I really hate to be the guy to remind you that the language used in your ongoing campaign against immigrants is strikingly similar to the language used by the Nazi's against the Jews, the Roma, the Gays and, oh, just about anyone who wasn't just like them.

[Ed note: If you care, you can scratch out "Nazi" and write in any other racist, xenophobic regime you like, they're all pretty much the same.]

To wit: Deutschland was invaded by those Juden, an unkempt, dirty people who carry disease and spread like rats. They aren't like us, they are destroying our culture with their strange food and bizarre music and abstract art and are a drain on our public resources. Why don't they learn to speak German? Are they better than us? Die Juden are taking away jobs from good, hard working Deutschlanders so what we'll do is pass laws making it illegal to hire them. We'll hold rallies against them. We'll harass their landlords. We'll call them names. We'll burn their books. We'll stop the invasion! We'll deny them medical care and education. We'll ship them back to Judeland or wherever it is those people come from.

In the end it did not turn out well for anyone.

Here's a quote, a direct quote, from the organization you are NY state chairman of:

"Increasingly documented incidences of homicide, identity theft, property theft, serious infectious diseases, drug running, gang violence, human trafficking, terrorism and growing cost to taxpayers are just some of the most detrimental ‘imports’ ..."

Terrorism? I didn't know Timothy McVeigh was here illegally or that undocumented immigrants were at fault for drug resistant bacteria. What of all those drugs sold on the streets of southern California with the proceeds funneled to right-wing death squads in Central America? Immigrants? No. And gun running? I do remember a little episode where a native born American led an operation like that one. And as President, I'm pretty sure he had his papers.

And those gangs... I see them every day! Armed with rakes and shovels and leaf blowers, they terrorize neighborhoods leaving behind manicured lawns, pristine swimming pools and beautifully laid stone walls in their terrible, horrid wake.

And this... I love this!

State Legislators for Legal Immigration represents a 21st Century Declaration of Independence to protect Pennsylvanians and United States citizens from property theft, drug running, human trafficking, increased violent crime, increased gang activity, terrorism and the many other clear and present dangers directly associated with illegal immigration.

The only "clear and present danger" I can see is that the work of local and state governance is being set aside to chase after bugaboos, distracting voters from dealing with genuine issues like health care and education and freeing the nation from dependence on foreign energy sources.

Then there's the organization, closely allied with SLLI, called INVASION PA which seems to be the formative group.

Invasion? Body snatchers? Super-Secret Communist cells operating out of Amish bodegas? Southern tier New Yorkers quietly slipping across the border on foggy nights to set up clandestine cattle camps in the Poconos? Martians falling from the night sky? Canadians smuggling Labatts and Wayne Gretsky clones in submarines across Lake Erie?

Look, I understand you are concerned about people being in this country without proper documentation but it's not a new story. During the great immigrant waves that reached our shores between 1880 and 1920, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of immigrants came here either without papers or with forged documents. To be sure, many came with proper papers as they do today. There were no computers at the time and therefore no way of double-checking or corroborating papers and permissions. Yes, you needed a sponsor but that many from Ireland had the same Uncle Paddy in Boston? That many more from the Ukraine shared a cousin Moishe in Chicago? I don't think so and modern researchers would agree. In some cases all you had to do was remember the answers to a series of questions asked as you boarded a ship by its captain, questions that were then re-asked by immigration officers here. If the answers matched, you were in!

(And, just as an aside, how many times have people posted to this list saying, "My folks came here legally!" and how many times have they actually been able to prove it?)

But these people came and they brought with them all kinds of things that have become part of our experience, a culture that consists of everything from everywhere else. Yes Greg, there were calls to send those people back. And, do you know what people said about those dirty wops, those money grubbing kikes and those drunk Micks? Here's what they said:

"Increasingly documented incidences of homicide, identity theft, property theft, serious infectious diseases, drug running, gang violence, human trafficking, terrorism and growing cost to taxpayers are just some of the most detrimental ‘imports’ ..."

Sound familiar?

We brought thousands of immigrants from China to work on our railroads. (because, let's face it, what middle-class kid from Dutchess County wanted to do that kind of work?) Then we forced them into ghettos, passing laws against hiring them for any work and changed immigration law, specifically to the Chinese, to prohibit them from bringing their wives and families here. And the Japanese... it was concentration camps for them. We have quotas for some countries that alter and change each year. We allow you in for asylum from one country and not from that other one. So you see, our immigration policies have always been, well, strange. And they change and alter and mutate and merge one into the other and separate out again... all according to immediate political whim and economic realities.

I understand you've been reading documentation that somehow "proves" migrant workers aren't contributing to the economy and are a drain on state and local resources even though authorities and economists across the nation have said otherwise. The other side of that coin is that without them you and I simply couldn't afford produce in our markets. Do you ever wonder why the President, a Republican with ties to every corporate entity in the nation, hasn't closed the borders or rounded everyone up and sent them packing? Because he knows the economic catastrophe that would befall this country if he followed that course of action.

In my last post on this issue I made mention of the onion crops spoiling in the ground just over the river in Orange county and the high cost of Hudson Valley apples due to immigration raids - and the threat of immigration raids. Even legal workers with papers are often afraid to go to work because they know the immigration system does not work and once caught up in that web many will spend years and thousands of dollars becoming untangled. Have you sent one scrubbed Carmel girl to Marlboro to work in the orchards to keep consumer prices down? Local apples at $2.49 a pound? They should be at $.99 but since they rot on trees the supply is low, costs are up and somehow you're happy about that.

Please, stop talking to cops and talk to a farmer or two before you start calling in the Feds.

Whether you like it or not, full Amnesty - without fines - and a sure path towards citizenship backed by a smoothly operating immigration system is the very best option we have before us. Yet the extremists like SLLI and others stand in the way. The debate over amnesty for undocumented workers in the US is very much like the debate over who came first, the Palestinians or the Jews on lands that now comprise the State of Israel... and look where that's going. You cannot rewrite history and can only move forward from where we are today. You cannot undo the mistakes of the past and can only try to learn from them and prevent them from happening again in the future. Anything else is pure folly and I am afraid SLLI and it's sister organizations are engaged in nothing but pure folly.

Lastly, what are you doing in Albany about the crushing weight of property taxes? Why aren't you supporting Kevin Cahill's Equality in Education Bill which would amicably solve this problem and bring quality education to our state's school children? What are you doing in Albany to ensure civil rights for every New Yorker? What are you doing in Albany to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure which is forcing companies overseas and making NY less competitive in the global market? What are you doing in Albany to repair the inequality in our state income tax system? Submitting bills to give High School graduates a free one-year pass to our State Parks isn't going to cut it, nice gesture though it may be.

Greg, you are a New York State Assemblyman. Please, for Jupiter's sake, do the work of an Assemblyman and leave the xenophobic witch hunts to others.

Love and Knishes,

J