Hightstown 'Don't ask' policy on immigration status raises concerns

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HIGHTSTOWN — Concerns over what some referred to as unfair telephone polling and racist remarks made by two Republican Hightstown Borough Council candidates were raised during the public comment session at the borough’s council meeting last night.
In a letter to the editor that ran in The Times on Sunday, Councilwoman Skye Gilmartin and council hopeful John Archer said that Resolution 2005-66 — the borough’s six-year-old so-called “don’t ask” policy regarding residents’ immigration statuses — “has severely affected the safety, quality of life, property values and economic stability” of Hightstown residents.
The letter, some say, contains veiled racism toward the borough’s large Hispanic population, many of whom are undocumented immigrants.
“I’m appalled at what I would describe as pure racism,” said borough resident Francois Laforge last night. He is also an immigrant. “It flies in the face of reality to blame the bad economy on immigrants.”

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/06/hightstown_dont_ask_policy_on.html

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I'm new to this issue and haven't read the full letter, only what is quoted. But how is it inherently racist to be concerned with legal status for public services? The argument seems to be that if the net result has an adverse impact on a group then it must be racist (or sexist or whatever the classification of the group in question)? If so, that's dumb logic and an abuse of the concept of discrimination.

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Crickets

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"undocumented immigrants" --> bad?

Let's assume 150 years later, China dominates the world. Your grand kids have to find jobs there, and they become "undocumented immigrants" in China. So your grand kids are bad people there?

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Racism just seeps through the pores by the liberal fools who feel it is fine for members of a specific ethnic group to sneak into the country but not for others. I wonder how they would feel if it was "undocumented" Scandinavians, Germans, Italians, or Russians in large groups. Would the liberals be jumping to give them "sanctuary"? Just take a look at Port Chester NY where a liberal Democratic judge declared 1 vote equivalent to 6 votes to level the so called playing field for Hispanics to account for the "undocumented" who were not able to vote! Pure racism legislated by a liberal judge. If the liberal Democrats get enough power, they will tax and legislate themselves out of their own homes!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/nyregion/17chester.html

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As soon as you start your point with "liberal" you stop making sense. Lliberal versus conservative are just political terms. The real world is not defined by political jingoism. Argue your points on the merits of the facts, not by broad generalizations of political parties.

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The labels may have a little value in broadly classifying a group of people but they are meaningless when used like the poster above to try and associate specific issues with a group or when used like some kind of slur or insult. I am a registered Democrat who is fiscally conservative and thinks the Ryan plan doesn’t go far enough, except in more breaks for big corporations, who doesn't believe in affirmative action, who doesn't think we're tough enough on crime, who doesn't believe in this "sanctuary city" concept, who doesn’t believe in modern unions, etc. Yet I would have no problem being called a liberal if that put me in the opposite camp as the hardcore "socially conservative" tea party members who support state-sanctioned discrimination against any class of people, including gays, who believe that “intelligent design” is a legitimate science or who believe that we are proportionately over taxing big corporations or billionaires in relation to middle and upper-middle class people who pay the highest tax brackets and incur the AMT. I think government should be smaller, but my concept of it would not jive with social conservatives because government should have no role in denying any two people the legal privileges of marriage or telling scientists they can’t study stem cells, etc. I always laugh when people who describe themselves as “conservatives” talk about small government then support all kinds of government intrusions and privileges when it happens to coincide with their social agenda.

The point is labels stop working when used to pigeonhole and entire group of people on specific issues. There is not some vast unified conspiracy of “liberals” who collectively decide “liberal” policy any more than there is for conservatives. If a judge makes a decision you don’t agree with, that judge did it not “liberals.” You may have a good point that they decision was bad, but when you collectively blame “liberals” your point is lost and you are revealed just to be hate mongering and blinded by bias and bile. Try not to see everything on ideological terms and examine things by the issues themselves. If everyone did that we would get a lot more accomplished.

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Will the town council in Cranbury be taking action on this?

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