Illegal Immigrants vs. Mamaroneck, New York

US flag flying under Mexican flag at an immigration protest (full story at end of article)

Guess who won.

For a time, Mamaroneck, a small town not far from New York City, USA, had numerous complaints of illegal immigrants at a makeshift day-laborer hiring site fighting, littering, and drunkenly urinating in public. According to the mayor, the site was straining the city's resources. They eventually shut it down, which forced the day-laborers onto the streets. At that time, police stepped up patrols in the area and apparently questioned some of the loiterer's immigration status. Bad move.

So late last year six of the laborers decided to sue the city, charging violation of First Amendment rights and racial discrimination. They dropped the First Amendment complaint after their attorneys advised them it might force them to disclose their immigration status. That left only the racism complaint, which very often is the only recourse left for people when legitimate arguments fail. But lucky for them, they got the right judge. Justice Colleen McMahon, a Federal judge in the Southern District of New York, found for the laborer's discrimination complaint and ordered the city to ignore the law from now on. Literally.

In the end, they reached a compromise. The city recently agreed to pay the plaintiffs $550,000 of the taxpayer's money and ordered police to stop questioning anyone loitering around. For their part, the illegal immigrants agreed to keep hanging around looking for work without a work visa... OK, I lied. It wasn't a compromise at all. It was a complete sellout to illegal aliens allowing them to continue breaking the law, and now the police aren't even allowed to do anything about it.

Oh wait - believe it or not, it gets even worse. Remember that $550K? It didn't go to the day-laborers. It went to their attorneys for court expenses (negotiations on the settlement lasted several months.). It's a typical day in America; illegal immigrants can continue to ignore the law, lawyers get their handsome fee, and the taxpayers ends up footing the bill for the whole thing.

And lest I forget, another day labor hiring site is opening in the town as well.

There are so many problems in various news articles about the case that I don't know where to start. Let me highlight a few:

From the AP:

The workers "have sought from the village nothing more than to be left alone and be allowed to seek work," said their lawyer, Alan Levine. "It is sad that it took a lengthy and costly lawsuit to establish such a fundamental right in Mamaroneck."

This is an outright lie. What fundamental right? It is illegal for foreign nationals to work in the US without the proper visa. And this guy is supposed to be an attorney?

From Lower Hudson Online:

Attorneys for the laborers called the agreement a major victory for the immigrant population.

Illegal immigrant population. Legal immigrants are not really affected, except that now they can hire cheap labor with impunity like everyone else.

"One of the things that have always made day laborers terribly fearful were inquiries about their immigration status,"

I wonder why that would be...

Laborers - who were identified only as John Doe - claimed that one police officer had stared at them with his hand on his gun

"Stared at them" - Oh the horror...

Others, including local Hispanic advocates, said police harassed and issued tickets to contractors who hired day laborers.

Isn't it illegal to hire them in the first place?

Mamaroneck village's attorney, Lino Sciaretta, would not comment before the meeting on the specifics of the settlement, saying only that "it was the work of several months of back and forth" between the village and the laborers' lawyers.

Yes, heaven forbid anyone might publicly disclose an agreement that uses half a million dollars of that public's money...

The trustees also voted on a bond resolution for the $550,000 to pay the laborers' lawyers.

Hell, why not throw away another few hundred thousand dollars of public funds? It isn't their own money that the trustees are spending here.

Incidentally, I know most people are immune to reports of the government wasting huge sums of money, but keep in mind that this is a small town of around 20,000 people. Half a mil is actually a pretty huge bill for them to pay.

The town administrator's email is: townadministrator@townofmamaroneck.org, and the email for the town board is: townsupervisor@townofmamaroneck.org
Go ahead and let them know how you feel.

Is there any hope here? Well, yesterday some bright light appeared on the horizon:

The U.S. House of Representatives this morning voted to withhold federal emergency services funding for "sanctuary cities" that protect illegal immigrants.

"Sanctuary cities" are places like Mamaroneck, where local authorities don't ask about immigration status and don't share information with federal authorities.

This was an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, sponsored by Tom Tancredo, a Republican (long shot) candidate for president. What's amazing is not just that it passed (he has submitted similar bills for the last few years and they always failed), but that the vote was not close - it was overwhelmingly in favor, with some 50 Democrats supporting it. With that amount of momentum, it has a good chance to get through the Senate and the White House. I would be interested to know how the city of Mamaroneck will react; they might have to make a hard choice between listening to Judge McMahon or future emergency funds for the town...

Now, some might wonder why I'm being so harsh with a bunch of guys who are just trying to find work for a living. My real anger is actually directed at Judge McMahon, and others like her, who prevent law enforcement officers from actually enforcing the law, and seem to think that tenuous claims of racism somehow give others a free pass to circumvent immigration laws; I am also outraged at various special interest groups like the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (which filed this suit) who are quick to cry racism everywhere else but ignore the fact that their whole existence is set up to promote interests for their own racial group, and end up lining their pockets with taxpayer's money.

Additionally, what happened to the Constitution's equal protection clause? Why should Mexican citizens near the border be apprehended by authorities and deported back to Mexico, while other foreign nationals with exactly the same "undocumented" status openly walk around in places like Mamaroneck, NY, and even file lawsuits? Heck I'm not even mentioning the poor saps who actually try to use the system legally. The point is, the system is not being applied equally across the board. Apply the law equally to all, or to none at all. Is that so much to ask?

Further reading:
Good article and comments on this subject at Corruption Chronicles.

David Niedrauer at the Culture and Media Institute gives a quick rundown of this and other similar cases, and raises a great question:

Is cracking down on illegal immigration, or simply requiring illegal immigrants to obey the law, ever constitutional? Federal judges around the nation are beginning to raise doubts

The NYT, predictably, greatly sympathizes with the day-laborers. But they have one interesting quote from a resident:

“I’d like to know who is going to check if these workers are illegal,” Donna Dickerson, 39, a mother of two who lives within steps of the [new hiring] site...“Rest assured that we’ll be taking photographs, taking down license plates and forwarding them to the authorities.”

Good luck, but I sense another lawsuit in the works...


Story on the photo above: This was a protest in March 2006 near Montebello High School in Los Angeles, where a mob waving Mexican flags were protesting in an immigration rally. Some of them took the US flag down from the school flagpole and flew one of theirs above it. The High School claims that none of their own students was involved in the stunt. You can read all about this here and here. Since this case involves completely ignoring US laws in favor of foreign nationals, I thought it was appropriate.



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