The big immigration backlash in Connecticut
by kos
Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 10:37:12 AM PDT
New Haven, CT, issued ID cards to undocumented immigrants, generating the predictable attacks on Fox News, talk radio, and other nutso corners.
Calling it a move towards “social justice,” aldermen overwhelmingly approved a plan to issue identification cards for all city residents regardless of immigration status. Click on the play arrow to watch the emphatic applause for the plan, the first of its kind in the nation [...]
In a 25 to 1 vote Monday, aldermen approved acceptance of $250,359 in private funds from the First City Fund Corporation to support the mayor’s plan. The Elm City Resident Card, originally designed to help undocumented immigrants avoid getting robbed or assaulted, will be a combination of identification, debit card, library card, and a way to pay the parking meter, for all city residents young and old. The city plans to roll out the new cards in July.
The city will also start working towards the ID card’s main public safety goal — allowing immigrants to use the ID to open bank accounts and therefore not get robbed while carrying around large amounts of cash — by reaching out to area banks.
“This is a social justice issue,” said Hill Alderman Jorge Perez on the aldermanic floor. Like others, he’s been inundated with emails lashing out against the city, from outsiders who maintain that “millions of people are going to come to America through New Haven because we’re offering an ID.” Perez refuted that claim and thanked the mayor and Kica Matos “for the leadership they have shown and the heat they have taken” in proposing the ID [...]
“It brings tears to my eyes,” said Marieah Viviel, who at this hearing told a harrowing tale of how her El Salvadoran housekeeper, Elena, and her son were robbed in their Fair Haven apartment by people who knew they were undocumented and stored large amounts of cash. Viviel found them lying on the kitchen floor, bound by electric cords, their home plundered.
“This will be not just a decloaker for those who are invisible, but a deterrent to those who do what they did to Elena,” said Viviel after the vote, wiping her tears. “I’m so glad!”
That was June 5, 2007. Two days later, on June 7, immigration authorities "coincidentally" staged raids across New Haven. One city shows compassion, and the federal government steps in to do the bidding of the hateful Minute Men militia and Lou Dobbs.
All of this sound and fury generated a backlash. But not the sort you'd expect hearing the right-wing pundits and that asshole Lou Dobbs tell it. From that new Q-Poll that DemFromCT blogged earlier:
38. What do you think should happen to most illegal immigrants working in the United States - Should they be offered a chance to apply for citizenship, OR Should they be allowed to stay as temporary workers, OR Should they be deported to the country they came from?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk
Citizenship 47% 37% 53% 47% 43% 51% 46% 59%
Temporary 27 26 27 27 29 25 28 12
workersDeported 22 32 17 22 25 20 23 22
DK/NA 4 5 3 4 4 4 4 8
The vast majority of the public isn't interested in what Lou Dobbs, Fox News, the federal government, and Rahm Emanuel are selling. The issue is a loser for the Right, no matter who much fury they generate. Even among African Americans, who are supposedly "anti-immigrant" because of economic concerns, we find huge support for citizenship while, rightly, less support for "temporary worker" status that would depress wages at the low end of the socio-economic ladder.
Even among Republicans, only 32 percent favor deportation -- a stunning rejection in Connecticut of the politics of hatred and scapegoating.
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