Long Isl. Battles Over Immigrants; Bond Slams Bush at NAACP
Michael Eisenscher
Long Island Battles Over Immigrants
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:21 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- A middle-class community on Long Island has become an
unlikely flashpoint in the national debate over illegal immigration because
of the beatings of two Mexicans and a rejected proposal to build a hiring
hall for laborers.
Immigration experts say Farmingville, a suburban middle-class community of
15,800, is the first place outside the Southwest where the conflict over
illegal-immigrant labor has reached such a high pitch.
A mostly white community 50 miles east of New York City, Farmingville is
home to more than 1,000 day laborers, most of them illegal immigrants from
Mexico who seek jobs in landscaping, painting and construction.
Last week, civil rights organizations, including the National Council of La
Raza and the Southern Poverty Law Center, sent representatives to a Long
Island strategy session. The groups hope to revive a plan for a publicly
funded hiring hall for day laborers.
In response, a local citizens group has invited organizations that advocate
tighter controls on immigration to a meeting of its own next month.
``We're more than willing to take them on. The gunfight at the OK Corral
will happen on Aug. 4,'' said Ray Wysolmierski, a spokesman for the citizen
group. He said immigrant advocacy organizations are plotting to ``force
this town against its will to open a workplace for illegals.''
The issue flared in Farmingville last September when two Mexican day
laborers were badly beaten by men posing as contractors. Two men are
awaiting trial on attempted murder charges in the attack, which authorities
say was racially motivated.
Last spring, Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney vetoed a plan passed
by the County Legislature to set aside $80,000 for a day-laborer hiring
center in Farmingville.
Backers said the site would have provided a place for men seeking work to
gather in an orderly fashion, rather than waiting around on street corners
for contractors to drive by.
The demand is high for workers on Long Island, where the unemployment rate
is around 3 percent. In Farmingville, scores of day laborers gather between
6 and 9 a.m. at busy intersections and swarm the trucks of arriving
contractors. Traffic backs up as workers negotiate; the going rate is about
$10 an hour.
Gaffney, in vetoing the hiring center, said it would be wrong for
government to subsidize what amounts to illegal employment.
``It's like using government funds to build a hall during the Vietnam War
to counsel those against the war on how to dodge the draft,'' he said.
Opponents of the project have invited such figures as Barbara Coe of the
California Coalition for Immigration Reform and Glenn Spencer of the Los
Angeles-based American Patrol to next month's meeting.
``We are going to be there in the first part of August to stand in defense
of loyal, law-abiding citizens,'' said Coe, who added that her group is
dedicated to ``halting the illegal alien invasion of our nation.''
Spencer said hiring sites for immigrant day laborers do not work. ``We have
videos of these day labor centers in Los Angeles absolutely empty,'' he
said. ``What they do is put the imprimatur of the city on an illegal
activity.''
Critics say the two groups are known for extreme anti-immigrant positions.
``We list American Patrol as a hate group,'' said Heidi Beirich of the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
Beirich said the Farmingville debate is reminiscent of past struggles in
border states.
A number of hiring halls were created in Southern California in the late
1980s, but the debate also sparked measures aimed at discouraging illegal
immigrants from living or seeking work there.
``The pattern that you have in Farmingville, with day laborers on the side
of the road, is almost replicated straight out of San Diego County in the
late '80s,'' Beirich said. ``Because it's happening so far north, it's
unique and probably the beginning of a trend.''
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
=============================
NAACP Critical of White House
By Deborah Kong
AP Minority Issues Writer
Monday, July 9, 2001; 7:29 p.m. EDT
NEW ORLEANS President Bush delivered a videotaped message to the NAACP
annual convention Monday in which he pledged to uphold "the memory of
Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass," but leaders of the civil rights
group made it clear they want more than talk.
"I welcome the president's words, but I will welcome more his actions,"
said Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
About 4,800 people watched Bush's videotaped greeting a day after NAACP
board chairman Julian Bond attacked the president's record in his first few
months in office.
Mfume, in his keynote address Monday, was more subtle. But he still raised
points of contention with the president.
Bond denounced Bush for appeasing "the wretched appetites of the extreme
right wing," and noted that Bush "picked Cabinet officials whose devotion
to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."
In particular, Bond assailed the civil rights records of Interior Secretary
Gale Norton and Attorney General John Ashcroft. He also criticized the Bush
tax cut and his faith-based initiative.
Chief White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded sharply Monday, saying
that Bond's comments are "another reminder about why the tone in Washington
needs to be changed." He also said Bond's remarks were "excessive" and
there was "a certain sense of going too far."
Bush addressed the NAACP convention last year when he was a Republican
candidate for president, but hasn't met with Bond or Mfume since he took
office in January.
In Monday's taped remarks, the president said he had selected a diverse and
well-qualified group of advisers including Secretary of State Colin Powell,
Education Secretary Rod Paige, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.
"We must continue our work to make sure that my party keeps faith with the
memory of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass," Bush said.
The president also promised to improve the nation's public schools and to
work to end racial profiling.
Mfume later referred to Bush's campaign label as a compassionate conservative.
"For over a year we've heard about compassionate conservatism," said Mfume,
a former Democratic congressman. "The NAACP says 'Wouldn't it be wonderful
if every conservative was compassionate?'"
"Wouldn't it be great if they finally understood, in their pomp and
circumstance and their power and position that the Constitution does not
belong solely to one party or one individual?"
Mfume also warned the NAACP "would not sit idly by" while federal courts
are stacked "with strange, conservative-thinking individuals."
"You can't do that and we won't let you," Mfume said, amid cheers.
There were also complaints about the criminal justice system at a workshop
later Monday.
An official from the Police Complaint Center in Tallahassee, Fla., reviewed
the results of a study his organization conducted into how police
departments react when asked for a complaint form.
Diop Kamau, executive director of the center, said his group found police
used a variety of tactics to deter people, including telling them they
didn't have a form and that one could not be filed unless the person talked
to the officer they had a complaint against.
"People are being turned away in droves," he said.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Scott Greenwood, who joined with
the Cincinnati Black United Front to file a lawsuit alleging Cincinnati
police illegally targeted and harassed blacks for 30 years on the basis of
race, said discrimination occurs in many forms.
In racially motivated traffic stops, blacks are cited for traffic offenses
that whites are not, such as driving with a broken license plate light or
not wearing a seatbelt, he said.
On the Net:
NAACP: http://www.naacp.org
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
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