Scaling fences Americans are too lazy to scale...
Posted on 08/04/2005 11:22:24 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. (AP) - This middle-class Long Island community an hour from New York City and 2,000 miles from the Mexican border has become an unlikely flashpoint in the national debate over illegal immigration, with Hispanics beaten, harassed and evicted in recent weeks.
For more than a decade, immigrants from Mexico or Central America have been drawn to Long Island by the prospect of jobs. Many stand on street corners in Farmingville, waiting for contractors, landscapers and others to offer them a day's work at about $10 an hour. Then at night they go back to their illegally overcrowded single-family homes.
The immigrants, many of whom are believed to have entered the country illegally, have been source of tension among longtime residents since at least the late 1990s, but things have gotten worse this summer - so bad that the head of the Mexican Consulate in New York City said Farmingville was "clearly a red zone after the Arizona border" in the abuse of immigrants.
In late June, two men were charged with a hate crime for allegedly berating a Mexican woman and her husband as the couple backed their van out of a parking lot. Within weeks, two more suspects were arrested and accused of yelling racial epithets and throwing a beer bottle at a Hispanic day laborer.
That same day, four people demonstrating at a 7-Eleven in support of day laborers were arrested when they surrounded an anti-immigration protester's car and refused to let him out.
Police are also investigating an attack in nearby Patchogue on a 61-year-old Ecuadorean man. He was beaten by three men who supposedly asked if he had a green card.
The tension was ratcheted up in mid-June, when officials in the town of Brookhaven, which includes Farmingville, and Suffolk County police began evicting men from overcrowded houses, citing health and safety violations. Dozens of people were jammed into the tiny one-family homes.
So far, at least six houses have been shut by authorities - including three last Friday - leaving more than 100 men homeless, advocates said.
Advocates claimed the immigrants have been thrown into the streets without warning. One advocate called it "ethnic cleansing."
"Many local officials have punted, saying this is a federal issue and we can't do anything about it. Well, there are some things you can do," Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy responded. "Crack down on those contractors, crack down on illegal housing and create a better relationship with immigration officials."
Levy complained that it is the Mexican government's "failed policies, both economically and otherwise, that have been pushing millions of his residents over the border for a better life in America."
Arturo Sarukhan, head of the Mexican Consulate in New York City, agreed that Mexico needs to solve its economic problems so that its citizens do not leave for a better life in America. But he said officials on Long Island must realize that the day laborers are here to stay and "there is a need to work together."
"At the end of the day, they may or may not like it, but it is the reality," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Town of Brookhaven estimated there are 150 houses, each with dozens of suspected illegal workers, in Farmingville, though some landlords have pre-emptively evicted some tenants for fear of trouble with the law.
"If they're going to throw anybody out of an apartment, they have to give them time," said Carlos Tenorio, a 26-year-old day laborer from Mexico City who has been in Farmingville for about nine months. "These people are not the cause of the problem."
Farmingville saw immigration-related violence a few years ago. In 2000, two Mexican men were beaten by two locals who promised them work. On the Fourth of July 2003, a Mexican family barely escaped with their lives after teens set their house ablaze by shooting fireworks through a window. But tensions appeared to ease after three of the assailants were sent to prison - two of them for 25 years to life.
Residents are largely cheering the crackdown on immigrants.
"I think they are doing a terrific job," said Terry Sherwood, who complained that residents in the jammed houses often drink late into the night and urinate and defecate on lawns and backyards. "I don't care who they are, what color they are. I don't care where they come from. Why should people have to live this way?"
Lisa Marino placed a Mexican flag on her front lawn in solidarity with the workers but also applauded efforts by officials to curb illegal housing.
"There's a lack of assimilation," she said of the workers. "You don't leave garbage out, you don't whistle at neighbors. They need to understand that, but by keeping them marginalized, they don't learn that."
Nadia Marin-Molina, an advocate for the day laborers, understands the concerns expressed by neighbors, but insisted "it's a two-way street."
"Some of these same people who are complaining are the people who benefit from the work these guys do," she said. "Because every house has landscaping done, or has to have some job done on their roof, or some painting done."
Thanks, and ping me when it's complete.
Did your friend ever think of going down to the local high school instead of putting an ad in a local paper that high school students probably don't read?
ping
" Nadia Marin-Molina, an advocate for the day laborers, understands the concerns expressed by neighbors, but insisted "it's a two-way street."
No nadia, they are criminals. I may puke yet hearing this.
Finish it, before we are ALL finished : )
Scaling fences Americans are too lazy to scale...
The only rich people involved in this situation are the absentee landlords of the apartment buildings I pass everyday. Otherwise the same white people who I overheard talking about 'those blacks' at a patient's house are the same ones hiring all the illegals.
Can't imagine why they are mad up their in NYS.
I'll put Tony Stewart up against him anyday.. No problemo!:)
I've not seen that here but I've heard it's pretty bad in Farmingville.
those guys are clean cut compared to LA!
