Levy joke about deporting immigrants in bad taste
Steve Levy, Suffolk County's top elected official, joked about deporting "the guys in the kitchen" to a roomful of friends and supporters at a roast in Bay Shore last week, according to several people who were there.
His office - Levy declined an interview - says he was funning around, pointing a finger at himself for his reputation as a hard-liner on illegal immigration.
But Levy was doing more than that. He was displaying, once again, a stubbornness and a tin ear on an issue that continues to be dangerously divisive in Suffolk. For years, Levy has supported the idea of what he's called "an open, vigorous debate" on the nation's abysmal failure to enact a sane immigration policy. And I've supported him on that.
But Levy strayed over a line, a long time ago, by criticizing people instead of trashing bad policies. He did it again last Monday, before a crowd of 100 supporters attending the "roast" of the county executive and a "toast" of his mother at Captain Bill's restaurant and catering hall. I can only imagine what the "guys in the kitchen" would have thought if they heard it.
According to several people who attended the event, most of the evening's jokes fell flat until Levy took the microphone. During several minutes of rapid-fire, off-the-cuff joking, he turned to David Manning, an attorney who had teased the notoriously frugal Levy for being cheap.
Levy asked Manning, who was born in Canada, whether he was a U.S. citizen. Manning, in an interview last week, said he remembers that the room was laughing, and that he was laughing, too.
Manning said he rose from his seat and playfully yelled back that he was indeed an American citizen. "I chose to be a U.S. citizen," said Manning, who revels in telling how excited he was to cast his first vote in a U.S. presidential election for Barack Obama.
He said he was still laughing when he sat back down, with Levy's wife and mother. He said he did not hear what Levy said next. Five others in the room said they did, however.
One said he heard Levy say how it was a good thing Manning was a citizen, because otherwise "I'd have to deport you, like the guys back there in the kitchen."
Four others reported hearing slight variations of the same thing. The room, all five said, fell almost silent, if only for a fraction of a second, as Levy moved on to his next joke.
Mark Smith, a spokesman for Levy, wouldn't discuss the incident, nor exactly what was said. He didn't deny his boss had made such a joke. In a statement, though, he had this to say: "Are you kidding me? Have we become that politically correct that you can't have some levity at a roast? The joke was the county executive poking fun at his own reputation on as a hard-liner against illegal immigration.
"Many of the characterizations in past press club skits have been far more on the edge, yet everybody in the room recognizes those are in the spirit of satire."
OK, but press clubs are not elected officials. And they certainly are not the top elected official in Suffolk, where two illegal immigrants were almost beaten to death, and in the case of Marcelo Lucero, chased, beaten, stabbed and left to die, allegedly by a gang of teens.
Eber Lopez, a 16-year-old boy who traveled from Guatemala two years ago, was dragged from a christening party, police believe, by gang members. The body of the teen, who police say had no known gang affiliations at all, was found dumped in a field.
Lopez worked in a kitchen. And he was an illegal immigrant.
Levy had no way Monday of knowing who was working in Captain Bill's kitchen. He prejudged the - however jokingly - as illegal.
Levy's joke probably will do even more damage to the already fragile relationship between Suffolk's Police Department and the county's growing Latino community, which, for the record, includes many second- and third-generation legal residents.
Even the defense that everybody in the room recognized the joke as satire falls flat. "I can't let it go," said one of Levy's friends, who called me a few nights after the roast, a fundraiser for Levy's campaign chest. "I can't stop being upset about it. He did not need to go there."
No, he didn't.
