Post by Freehold Resdent on Aug 4, 2006 9:08:29 GMT -5
The News Transcript
Your Turn
Guest Column
Marc LeVine
Govt. policy change needed
to deal with immigration
Freehold Borough is not alone with its "illegal immigrant" problem. There are many cities and towns across the United States experiencing similar frustrations. It is easy to blame the countless Spanish-speaking immigrants, themselves, for causing our discomfort simply because they are here and we can see them. They are not really to blame. They are simply responding to conditions our government policy has created and then ignored.
As local residents, we harshly demand the "cleaning up" of our towns without considering the additional suffering placed on our already struggling immigrant neighbors and decry the ineffective efforts of municipal governments handcuffed by overriding federal and state laws.
Our local politicians are often cited for their impotence, while it is our nation’s leadership which is ultimately responsible for allowing these problems to fester. Why do we not hold them accountable?
The manifestations of overcrowding, loitering, language and cultural challenges, increased crime activity (mostly against the newcomers) and stretched municipal services are only symptomatic of our problem. The word "symptomatic" is key. We feel powerless in addressing the "root" causes of this situation, because Washington has turned a deaf ear on our cries for help.
When areas of a town become run down, municipal government steps in to protect property values in neighboring areas by offering aid such as Mount Laurel subsidies to improve degrading conditions. As a nation, Canada to our immediate north and Mexico to our immediate south are our neighbors, too.
Currently, Canada is doing fine and we never hear that thousands of Canadians are illegally jumping our borders for jobs in the United States. However, we spend billions of dollars trying to improve life in far away countries within Africa, central Europe and the Middle East, while we allow millions of our neighbors in Mexico and Central America to go poor, hungry and uneducated. They yearn for a better life ... and are almost forced to come here. What’s wrong with this picture?
To make matters worse, as Mexicans cross our borders, greedy American businessmen cross theirs, offering substandard wages to personally profit rather than to humanly improve conditions. As a result, Americans continue to lose jobs and business taxes while being hard pressed to deal with the problems associated with illegal immigration.
Upon their unceremonious arrival in towns like Freehold, the very first Amer-icans our southern guests meet are shady human smugglers, slum landlords and tax evading landscapers, contractors and other small businessmen seeking undeserved wealth by capitalizing on their hardships.
Our government offers us the lame excuse that by accepting some mild living discomforts we are paying a small price for the cheap labor that keeps prices low for the products and services we buy. No one else, they say, wants these jobs or the pay accepted by illegal immigrants anyway.
Few Freehold residents realize that every day in towns like New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, Passaic and Elizabeth thousands of illegals (many with phony IDs) board overcrowded and unsafe non-DOT regulated vans heading down Route 130 and other major business corridors to earn as little as $5.15 per hour to work for well-known contract packaging firms and warehouses in those areas.
There are accidents; people are hurt and sometimes killed — all in the name of business profitability. Our government remains essentially blind to all this, because business has a powerful lobbying effect in Washington.
When will all this end? What will it take? The answer is simple — a strong grassroots movement toward the government "of the people and by the people."
We’re settling for worker "pick-up zones," and local code enforcement strengthening, when we should be demanding an overhaul of U.S. policy to help make Mexico and Central America better places to live and work; improved Internal Revenue (not just INS) policy and enforcement holding all businesses accountable for collecting and paying payroll taxes and offering benefits; greater efforts by the Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Admin-istration to improve working conditions and require reasonable pay rates for work performed; more pressing efforts to keep American businesses in America and playing by the rules, while insisting that they pay U.S.-comparable wages to their overseas workers; zero tolerance and increased penalties for human smuggling; better border patrolling and enforcement of INS policies; and additional aid to states and towns needing to deal with the financial strains placed on them while assimilating their new residents to life in their neighborhoods.
America is a nation of immigrants. We all share a heritage that our newest neighbors aspire to. Many of their children will become doctors, lawyers and successful business people just as those bred by other newcomers to our shores. They all will become us.
We must look to our legislators to help Mexico, in particular, improve its living conditions and keep their citizens home. And for those wishing to stay in the United States, we must level the playing field to ensure their success here, finding and punishing the bad guys and protecting immigrants from abuse.
In our history, we have dealt with poor conditions in lower east side tenements in the early 20th century and essentially helped improve those areas. We’ve created child labor laws to protect youthful workers and keep them in school. Russian, Italian, German and Puerto Rican immigrants eventually learned English and advanced in our society through perseverance and the help of others. Why do we forget these lessons now?
Government policy change is needed immediately, and we must demand it. If our legislators do not heed our instructions, replace them. Fix the root causes and help those already here and many wrongs will be righted. It is the American way.
