An African-American activist who once campaigned against New Haven’s immigrant-friendly ID card has, with mixed feelings, come around to support it.
Criminal-justice reform advocate Barbara Fair (pictured) explained her new position Tuesday night when she spoke at a meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee, which voted to approve funding for the ID program‘s second year.
Fair’s remarks reflected the conflicting currents on immigration in the African-American community, the only visible source of significant opposition within New Haven city limits to New Haven’s efforts to embrace largely Latino newcomers to town. Just last fall, Fair campaigned against the ID card when she ran for a seat on the Board of Aldermen. At the time she said, “Our resources are already so strained in New Haven, why would we invite a whole group of people to come in when we can’t handle the ones already here?” (Click here for that story.)
Meanwhile, a white suburban-led group, the Community Watchdog Project, has enlisted a handful of African-American New Haveners to portray the city’s immigrant-friendly policies as benefiting Latinos at the expense of blacks.
Close to 7,000 people have signed up for the ID cards. The cards offer residents access to libraries and other city services and can serve as a second form of ID to open bank accounts.
“I’m in support of whatever it takes to make the community come together as a whole,” Fair said in her testimony Monday night before the Finance Committee. The committee is chaired by the man she sought to replace in office, West River Alderman Yusuf Shah, an ID card supporter.
“I have to say I have mixed feelings about the ID card, and I wanted to make that known,” Fair continued. “ And the reason I have mixed feelings is, being an African- American and being in this country for so many years, and knowing my ancestors fought hard, uncompensated, for many, many years, and to this day, 400 years later, I still feel like a second-class citizen. So that’s why I have mixed feelings about issuing the ID cards.
“But my sense of community and compassion and humanity won’t allow me to say that undocumented immigrants don’t have a right to anything that can help them have access to resources.
“I recognize that resources are strained, and that’s another reason I have mixed feelings. And I could easily just look at the undocumented immigrants and say, ‘It’s because of you, you come in and take jobs…’ You know, all these things that negative people want to bring forth.
“I think I choose to do the more difficult thing, and try to work on how we can bring the communities together as a whole and work on what we need to do that’s going to be best for this community.”