Your Turn

Marc Le Vine
Guest Column
Immigrants rights groups
fight for piece of the pie

We’ve finally reached the point where we have almost as many illegal alien advocacy groups in Freehold Borough as day laborers supporting them. This was very apparent when only 100 supporters turned out in town for a local rally purporting to protest everything from the tired muster zone issue to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The attendees included a large number of event organizers, many out-of-area supporters and relatively few illegal immigrants compared with conservative estimates of 3,000 residing in the county seat of Mon-mouth. Even the day laborers are getting confused and fed up trying to figure out who is sincerely supporting them and for what local reasons.

Though there are many well respected anti-illegal immigration groups in the United States such as FAIR, Numbers USA and the 9/11 Families, the only forum for the rights of the legal residents of Freehold Borough remains PEOPLE (Pressing Elected Officials to Protect our Living Environment), by choice.

These other groups have respected the wishes of the town to stay out of local politics, while encouraging local residents to work through their own issues. While they support the people of Free-hold Borough, they astutely realize their main fight is in the State House and under the Capitol rotunda, not in Borough Hall.

However, on the other side of the aisle, it seems as if there is a new group forming each week to use Freehold’s bully pulpit. It should be no surprise that heavy infighting is taking place as each group tries to flex its muscles in the face of others, trying to hijack their issues along with the people they allegedly represent. Their nefarious goal is mostly to further national agendas that few of the area’s day laborers understand nor care about in their daily lives, such as prisoner abuse in Iraq.

In essence, these groups are "pounding their chests" and trying to turn the few "inches" of muster zone space they rescued from the two-thirds larger tract they lost, into a "mile" of political extremism and shameful controversy. It’s disgusting and disgraceful.

In dealing with the many left wing groups, their coming out parties and weekly Borough Hall gripe sessions, the cost to the borough mounts in legal fees, public safety, public works and general administrative costs. Even worse, they are diverting the council’s focus away from other key town matters needing desperate attention. All of this cost is being passed along to taxpayers funding the echoes of an issue that yields no tax base for Freehold Borough in the first place.

Our residents will better understand this when their 2005 tax bills arrive and they reflect the current revaluation going on behind the scenes. Just watch as 700 angry people return to the parking behind Borough Hall, as they did in 1990, to lynch the mayor and Borough Council and then realize that they’ve been paying taxes to swat away a bunch of fringe groups who care nothing about our town or its residents.

What are we getting in return for our taxes when outsiders try to limit the effectiveness of our local government?

It is time to call for an end to this three ring circus and send these groups packing. They belong in Washington and Trenton, not in tiny Freehold Borough.

Mayor Michael Wilson and the council can easily make this happen by publicly announcing that the only legitimate organizations they will acknowledge and work with are the Monmouth County Human Rights Committee and Fatima Potente and her Hispanic Affairs Resources Center of Monmouth County - period. Ignore the others, take away their stage and they must go away.

The Freehold Borough Human Relations Committee, of which I am a member, recently voted unanimously to endorse the latter group’s "virtual hiring" hall, funded by a $44,000 government grant. It is the intention that this jobs program account for all day laborers seeking work at the muster zone and on borough streets and request that they complete IRS W-7 tax forms which will allow them to pay taxes like the rest of us. Those refusing to do so will show their true lack of respect for our system.

This must be the redemption for those who crossed our borders illegally to work off the books. Borough residents must get behind those that seek to do things the right way, while we continue to push the government for immigration reform and better enforcement. By offering a fair grace period to produce the necessary identity documents, there is no legitimate reason for not filing a W-7.

This system can work if Monmouth County Hispanic Affairs can replace the more radical groups as the leading agency to take control of the entire local issue — employment, housing, education and cultural adaptation. The tail can no longer wag the dog in Freehold Borough.

Finally, the county freeholders must come out and publicly proclaim the issue of illegal immigration a regional matter, form a coalition of willing county governments to gather bipartisan support to push for immediate national immigration reform.

Those who apathetically say we can do nothing about our government’s lack of will to put the issue on the table and resolve it forget that the tea dumped into Boston Harbor gave us fair representation in return for taxation. Isn’t it time we make another big "splash" to get our government’s attention?

Marc Le Vine of Freehold Borough is a founder of PEOPLE and a former borough councilman in Freehold Borough.