T. MacMillan and M. Bailey File Photos
City lawmakers voted to send Arizona a message: We don’t like your “anti-illegal immigration” law. Two dissenters showed their displeasure by voting with their feet.
The Board of Aldermen approved a resolution condemning Arizona’s controversial new legislation on undocumented immigrants. The law, passed April 24, is the country’s strictest immigration legislation. It requires immigrants to carry immigration documents and empowers police to detain people they believe are in the country illegally.
The aldermen passed the resolution unanimously at a City Hall meeting Thursday night, but only because two dissenting alderwomen — Arlene DePino and Maureen O’Sullivan-Best (pictured, left and right) — chose to leave the room rather than vote against it.
The passage of Arizona’s immigration bill has sparked nationwide debate. Opponents say the bill is overt discrimination designed to persecute Mexican immigrants and empower police to harass Latinos; lawmakers in other states have called for boycotts of Arizona in protest. Supporters call the law an appropriate response to a federal failure to reform immigration laws.
The legislation occupies the opposite end of the spectrum from New Haven’s immigrant-friendly municipal ID card program, and the city law which prohibits officers from asking anyone about his or her immigration status.
Melissa Bailey File Photo
The Arizona law goes too far, said Quinnipiac Meadows Aldermen Gerald Antunes (pictured), who spearheaded the Board of Aldermen’s move to condemn it. He said the legislation could lead to racial profiling and police harassment of people of color.
Antunes and the other sponsors of the measure put the aldermanic resolution on the fast-track on Thursday evening’s agenda, allowing it to bypass committee approval and be voted on immediately — as long as there was unanimous consent. All aldermen present voted to approve.
The opposition had left the room.
East Shore Alderwoman Arlene DePino and Fair Haven Heights Alderwoman Maureen O’Sullivan-Best — the only non-Democrats on the board — both said after the meeting that although they opposed the resolution, they left the room so as not to stand in the way of unanimous consent by voting against it. They acted out of respect for their colleagues, they said.
The motion to condemn the Arizona law was put forward by Aldermen Antunes, Gina Calder, Andrea Jackson-Brooks, Jorge Perez, Dolores Colon, Stephanie Bauer, Joey Rodriguez, Sergio Rodriguez, Katrina Jones, Migdalia Castro, and Darnell Goldson.
The resolution reads in part, “passage of this misguided legislation has triggered outrage and deep concern among Latinos, African-Americans and others nationwide who feel that this measure is an ineffective ‘grandstanding’ attempt to make political points, while fanning the flames of racial tension and promoting state-sponsored bias and intolerance.” Click here to read the full resolution.
After the meeting, Antunes explained why he had worked to put the resolution together. The Arizona law is too broad, he said. It could affect people who come from any other country or anyone who doesn’t look “European,” he said. The law could lead to anyone with dark skin being profiled and harassed, he said. “It’s dangerous for all people.”
Passage of the resolution by the Board of Aldermen means that the city will send an official letter to the Arizona legislature, condemning the law and asking for it to be reconsidered.
“It sends a message to our community as well,” Antunes said. The resolution shows New Haveners that aldermen are opposed to such extreme laws and won’t stand for them in Connecticut, he said.
Living in New Haven, the home of the immigrant-friendly municipal ID card they approved, aldermen would be hard pressed to agree with the Arizona law. “How could you not be against this law?” Antunes said. (He acknowledged that he was opposed to the Elm City ID card when it first came out.)
Antunes also acknowledged that Arizona faces a significant illegal immigration problem. “I’m not denying that they have a major problem with people coming across the border.”
The appropriate way to deal with the issue is to lobby and organize border states to work for federal immigration reform, Antunes said.
Alderwoman DePino spoke later about her decision to step out during the vote on the resolution.
“I didn’t agree with it,” she said. “I think there’s two sides to the story.” The resolution represented only one side, she said.
The Arizona law is a “cry for help” after a federal failure to create effective immigration policy, DePino said.
“The border states are suffering tremendously,” DePino said. “You have to recognize that.”
There are “a lot of drug people” coming over the border, she said.
DePino said Arizona has been lobbying for federal reform, but it hasn’t worked. “You have to do something really drastic.”
She said it’s ironic that the Arizona law has been so controversial, when Mexico has immigration laws that are just as strict. If Mexican police caught an American without papers in Mexico, “you’d be thrown in a cockroach-infested cell somewhere,” DePino said.
The resolution does not recognize the difficult situation Arizona is in, she said. “It made Arizona look like the bad guys. … They’re at their wits’ end.”
Asked to respond to Antunes’ concerns about racial profiling, DePino asked if he had read the law. She said she has.
“Is it [racial profiling] possible? Sure, anything is possible,” DePino said. But there are “drug dealers coming over. … We just need law and order.”
“I’m not trying to disparage Mexican people,” DePino said. But Mexico is having problems with drugs and associated violence, she said.
DePino said she had conferred with one of the sponsors of the resolution earlier on Thursday. “I said, ‘I can’t support this.’”
The resolution was “very important to one of my colleagues,” and out of respect for that alderman she decided not to stand in the way of unanimous consent, DePino said. She declined to name the colleague.
“I stepped out so it could pass by unanimous consent,” said Alderwoman O’Sullivan-Best.
She said she believes it’s “more appropriate” for the Board of Aldermen to concentration on legislation “within its borders.”
“Other states don’t tell us what to do,” she said.
O’Sullivan-Best mentioned that she is the daughter of two immigrants.
Have any of the Alder-persons actually read the legislation about which they complain?
Note that the head of federal home protection admits she has not, and earlier reports,since denied said Obama had not either,
Neither have I.
I understand it does not allow requests for ID unless a legal stop has been made for some other offense,
Seems OK to me,
The Alders are against enforcement of immigration laws in general, as well as this one,
What they say re other State's laws is immaterial.
They should try to clean up their own mess instead of making useless moves against a State whose actions are none of their business