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Michael Gormley

ALBANY — They are called accessory dwelling units, or ADUs — living spaces in converted garages, attics and basements, sometimes referred to as mother-daughter units and granny flats. Some are built in backyards as cottages. 
Gov. Kathy Hochul says ADUs can be a quick, lower-cost way to help combat the statewide affordable housing crisis, which is particularly acute on Long Island and in New York City. She wants to expand ADUs by requiring local governments to change local zoning laws to encourage more of them. 
The potential benefits of ADUs include creating a new source of income for homeowners in high-cost regions, helping seniors on fixed incomes stay in their family homes, and making housing more affordable for young people. The idea is strongly supported by the builders and real estate industries. 
But critics say the state measure would take away control by local governments and groups that have protected residential neighborhoods from overdevelopment and overcrowding, They say the measure would turn single-family streets into stretches of multifamily housing that will bring overcrowding, parking shortages and strains on services such water and sewers. 
Housing analysts note that there aren't many options to address the affordability crisis besides the expensive, time-consuming route of building more apartment complexes. They say that while zoning has been used to address overcrowding and the demand for service, it also has been used to restrict minorities from living in certain areas. The devil, they say, would be in the details of such proposals. 
Any such measure would still be subject to negotiation with and approval by the State Legislature, either as part of the budget process or as a stand-alone bill. 
Hochul sees ADUs as a quick way to chisel away at a crisis. 
"Every New Yorker deserves access to affordable housing, whether they are at risk of homelessness or simply struggle to pay the rent on time each month," Hochul said in her Jan. 5 State of the State address. "So many people not only face tremendous economic hardship, but the double hit is that housing prices have also continued to escalate beyond the reach of many, worsening the situation even more." 
Hochul’s measure requires that local governments accept ADUs unless extreme safety and health concerns could be proven. Most local governments and homeowners have traditionally opposed ADUs. Her proposal also would grant "amnesty" to illegal ADUs in New York City as leverage to bring them all up to building and safety requirements. 
"They can be very good, absolutely," said Judith Breselor, acting executive director of the Albany-based New York Planning Federation, which has trained planning and zoning officials since 1937. "The concept is fine and we really do have a dire need for affordable housing." 
But she said ADUs must have limits and local government officials are essential in protecting neighborhoods from becoming overly dense. She also noted seemingly small, but important factors must be considered in each case, such as whether an ADU results in a loss privacy for neighbors. "There are so many questions," she said. 
Critics say ADUs are a misguided way to expand affordable housing. 
"It’s a very slippery slope and very dangerous," said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), who is running against Hochul for the Democratic nomination for governor. "This is a green light for chaos … and could fundamentally change our lives." 
Suozzi said Hochul’s proposal could turn single-family neighborhoods into dense multifamily plots with a shortage of parking and a strain on municipal water, sewer and other resources. And Suozzi notes, local governments wouldn’t be able to stop ADUs. 
"We must work on housing," Suozzi said, accusing Hochul pandering to the left. "But taking the power of local government away isn’t the way to do it." 
He said he supports converting empty offices into housing and building transit-centered housing on empty parcels around commuter rail stations. Hochul also supports those ideas. 
Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and several local leaders held a news conference last week to say ADUs threaten the suburban dream. 
"Long Island families work hard to achieve the American dream of homeownership and enjoy a suburban way of life," Blakeman said. "We cannot let the governor destroy suburbia nor turn Nassau County into the sixth borough of New York City." 
But Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of Housing Help, a nonprofit agency that provides housing and financial assistance, said ADUs can provide essential affordable housing for young families and households that lost jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as needed income for middle-class households and senior citizens to pay their own rising housing costs. 
"Senior citizens are house rich, but cash poor and their income doesn’t change, but their expenses increase significantly," Moya-Mancera said. She said the housing crisis is widespread among income levels, but is most acute among the working poor in communities of color. 
The state Association of Towns said it supports the concept of ADUs for rural and urban neighborhoods, but is concerned about the state mandate to limit local governments’ zoning. 
"We would rather see something like an incentive for ADU zoning or have various exceptions allowed in the interest of public health, safety and welfare rather than simply overriding local zoning laws," said Sarah Brancatella, legislative director and counsel for the town association. 
Just what works best in regulating ADUs is tied up in several issues, including race. 
"There is scant research on their prevalence and efficacy as an affordable housing strategy," according to a 2016 report Accessory Dwellings on Long Island by Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies. 
Researchers found that at least 1.87% of homes sold in Nassau County in a six-month period offered ADUs under different terminology, including "mother-daughter" and "senior residence" units. In Suffolk County, where ADUs are largely legal, about 2.71% of sales included references to ADUs. 
Expansion of ADUs would mean more apartments within single-family homes as well as high-end cottages and trendy tiny houses of as little as 200 square feet in backyards. ADUs could create affordable homes for young adults who can’t afford housing prices, which Hochul notes rose 32% since 2020 statewide. 
ADUs also can provide income for middle-class families and seniors who want to stay in their homes. Wealthier homeowners could build backyard cottages that could further increase the resale value of their homes. 
Race and ethnicity also play a role in legislating ADUs, the Hofstra researchers stated. In communities that allowed ADUs, many of the residents were Black and Latino and they rented ADUs at levels twice that of the group's population in the community and that suggests any legislation "may have an outsized effect on Black- and Latino-headed households." 
The researchers said race and ethnicity play a role in some opposition to ADUs. "In communities where some nativist residents have framed the issue of overcrowded housing as an immigration problem, debates over ADU policy may be particularly contentious if they are linked to illegal boardinghouses in single-family neighborhoods," the study stated. 
"I think that both the governor as well as some of her critics, like Rep. