Immigrant issues growing in county

By FRITZ MAYER

LIBERTY, NY — “Somebody asked me the other day if it was okay to pay off a cop.” Sergeant Louis Alverez told the audience that he answered the woman by telling her that, while he knew it was common in her native country, paying off a cop is not a good idea in the United States.

The story got a large laugh at a forum on immigration issues held at the Liberty Free Theatre on March 1, but at the time, the question was asked in all seriousness. It’s just one small example of the gap that exists between the cultures here in Sullivan County and those that exist in the homeland of the growing number of immigrants.

In 2005, Sullivan County had the third fastest growing immigrant population in the Northeast.

According to a November 2007 report from the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), which was circulated at the forum, there are about 9,000 immigrants currently in Sullivan County, many working at the duck farms, poultry and egg farms and food processing operations, as well as in garages, restaurants and other businesses throughout the county.

According to the study, in the agricultural sector of the upstate New York economy, about 66 percent of the immigrant workers are undocumented.

Alverez, who is an officer with the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office, said that many immigrants don’t understand that they have any rights at all. He told of a woman who had been beaten by her husband. Because the husband was a native of Puerto Rico?a U.S. territory?and she was a native of a country that was not part of the United States, the husband convinced her that he had rights here, but that she did not. Alverez informed her otherwise.

On other occasions, he has informed immigrants that they are required to send their children to school regardless of their status. Many believed they could not send their children to school unless they are citizens.

Another panelist, Edwin Perez, a nutritionist with Sullivan County Public Health, said many of the assumptions that are driving the current anti-immigration mood in the country are based on misinformation. For instance, he said the notion that immigrants take more from a community than they put into it is contradicted by the FPI report. While no study has been undertaken specifically involving upstate New York, one 2006 study of immigrants in Texas “concluded that undocumented immigrants generated $1.58 billion in state revenues and received $1.16 billion in state services.”

In a discussion following the remarks of the four panelists, some members of the 35 or so people in the audience discussed the tensions caused by immigration. One noted that immigrants take jobs away from people of color, especially African Americans.

Others responded to that assertion by saying the goal should be to create enough good paying jobs for everyone, rather than pitting one group against another.

Go to www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/documents/Immigration_Final.pdf for more information on immigration in rural America, with a specific report on Sullivan County.