Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
‘Villens United by Chris Haskell
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
Whether you live in Somerville, Boston, or another major city where immigration is a hot button issue, you’re likely to have seen our Mayor Joseph Curtatone in the newspapers or cable news networks standing up to Trump’s immigration policies and unwarranted deportations. The Somerville Mayor has drawn a firm line in the sand over the city’s Sanctuary status and isn’t backing down from his critics on the right, including law enforcement.
Curtatone recently appeared on conservative news network Fox News to address comments made by a state sheriff that he should be imprisoned for “harboring” illegal immigrants. During the interview, the mayor scoffed at the comments made by Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson calling them “ridiculous and disturbing, really parroting the misinformation and lies about undocumented immigration and sanctuary cities”; pointing out that he has a much better grasp of the constitution and immigration law than a MA sheriff who’s main purpose in our state has been reduced to prisoner transport with no involvement with local police action.
The Fox News Network also took some not-so-subtle shots from Curtatone as he had suggested that host Neil Cavuto and the network could help our American values and our economy by “putting the right facts out there.”
Fox News’ credibility has been under heavy media scrutiny over the last year after airing multiple false, misleading, and even some racist news segments (and a wide array of workplace sexual misconduct lawsuits against Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes).
Mayor Curtatone had made comments throughout the interview about how the facts about illegal immigrant crime and sanctuary city status being misrepresented in the media are part of the problem. Many of those misrepresented facts come are aired daily on Fox News.
(*Kudo’s to you Mayor Joseph Curtatone! On behalf of journalists, writers, and citizens who believe in the importance of factual news, I personally thank you!)
Sanctuary status has recently brought both the mayor and the city a bit of celebrity status. Mayor Curtatone’s outspoken views of civil rights for all citizens, including the undocumented, has had the mayor making many appearances in national news and media outlets defending sanctuary in Massachusetts cities. Somerville itself has become the perfect example of sanctuary status improving a city.
Do you remember Somerville before its sanctuary status in 1987? I do. The city is vastly improved and there is very little crime anymore. While Sanctuary status may not be the direct correlation to Somerville’s success and turnaround, it certainly hasn’t hurt it either. Somerville has been rated amongst the top 10 places to live and raise a family in this country in several national publications over the last few years.
Make no mistake, Mayor Curtatone isn’t out to shield any violent criminals or serious offenders who may be here illegally. As in many Sanctuary cities, those individuals are arrested, prosecuted, and deported. Like many of us, the mayor doesn’t want to see families disrupted and hard working individuals who help make our communities what they are arrested and deported.
That’s what sanctuary status is all about. While the vast majority of the city stands behind our mayor and what he’s doing, he has also become admired by liberals across the country who believe in the harm deportations would do to our communities and our economy. With all the recent media exposure, Joseph Curtatone may be a political star on the rise.
Somerville is the beautiful city it is today in large part thanks to Mayor Joseph Curtatone. Many immigrants from all over world come to the Boston area for a better education and a better life. The jobs many undocumented immigrants are working are low wage, labor-intensive jobs that most Americans simply view as beneath them. These same people work hard and save to build businesses, restaurants, and provide for their families. Chances are that you’re favorite neighborhood bar or restaurant is either owned, operated, or depends on immigrants, documented or not. Why would we want to deport these people who have helped make Somerville the friendly artistic community that it is today?
Later ‘Villens. Curtatone for Prez 2020! Be good to your neighbors and co-workers too – documented and undocumented alike.
If you found this article of interest, please consider sharing it.
While I agree that immigrants should seek legal means to settle here, I think their ill treatment has gone way too far. Nobody should have to fear being split from their families and lives here if their only crime is that they are not here legally.
What I feel should happen is that anyone who is found to be here illegally should be made to pursue a legal avenue to citizenship here, or at least to becoming a legal immigrant. This way it will become more fair to those who do come here legally, and they are also showing that they want to do the right thing, even if they weren’t able to do it when they originally came here for whatever the reason.
Doing absolutely nothing about illegal immigration changes nothing. It will only encourage more to come here illegally without fear of consequence. But extreme actions also aren’t any better. There are ways to improve the situation for everyone without condoning illegal action, turning a blind eye, building a wall or becoming a police state.
Perhaps if sanctuary cities such as ours can show our current xenophobic administration that we will help illegal immigrants to pursue an eventual legal path, they will stop threatening those cities with punishment and support work to help undocumented immigrants become a legal part of our society if they truly wish to become part of this country.
Just wait a year, they will not be able to afford to live here
LindaS: I agree with you. A big problem is that the immigration process is so broken, that most that come illegally are doing so because the legal route is practically impossible for them for several reasons. Most do want to become part of this country but don’t know how. I mean they know how, but it’s often off limits to them when they were first considering the move to the US.
I’ll give you an example of something that shows how broken things are. Recently, there were 2 people that had a tourist visa from Colombia to visit their mother here in Boston. Their mother is a naturalized citizen and married to a born American citizen. And even though these 2 people had a legal visit to enter the US to visit their mother, the immigration authorities in Boston held them for 8 days without explanation and then finally sent them back to Colombia with the excuse that they were worried that they would overstay their visa and illegal immigrate to the US. I could list many things wrong about this scenario… but the situation is worse for people who are trying to immigrate to the US legally.