Princeton ICE raid is a threat to civil rights for all foreign born residents
Dear Editor,
The term undocumented immigrant conveys an inaccurate and largely pejorative and derogatory condition, attributed to working-class residents of Latin American origin who are presumed to lack formal authorization to reside in the United States.
There is a general perception that most of these workers and their families are subject to unceremonious deportation, that they can be arrested on sight, without a warrant, and that they have no protection under our civil rights laws. This became abundantly clear during the recent “visit” to Princeton of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posse of agents in several unmarked vehicles dangerously driving around town for hours looking for “egregious noncitizen criminals” using “targeted intelligence”
The immigration status of Latino residents of Princeton is on a spectrum that goes from citizen and permanent resident through a long list of temporary conditions that do not convey permanent status but carry some kind of official documentation (such as asylum applicant, parolee, and those with a whole host of humanitarian visas, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status). Qualifying these immigrants as “undocumented” is factually incorrect but, most importantly, totally unnecessary. Most of them have led productive, law-abiding lives in this country for decades, have formed families, contribute billions of dollars through Social Security and Medicare deductions, sales, and income taxes, and are patiently waiting, with millions of others, to become permanent residents and, eventually, citizens. They are, simply, immigrants, who have come to America to exercise their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of which they have been deprived in their country of origin.
The July 10 ICE operation in Princeton, like other misguided enforcement tactics, if unchallenged, poses a danger to the civil rights of all foreign-born (almost one in three Princeton residents). But everyone else would be at risk of being accosted on the street by armed agents asking us to show documentation of who we are because we may look like a noncitizen or speak a language other than English. Ironically, indiscriminate enforcement such as we saw in Princeton poses a risk to our national security by allowing racial profiling to distract from targeting those who are a real threat but may look and act like citizens or are in fact citizens, like the gunman in the Fairgrounds of Butler, Pennsylvania.
I am reassured by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman swift demand for full accountability from the Newark Field Office of ICE and encouraged by Princeton municipal authorities seeking complete transparency as to what happened, and why, and implementing policies to prevent any repetition.
I urge the Princeton community to respond to this incident by forcefully advocating in favor of allocating more resources to legalize immigrants versus terrorizing and pushing them underground.
Maria Juega
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Ultra leftists Democrats are slowly building their vote banks by supporting so called rights of the illegal immigrants to stay in this country. At the same, there is a long waiting list for legal immigration …so shameful!
Agreed! The long waitlist for immigrants to come in legally is very shameful, and one of the reasons why so many are pushed to come outside legal channels. That is one of the points I am making in my letter. Let’s dedicate more resources to process the applications of millions of immigrants waiting to get their papers. And by the way, there is zero evidence that noncitizen immigrants are voting in the U.S, and the shortest time it takes, under the best of circumstances (i.e. spouses of U.S. citizens) to become a U.S. citizen is 6 years, and that is if you entered the country with a visa. Those who entered illegaly would face decades to fix their status.
How do they contribute social security? Do they pay state and federal tax? How do they get SSN without legal visa to enter this country?
Because some immigrants provide a “Social Security number” and the employers are ok with that. Their wages have all the deductions but because the person does not really have a SS number, whatever is taken from the wages for Medicare, Family Leave, etc., goes to it, but the person doesn’t actually get the benefits when the time comes. This is how they contribute. Some immigrants, lots of them, pay taxes because the IRS provides a TIN (number), the IRS does not check SS numbers; so if a person wants to pay taxes and doesn’t have a valid SS number, they get the TIN and file taxes.
Immigrants without work authorization work on the books with made up social security numbers and have all standard payroll deductions taken from their checks. Employers disregard letters from Social Security indicating there is a “no-match” between the name and the number on file, and no one is the wiser. Everyone benefits. The employers get to keep hard-working workers who are more than eager to work overtime and do the jobs other workers don’t want; the workers are able to maintain their families, here or abroad, and pay off the coyote fees he incurred to get across the border; and American taxpayers get a bonanza of billions of dollars in contributions to fund the benefits the rest of us enjoy such as unemployment, disability, retirement, Medicare, etc. Google “no-match letters” and “how undocumented immigrants pay federal taxes”
She contradicts her entire argument in the last sentence advocating to “legalize immigrants”. Definition of “Legalize” verb – make (something that was previously illegal) permissible.
Touché…I should have said ¨to legalize the ¨STATUS of immigrants¨. History is full of examples of things that were illegal at one time and were subsequent legalized, and viceversa: the right of women to vote, the right of Blacks to sit in the front of the bus, the right to have an abortion, etc…
I thought calling « undocumented » the people without documents was the correct way. Terms like « alien » and « illegal » are considered dehumanising. So, because there are also immigrants without documents and that is a fact, what is the correct term?
I am pro immigration reform and to help all immigrants who have come to this country and some have been here for decades, with families, working hard, living responsible and honest lives, paying taxes and putting money into Social Security that they will never receive, and so forth. However, if ICE raids the town with legitimate warrants, they should be allowed to, we do not know what they are looking for, it could be somebody dangerous, I don’t think they should be stopped, the police is not supposed to intervene, it is my understanding. Should we, ordinary citizens, speculate without proper information, just stop a raid that could protect people and property, the social fabric of our town?
If these raids are political and an overreach, I am sure it would come out but as much as we know that the great majority of immigrants are good people who came to build better lives, some could be bad actors and in my opinion, it is disingenuous to assume otherwise. Am I missing something?