Latino advocates protest Levy's deportation 'joke'

Outraged Latino advocates protested outside County Executive Steve Levy's office Wednesday, saying Levy's quip about deporting kitchen workers contributes to a climate where immigrants are attacked and even killed.

His staff maintained that the comment, made at a roast at Captain Bill's Restaurant in Bay Shore last week, was a joke and that he was poking fun at his own reputation. "This is political correctness run amok," his spokesman, Dan Aug, said in an e-mailed statement.

But advocates insisted the remark was not funny. Holding signs like "We need leaders, not jokes," and "Steve Levy can't stand the heat, so he wants to deport the kitchen," leaders of labor, civil rights and religious groups attacked Levy, many making reference to the fatal stabbing of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant killed in Patchogue last year in what authorities have labeled a hate crime.

"The death of Marcelo Lucero was predicted by the climate of hate that has been created here in Suffolk County for a number of years," said Luis Valenzuela, executive director of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance.

According to a report in Newsday, five people who attended last week's roast said that Levy asked an attorney who was ribbing him, a Canadian native, whether he was a U.S. citizen. After the attorney responded "yes," Levy reportedly said that was a good thing because, otherwise, "I'd have to deport you, like the guys back there in the kitchen."

Aug likened the roast to the satirical skits at a 2008 Press Club of Long Island show that poked fun at various ethnic groups. "Obviously, no one in attendance at the press club show walked away thinking that the presenters were literally promoting what they were parodying," Aug said in a statement. "Likewise, no one should believe that the county executive's comments at the roast were anything other than satire on his own political reputation."

Jose Avila, 40, of Brentwood, said he was tired of the "hate speech."

"I can hardly explain to my daughter why Marcelo Lucero is dead," he said. "Because he speaks Spanish, because he looks like me. . . . It could be me. This kind of language is why we have this problem."

Dafny Trizarry, president of the Long Island Latino Teachers Association, called Levy's remark "inappropriate."

"They set a tone and this is carried on to the classroom, when I have students saying to me, 'I don't like to hear the word immigrant because it has a negative connotation,' " she said. "This is . . . from our leadership.

"It comes from the top all the way to our classroom and our students."