By Donna Lamb




 

So where do we go from here? That's always the central question after an enormously successful event such as the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride that culminated on October 4^th in New York City with over 100,000 people rallying in Queens' Flushing Meadows Park.

Well, for one thing, City Council Member Kendall Stewart, Chair of the City Council's Subcommittee on Immigration, followed it up with a hearing as his "next step towards making the goals of the Freedom Ride a reality for New York City's residents."

He began the hearing with some critical facts: According to a US Census Survey of 2002, 36% of New Yorkers are foreign-born. That's almost 3 million people. Immigrants add about $10 billion each year to this country's economy, not including the impact of immigrant-owned businesses or the effect of highly skilled immigrants on overall productivity.

"Yet," he said, "despite making vital contributions to the strength and prosperity of our city and nation, immigrants - especially those who don't have legal status - are extremely vulnerable to abuse on their jobs because they do not have protections and remedies enjoyed by citizens. As a group, they earn lower wages and have much more trouble accessing insurance and health care than their citizen co-workers.

"Furthermore," Stewart continued, "immigrants often must wait long periods - sometimes upwards of twenty years - to obtain proper documentation to work, travel or be reunited with their families."

First to testify was Congressman Mayor Owens, who pointed to the crucial necessity of achieving amnesty for everyone across the board who's been in this country for a period of time and has not had any problems with the law. "That," he said, will solve a number of problems."

The dilemma, Owens explained, is that for political reasons the Bush administration and other politicians could come to a deal with Mexico that favors Mexican-born farm workers over all other immigrants. "The danger is that if you have any form of amnesty which is selective, that'll be it for the next 10 or 20 years," he warned. "We won't be able to revisit the situation any time soon. So it's important that cities here on the East Coast like New York and other big cities throughout the nation apply pressure for blanket amnesty. In the end, public opinion drives what Congress does as well as what will be done to try to win the Presidential election."

Next to speak was Shyconia Burden-Noten, a Community Relations Officer for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), formerly the INS. As might be expected, she spoke glowingly of the BCIS's efforts to speed up the process and to eliminate the huge backlogs causing people to wait years, if not decades, to receive services. However, beginning with questioning by Council Member Stewart, the rest of the hearing showed unequivocally that what she had put forth was more a hope than an actuality.

The real state of affairs at BCIS was laid bare very ably by the next two speakers, long-time immigration activist Sister Peggy Walsh of the South Side Mission, and Linda Eiges, a practicing immigration attorney for about 25 years. Eiges said she has seen an improvement in citizenship backlogs, "But as far as other things go, I don't think the system is working for anybody. It's a nightmare for everyone involved - for the immigrants and for people trying to help them."

She told what she and her clients struggle with every day: Going through proper procedures and writing to all the right people but getting no answers because no one has accountability and no one is in charge. Clients wait the entire day just to be given incorrect information and turned away at the end. "I have worked with examiners who have no knowledge of the law and don't know what they're doing," Eiges continued. "Even people who are very nice and want to help are simply too inundated to do anything. Cases that are not closed out at interview just languish."

She summed it all up: "BCIS calls itself a 'service agency.' They have to put the service back in the agency."

After this very powerful testimony, Council Member Yvette Clarke commented on the need to educate the more widespread public about what immigrants endure. "One of our problems is that the entire population has not been sensitized about the impact of the immigration laws on everyone's lives," she stated. "For too long immigrant communities have struggled with these issues internally. We need to talk more with those who were born in this nation about the impact that these things have on the development of this country and what it truly means to be an immigrant in the 21^st century."

As members of the final panel, Moises Perez, Executive Director of Alianza Dominicana, clarified the special challenges that the diverse Latino/a community faces, and Chung Wha Hong, Advocacy Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, spoke about what the City Council can do to improve the lives of New York's immigrant population.

This second issue was also addressed by Margaret Chin, Deputy Executive Director of Asian Americans for Equality, who spoke of the importance of passing legislation currently before the City Council on such issues as low-income housing. She told of receiving 1,000 applications for the 52 units at their recently-built development. She spoke, too, of limited English proficiency being a major barrier to immigrants obtaining crucial city services and asked the Council to consider ways to lower these obstacles so that immigrants can get needed aid.

Finally, she urged the City Council "to adopt resolutions voicing its support for overhauling the arcane system that currently keeps immigrant families apart and denies them full access to American freedom." As an illustration she told about a man who applied for citizenship in 1996, passed the test, but is still waiting just to get sworn in!

Bringing up yet another matter of paramount importance was Nancy Lowrence, Coordinator of the Immigration Project of UNITE. She notified the subcommittee of the CLEAR Act, which was recently introduced in the House. It's an attempt to override all of the city councils, mayors and police chiefs who have taken a position since 911 against having police take on immigration functions. "The CLEAR ACT sounds like a bill to regulate the removal of immigrants who have committed crimes," she noted, "but it includes the possibility of constituting a national raid on the undocumented, carried out by local police forces."

While on the one hand, the system often appears to do all it can to hinder a person's attempts to obtain legal status, as Lowrence further explained, "The CLEAR Act would criminalize the unlawful presence of immigrants and require that they be subject to fines, forfeiture of assets and imprisonment of one year. We urge the council to pass a strong resolution opposing this Act and to lobby our Congressional delegation to defeat it."

Kendall Stewart and his fellow Council Members listened very attentively to everything said at this hearing and plan to take tangible steps to carry through in every way possible.