Posted on 05/07/2006 9:09:22 PM PDT by Marius3188
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - This famously liberal city is serving notice that illegal immigrants are welcome, even while Congress is considering tough new penalties. Police won't harass you. Education and health care are available.
Here's the hitch: You probably can't afford to live here.
Back in 1985, when Cambridge first declared itself a "sanctuary city," rent control kept apartments affordable.
Today, however, Cambridge no longer has rent control; cheap apartments were turned into luxury condominiums and the city - home of Harvard and MIT - is among the most expensive places to live in the United States. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is around $1,400 a month.
So, while the city renews its open-arms declaration - as other U.S. cities also are doing - it's not exactly a magnet for new immigrants, particularly illegal ones.
"Like anybody else, we look for places we can afford," said Elena Letona, a naturalized citizen from El Salvador and executive director of Centro Presente, a Cambridge nonprofit that spearheaded the 1980s sanctuary effort and which is backing the new push.
The Cambridge City Council is set to vote Monday to reaffirm its sanctuary status, which instructs police and other agencies not to inquire about a person's immigration status when providing government services. The proposal would establish an immigrant rights and citizenship commission to "ensure the equal status of immigrants in education, employment, health care, housing, political, social and legal spheres."
Portuguese and Brazilian markets and restaurants still dot a section of Cambridge Street, but locals say there are fewer immigrants - legal or otherwise - in recent years. A "for sale" sign hangs on the door of the Santo Christo Center, once a popular club for Portuguese immigrants.
"Now, everybody's moving north," toward New Hampshire, said Goao Cafua, taking a break while slicing fish at Fernandes Market. "The housing is cheaper."
Cafua, 56, who like most Portuguese here hails from the Azores Islands, bought a home in Lawrence, an industrial city about 30 miles north of Boston.
Immigrants make up just over 14 percent of the Bay State's roughly 6 million residents, excluding the estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants. Nationally, there are estimates of 11 million illegal immigrants.
Some people think the city's sanctuary policy is a waste of time.
"What's the point? Why invite people? The only people who can afford to live here are graduate students whose parents are paying their rent," John Murphy, 46, said while visiting the city's Central Square neighborhood, where he lived for 20 years before moving to Austin, Texas. "It's creating false hope."
However, Letona said it's important to create a welcoming environment, especially in light of the anti-immigration voices nationally.
"A very basic human activity, which is migrate for survival, is now being viewed as a criminal activity," she said. "Their very existence is denied and they're called illegals. They're being scapegoated for stealing jobs. They're not stealing jobs. Jobs are being given to them because their labor is affordable."
Several other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco have made similar declarations. The Los Angeles suburb of Maywood, which is 96 percent Hispanic, recently disbanded a traffic control unit because it was perceived as a threat to illegal immigrants without driver's licenses. More than two-thirds of Maywood's 29,000 residents are illegal.
But the movement has sparked a backlash. In Phoenix, a group called Protect Our City is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to require police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
An "anti-sanctuary" bill pending in Colorado would deny state funds to cities that discourage or prevent police from working with federal immigration authorities. It would affect Denver, which has refused to round up illegal immigrants for eight years on the grounds that federal law treats legal and illegal immigrants differently and unfairly punishes children and seniors.
The atmosphere is quite different here in the Northeast.
"In Cambridge, of course, it has not been all that challenging because (Cambridge) has always been very welcoming to immigrants," Letona said. "We're based in Cambridge, so we wanted to start here. We're going to go to other cities. I'm hoping that this will catch on."
Sounds like a help wanted add.
People in Arizona, California, Texas and elsewhere that are being overrun by invaders should create fliers written in Spanish directing the illegals to the Cambridge sanctuary.
Absolutely. Nothing would help Cambridge gain a proper perspective than a sudden influx of 100,000 Foreign nationals illegally in this country moving to their ever so quaint city.
Looks like Cambridge is about to experience a crime wave.
What's a one-way bus ticket to Cambridge cost? I may have to start handing them out, along with my Spanish-language Cambridge "voucher" for free housing and beer.
any city that declares it is going to ignore the law should be stripped of all federal funding with no appeal.
Quickly doing the math, that will be about $14 per inhabitant. They can afford that.
Let the testing of these faux-liberal tea drinkers begin...
Of course, it could also have something to do with the fact that the cost of living is so high here, and many folks like having cheap services.
Aliens who have entered the United States illegally have broken the law. They should be punished and deported. Unfortunately the Federal penalties for illegally entering the United States can be as little as a $50.00 fine and up to six months in jail at taxpayer expense.
In contrast, Mexico grants all of its citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to authorities. Any foreigner in Mexico can be deported immediately without the need of a previous legal action.
No, it didn't. Rent control made the following happen:
...cheap apartments were turned into luxury condominiums...
What do you expect? If the government makes you rent your place at less than market rates, what do you do? You sell. To somebody with the money to buy. And that isn't illegal aliens.
Fortunately for America, Cambridge isn't really the intellectual fount it pretends to be. These people are idiots.
Sounds good...let 'em all go to F'ing Cambridge.
Anyone who has lived or worked in a good elitist area knows that all the illegals are out by nightfall or removed by the local police if caught after dark.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
ping
What do you expect from the state that produced Ted Kennedy and John "Hanoi" Kerry???
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