Dan's Papers - June 5, 2009 - Facts and Questions at Immigration Forum

On Thursday evening, May 28, in the newly refurbished John Drew Theater of Guild Hall, East Hampton, the second in an ongoing series of discussions on Immigration on the East End was again hosted by Congressman Tim Bishop, Assemblyman Fred Thiele, and Southampton Councilwoman Anna Throne-Holst. Judge Andrea Schiavoni, the facilitator, kept things moving by timing the speakers and maintaining order. This discussion was entitled Economic Impact of Immigration on the East End. It began with 10-minute presentations by Joe Gergela of the Long Island Farm Bureau; Judy Brink, a Dowling M.B.A. Fellow; David Dyssegaard Kallick of the Fiscal Policy Institute; Melinda Rubin, an immigration lawyer who is also an expert on H2A visas; and Elvira Sochacki of the New York State Department of Labor. After the presentations, the five sat as a panel and entertained written questions from the audience - conducted in a no-nonsense manner by Judge Schiavoni. All heckling and rude behavior was kept to a minimum by the Judge whose graceful yet stern manner created a respectful atmosphere.

In his opening comments Congressman Bishop reiterated that the purpose of these gatherings was to get information out and have dialogue. Throne-Holst stated that, "the immigration issue is the most divisive facing the community." Thiele explained that the economic impact was important enough to make it the theme for this meeting.

In the first presentation, L.I. Farm Bureau's Gergela stated how important an affordable work force is to agriculture in N.Y. State and Suffolk County, which happens to be the leading agricultural county in the state. He stated that in the end "common sense needs to prevail," with the end goal being a way to insure a healthy agricultural work force that would be, "a reliable, solely legal work force." Gergela estimated that, across the U.S., 15 million farm workers lack documentation, meaning they were in the U.S. working illegally.

The second speaker, Judy Brink, laid out the findings of a "scholarly study," she helped conduct on Suffolk County farmers. With questionnaires sent to 297 farms the response rate was an astounding 42%, totaling 126 farmers. Her most salient point was that 84% of all the farmers saw a severe labor problem arising for them within the next three years, and 82% saw a long term negative outcome for their farms without some sort of labor reform. The potential damage of un-harvested crops could cap out at around $700 million in New York State if present trends (labor shortages) continue over the next three years.

Next up was Dyssegaard Kallick, of the Fiscal Policy Institute. His profile of Suffolk County pegs 18% of the workforce as immigrants of some nature. His study found the largest block, 57%, were cooks and in fact only 6,000 to 8,000 are day laborers, most of whom are in the New York City Metro area. (His study defined the lower counties of the state, Putnam, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk, as New York City area.)

Visa expert Rubin gave a more direct presentation. She spoke without notes on a subject she knew cold: the H2A agricultural visa. She explained the visa problems created by new homeland security sensitivities. Rubin doesn't want to penalize those who go about the long, costly, legal process to work in the U.S. because of the stigma of those who have cheated. But she was very sensitive to the human plight of this issue due to her family's roots as Jewish immigrants.

The last speaker was Sochacki of the NY Labor Department whose expertise is helping others get around the mountains of regulations and laws on this topic.

During the panel discussion afterwards, the five sat at a table and took questions from the audience via index cards that had been circulated by the League of Woman Voters volunteers, who helped facilitate the meetings. The questions covered the gamut from "Why aren't the laws enforced to throw all illegals out of the country?" to "Why can't a very humane way be found to assist those here and put into play a workable, realistic process to both enable and monitor immigrant workers?" It was pointed out that illegal workers pay millions of dollars of taxes into social security, via bogus social security numbers, and never reap the benefits. It was also stressed that safety, humane and legal issues (as well as inflammatory opinions) have created a polarization in the country, making it difficult to tackle the problem. Not once, during the entire evening, was the tragedy of the workers' children mentioned - children who have no say in where they live and go to school. They are perhaps the true victims of the hatred and ill feelings this issue has created.

They are also very much a part of this country's future, which will be strongly affected by how they emerge from this situation.