Organization Description:
WEAVE provides free legal, counseling and case management services to victims of domestic violence in D.C. Legal services include direct representation for Civil Protection Order hearings, divorce and custody proceedings, and immigration matters. The legal intern will directly assist the Staff Attorneys. Duties consists of interviewing clients and witnesses, preparing court documents, gathering evidence, attending hearings, conducting legal research, and performing general office duties.
The Workplace Project
91 N. Franklin Street, Suite 207
Hempstead, NY 11550
Contact: Nadia Marin-Molina
Website: www.workplaceproject.org
Number of Staff: 7
The Workplace Project is a Latina/o immigrant worker organizing center that organizes workers to fight workplace exploitation.
NEW YORK - May 14, 2001 - The 13th Annual Gloria Steinem Awards will be hosted by author and activist Gloria Steinem and Ms. Foundation for Women president Marie C. Wilson.
In Long Island, Nadia Marin-Molina and Lilliam Araujo of the Workplace Project have heartbreaking stories of women who escaped grinding poverty in their home countries only to find similar poverty as domestic workers in the United States.
snip
Nadia Marin-Molina and Lilliam Araujo of The Workplace Project for building the leadership and advocacy skills of Latino immigrant domestic workers, empowering them to challenge exploitative employers, on-the-job abuse, and substandard pay.
******
Nadia Marin-Molina has been executive director of the Workplace Project since Gordon left in 1998. Yesterday, she celebrated a $55,000 court settlement for back wages owed to nine Long Island immigrant workers by Cinelli Builders, Inc. and Arque Teque Corp.
Marin-Molina, who began at the Workplace Project in 1996 as an attorney, said many of Long Island's immigrant workers who are underpaid or unpaid are day laborers for construction companies.
"We've registered more than 200 cases [of unpaid workers] in Nassau County just in the last two years - $336,000 just in workers who come to us," she said.
Marin-Molina said the Workplace Project acts as an alliance for those who do not necessarily have the help of government.
"The enforcement mechanisms right now don't work," Marin-Molina said. "The state Department of Labor is in charge of enforcing state labor laws, and they're completely underfunded."
"Sweatshops" incorporates legal and economic analyses of immigrant labor in suburbia with accounts of immigrants forced to work long hours for low pay. There also is a chapter in Gordon's book about what she calls the "national phenomenon" of suburban sweatshops.
Damn, that landlord is raking it in. You can own a $2 million NYC condo and not pay that much in mortgage.
On Sunday June 8, 2003, around 3:30 p.m., Julio Cañas was walking to his home located at 95 Jerusalem Avenue in
Hempstead. Detective Serrano, of the Hempstead Police Department, approached and arrested him.
On Wednesday June 18, 2003, Hempstead Chief of Police Russo told Nadia Marin-Molina by telephone that they “had
received an arrest warrant from immigration for Julio, and we executed it.” He also said that he “didn’t see what the big eal was with this practice” because the Hempstead Police Department “does this all the time.”
Julio is a community activist who has, among other things, opposed and denounced publicly the practices of the
Hempstead Police Department, in order to solve problems between juvenile street gangs.
http://tinyurl.com/9k29q
Chicago...
The new walls still smelled of fresh paint as a crowd gathered inside a Northwest Side storefront in December to celebrate the opening of the city's first cooperative for day laborers.
Miguel Ambriz and three fellow workers led the cheers. "For us, having a workers' center allows us to be more organized. And it protects us from cold, the sun and rain," Ambriz said in front of an enthusiastic audience of about 40 supporters.
The opening of the center, known as the Centro de Trabajo de Albany Park, came despite four years of unfruitful negotiations with city officials and some Albany Park residents who object to the presence of day laborers in their community. Organizers are betting that the center will be a middle ground: It will provide a waiting space and promise of fair wages for workers like Ambriz while allowing the community to keep its streets clear of loitering workers.
But others paint a less rosy picture. Those who run similar centers around the country say the center's success depends on its ability to cultivate what it now lacks: the support, and financial backing, of local officials and residents, and the commitments from day laborers themselves.
"We think that it really can't be done without public support. It's almost like you're set up for failure," said Nadia Marin-Molina, executive director of the Hempstead, N.Y.-based Workplace Project, which began a similar workers' center three years ago. "Even some of the people who support it---they want to keep day labor hidden."
The Workplace Project, sponsored by the Peggy Browning Fund..
A little about Peggy and her fund.
-----
The Peggy Browning Fund is a nonprofit corporation established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent labor attorney and member of the National Labor Relations Board. President Clinton appointed Peggy to the NLRB in 1994, and she served in that position until her death in February, 1997.
The Fund's mission is to provide law students with diverse, challenging work and educational experiences in the area of workers' rights. Such unique and positive opportunities will both increase students's understanding of workers' needs as well as promote their entry into the practice of public interest labor law.
"Peggy dedicated herself to justice and fair labor practices throughout our nation. Continuing to fight for what she believed even in the midst of her own battle with cancer, she served our nation and the American people with great courage and compassion." ........... President Clinton
That figures.
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