Marc LeVine is a former member of the Freehold Borough Council.
Your Turn
Guest Column
Marc LeVine
Govt. policy change needed
to deal with immigration
Freehold Borough is not alone with its "illegal immigrant" problem. There are many cities and towns across the United States experiencing similar frustrations. It is easy to blame the countless Spanish-speaking immigrants, themselves, for causing our discomfort simply because they are here and we can see them. They are not really to blame. They are simply responding to conditions our government policy has created and then ignored.
As local residents, we harshly demand the "cleaning up" of our towns without considering the additional suffering placed on our already struggling immigrant neighbors and decry the ineffective efforts of municipal governments handcuffed by overriding federal and state laws.
Our local politicians are often cited for their impotence, while it is our nation’s leadership which is ultimately responsible for allowing these problems to fester. Why do we not hold them accountable?
The manifestations of overcrowding, loitering, language and cultural challenges, increased crime activity (mostly against the newcomers) and stretched municipal services are only symptomatic of our problem. The word "symptomatic" is key. We feel powerless in addressing the "root" causes of this situation, because Washington has turned a deaf ear on our cries for help.
When areas of a town become run down, municipal government steps in to protect property values in neighboring areas by offering aid such as Mount Laurel subsidies to improve degrading conditions. As a nation, Canada to our immediate north and Mexico to our immediate south are our neighbors, too.
Currently, Canada is doing fine and we never hear that thousands of Canadians are illegally jumping our borders for jobs in the United States. However, we spend billions of dollars trying to improve life in far away countries within Africa, central Europe and the Middle East, while we allow millions of our neighbors in Mexico and Central America to go poor, hungry and uneducated. They yearn for a better life ... and are almost forced to come here. What’s wrong with this picture?
To make matters worse, as Mexicans cross our borders, greedy American businessmen cross theirs, offering substandard wages to personally profit rather than to humanly improve conditions. As a result, Americans continue to lose jobs and business taxes while being hard pressed to deal with the problems associated with illegal immigration.
Upon their unceremonious arrival in towns like Freehold, the very first Amer-icans our southern guests meet are shady human smugglers, slum landlords and tax evading landscapers, contractors and other small businessmen seeking undeserved wealth by capitalizing on their hardships.
Our government offers us the lame excuse that by accepting some mild living discomforts we are paying a small price for the cheap labor that keeps prices low for the products and services we buy. No one else, they say, wants these jobs or the pay accepted by illegal immigrants anyway.
Few Freehold residents realize that every day in towns like New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, Passaic and Elizabeth thousands of illegals (many with phony IDs) board overcrowded and unsafe non-DOT regulated vans heading down Route 130 and other major business corridors to earn as little as $5.15 per hour to work for well-known contract packaging firms and warehouses in those areas.
There are accidents; people are hurt and sometimes killed — all in the name of business profitability. Our government remains essentially blind to all this, because business has a powerful lobbying effect in Washington.
When will all this end? What will it take? The answer is simple — a strong grassroots movement toward the government "of the people and by the people."
We’re settling for worker "pick-up zones," and local code enforcement strengthening, when we should be demanding an overhaul of U.S. policy to help make Mexico and Central America better places to live and work; improved Internal Revenue (not just INS) policy and enforcement holding all businesses accountable for collecting and paying payroll taxes and offering benefits; greater efforts by the Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Admin-istration to improve working conditions and require reasonable pay rates for work performed; more pressing efforts to keep American businesses in America and playing by the rules, while insisting that they pay U.S.-comparable wages to their overseas workers; zero tolerance and increased penalties for human smuggling; better border patrolling and enforcement of INS policies; and additional aid to states and towns needing to deal with the financial strains placed on them while assimilating their new residents to life in their neighborhoods.
America is a nation of immigrants. We all share a heritage that our newest neighbors aspire to. Many of their children will become doctors, lawyers and successful business people just as those bred by other newcomers to our shores. They all will become us.
We must look to our legislators to help Mexico, in particular, improve its living conditions and keep their citizens home. And for those wishing to stay in the United States, we must level the playing field to ensure their success here, finding and punishing the bad guys and protecting immigrants from abuse.
In our history, we have dealt with poor conditions in lower east side tenements in the early 20th century and essentially helped improve those areas. We’ve created child labor laws to protect youthful workers and keep them in school. Russian, Italian, German and Puerto Rican immigrants eventually learned English and advanced in our society through perseverance and the help of others. Why do we forget these lessons now?
Government policy change is needed immediately, and we must demand it. If our legislators do not heed our instructions, replace them. Fix the root causes and help those already here and many wrongs will be righted. It is the American way.
Marc LeVine is a former member of the Freehold Borough Council.
