed to give out grants and create programs to benefit city residents. The Elm City ID card is supposed to benefit city residents. So it's fitting that First City Fund would fund the ID program.

DeStefano's request for funding detailed how offering IDs to everyone, including undocumented immigrants, would provide banks with customers (i.e., the undocumented immigrants) who previously didn't have access to bank accounts. Gold argues DeStefano used city money to attract customers to a bank DeStefano will eventually take over. That bank doesn't actually exist yet, though. No bank equals no customers. If it is a get-rich-quick scam, the timing is way off. It's likely that undocumented immigrants will bank at First City Fund once the bank opens if they haven't already opened accounts elsewhere. But what's so scandalous about giving your business to a company that has helped you?

For now, though, Gold's "seven-week, 175-hour investigation" is a lot of hyped-up language masking a conspiracy theory, like this claim: DeStefano's "promotion of a useless Identification Card with monies purported to be a 'grant' (from the City to the City) appears to be the beginning of a self-enrichment scheme at the expense of both the uniformed [sic] taxpayers and all others within the Greater New Haven community who will undoubtedly pay the long term price for Mr. DeStefano's 'first in the nation' YALE Law School-inspired SOCIAL EXPERIMENT."

Gold sounds angry, right? Maybe he should move to New Haven and vote.

"People are scared of that city," Gold told WELI's Jerry Kristafer during one Watchdog Wednesday session. "They've got concerts on the Green and nobody will go down there." (Maybe Gold's never been to summer concerts on the Green in New Haven. The concerts were so popular two summers ago the city worried that the tens of thousands of people on the Green could kill the trees.) But later in the same session, Gold adds, "As we're fixing things in the city, I'm thinking of moving there. I think it's going to be a safer place."

Why is Gold so obsessed with immigration in New Haven? "It's my duty as an American to get involved," Gold says. "I don't blame the illegal aliens. Their countries are messed up and then you've got politicians like DeStefano and Bush sending them mixed messages...I'm not doing this because I hate people. I'm actually a nice person," he says with a guffaw. l

byagla@newhavenadvocate.com

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]"One such group, Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, took the time to create fliers in Spanish inviting Hispanic immigrants to New Haven: "Come to New Haven, CT for sanctuary. Bring your friends and family quickly," reads the flier. A flier, though, isn't reason enough to conclude national organizations are trying to make a change here in New Haven. ALIPAC created the fliers to "throw these traitors out of office," the group's president William Gheen told me in an e-mail. (That flier, obviously, didn't work: DeStefano was re-elected in November.) Gold's website links to ALIPAC's website, but ALIPAC doesn't return the favor.'