Excerpt from an article originally printed in Connecticut Magazine, August 2007
The mayors of New Haven and Danbury may not see eye to eye on very much these days, but on one thing they are in total agreement: Federal immigration policy is a gigantic mess and they have the mean streets to prove it. While the White House and Congress struggle haplessly with yet another major reform proposal, Mayors John DeStefano and Mark Broughton have been left to their own devices.
DeStefano speaks smoothly and earnestly about his efforts to provide safety and security to an estimated 15,000 people without documents. "We're not making a political statement here," he explains. "The federal government is not enforcing the law and we are merely dealing with the consequences." Broughton's staccato delivery emphasizes the burdens imposed on Danbury's taxpayers by an estimated 14,000 illegal immigrants: "You have as many as 25 people living in a single-family house.
[Two events have put Danbury on the map.] The first occurred during the last World Cup soccer tournament in June 2006, when a game won by Brazil sparked a spontaneous demonstration by the large Brazilian population, many presumed to be undocumented. Careening down Main Street in honking automobiles, the revelers brought downtown to a standstill and created considerable political momentum for a new statute requiring parade permits for such demonstrations.
The second, and far more serious incident, occurred last year in Kennedy Park, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 11 Ecuadorian day laborers. One of the agents was dressed like a contractor seeking workers. Since then, periodic raids by ICE agents have resulted in a number of arrests, including a group of 10 in May.
[Mayor Broughton takes a populist approach.] Working for the people includes introducing several programs affecting the immigrant community. The most important by far is the Unified Neighborhood Inspection Teams, a city initiative to strictly enforce health-code issues like overcrowding in rental housing, unsafe fire hazards like jerry-rigged kitchen appliances, and informal and illegal businesses conducted out of homes. The teams were authorized in part to do away with Ecuadorian volleyball games - conducted in backyards with widespread betting and unauthorized food and beverage sales.
The main reason Danbury has such a large undocumented population is that the city is a veritable job machine, with unemployment in the 2 percent range and close proximity to some of the wealthiest communities in America - communities that wouldn't be cleaned, mowed, raked or otherwise cared for without immigrant labor.
In many respects, Mayor Boughton probably reflects what the pollsters say most Americans and, presumably, most Dandury residents think: People who broke the law to come here should not be welcomed or rewarded.
Like his counterpart in Danbury, DeStefano has been forced to develop new policies to accommodate thousands of illegal newcomers, but his concerns have been more directed to the immigrants themselves than to the community-at-large.
"Because they lack social security numbers, they can't use banks, so they often have large amounts of cash. We begin to notice a surge in home invasions and other forms of robbery. We also heard about buses picking up the undocumented to take to nearby farms, and that they were paid differently. Then we notice that some of the landlords were packing them into houses and charging high rents."
To deal with the identification issue, the city in June began offering its own ID cards. By producing a birth certificate or consular document, an immigrant is able to obtain official status at least as far as the City of New Haven is concerned. Although some advocates for immigrants worry that the new ID cards will, in effect, brand illegals, others are convinced that the liberal New Haven community will respond by getting ID cards as well, and the city hopes to encourage this by persuading local businesses to offer discounts for card carriers.
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