Posted on 03/16/2010 7:47:23 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
The City of Ithaca Common Council this month addressed the nationally contentious issue of immigration by unanimously passing a resolution on March 3 that calls on Congress to replace the enforcement-only policy, cease raids and provide a pathway for legal citizenship.
Alderpersons Eric Rosario (I-2nd Ward) and Maria Coles (D-1st Ward) introduced the bill after working for months in conjunction with the Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition, Catholic Charities Immigrant Center and Tompkins County Workers Center.
The resolution condemns the current laws, stating that “our nation’s immigration system continues to be broken, with the federal government pursuing an ineffective enforcement-only strategy that attempts to make the nation’s antiquated immigration laws fit current realities.”
“Ithaca is quite progressive, so the City of Ithaca, at least theoretically, is a safe-haven for immigrants, but it is quite different in some of the outlying counties,” Ute Ritz-Deutch of the Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition said. In 2007, Ithaca supported moratoriums on raids and deportations, unless conducted by federal law enforcement officials. Local police are prohibited from investigating people for the sole purpose of checking immigration status.
In upstate New York there are an estimated 65,000 undocumented farm workers, and Ithaca has the highest proportion of non-US citizens — more than Syracuse and Rochester, according to Ritz-Deutch.
“What was so powerful about it is that a lot of people in our local government have either family members or people that they know that have undocumented status. A lot of people are really personally affected by this,” she said. The resolution notes that one in ten people over the age of 18 in Ithaca is a non-US resident, based on the 2000 census.
According to the resolution, addressing an issue that “engenders an atmosphere of divisiveness and mistrust” discourages the reporting of crimes because of “well-founded fears of immigration enforcement action against them, thereby putting entire communities at risk and undermining public safety for all.”
the City of Ithaca, at least theoretically, is a safe-haven for immigrants, but it is quite different in some of the outlying counties,”
...yeah. Those “bumpkins’ are into silly shi& like “legal immigration”. They don’t want all the “great” things the illegals have to offer like crime, multiple births, welfare recipients etc.
Typical head-in-the-sand liberalism. No surprise here.
Ithaca should worry about their own problems!
There already is “a pathway for legal citizenship”. All they have to do is follow the law of our land.
Nice to see the Catholics are on the right side of this issue, as usual. Sigh.
I’m the village attorney for a small municipality in southwest Missouri. At our meetings, we deal with issues like road maintenance and the village sewer plant. If someone brought up a resolution like this, they’d be laughed out of the meeting or excoriated for wasting everybody’s time.
Famous Cornell alum at right.
Republicans should attach a provision that all illegals must subsequently reside within the town boundaries of Ithaca, New York
**...all illegals must subsequently reside within the town boundaries of Ithaca,...**
There are no Republicans on the Ithaca COMMON COUNCIL.. (they can’t even have a CITY Council)!
Keep the illegals in the CITY, the Town of Ithaca actually does have a few Republican residents.. maybe a dozen or two.
There already is a pathway for legal citizenship. The illegals just should have followed it.
Solution: Send them back and let them try again, the right way.
And a proud gun-clinging, Bible believing, (knuckle dragging) citizen of those one of those *outlying* counties.
Ag school graduate?
Ag ‘79, yes.
It took 2 Years, but they deported them! A new operation wetback could be done in one year now,when do we start?.
I meant Republicans in the US Congress. (I understand that local government in Ithaca is run by a Supreme Soviet. Let ‘em have all of the illegals then).
So he didn’t really graduate from the Ivy side but from the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Oh dear how plebian.
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