And They Call Immigrants Outsiders

Long Island: �We saw some NIMBYism in Nassau in the �80s, but it was around legitimate issues�concerns around overcrowding and the like. Local groups like Catholic Charities could address these issues. On Suffolk, in the mid-90s when immigration stuff was heating up, it was the same sort of issues as in Nassau. The difference was the internet, which allowed local groups to match up with anti-immigrant groups from elsewhere. And now they began to see day laborers as part of a sinister plan by the Ford Foundation, the Catholic Church��

-Pat Young, Programs Director, CARECEN, on outside groups stirring the pot on Long Island

New Haven, CT: �[The municipal i.d.] wasn�t controversial within New Haven. It�s not six degrees of separation but two: everyone knows an immigrant, worships with them, breaks bread with them. But this happened simultaneous with the national focus on immigration. But for the debate taking place at the national level, it would not have been controversial�The Community Watchdog Project, a hate group, seized on this; they�re small in number, but loud; we got death threats. Lou Dobbs and Bill O�Reilly were all over us�Community Watchdog Project, with lawyers provided by FAIR and CIS [two DC-based anti-immigrant groups] came in, their target is the mayor and they�re going after advocates, harassing them. They�re flyering black churches, saying African-Americans should fear immigrants; they�re targeting parents, saying their kid�s education will be hurt; they�re systematically trying to create ethnic/racial unrest.�

--Kica Matos, Community Services Administrator, City of New Haven, on the controversy swirling�everywhere but in New Haven--around the New Haven municipal i.d. program

Freehold, NJ: �White supremacists got involved in targeting day laborers. PEOPLE, or Pressing Our Elected Officials to Protect the Living Environment, came over from Long Island.�

--Marguerita Dentino, coordinator, Casa Freehold, on the harassment faced by day laborers at the hands of an outside group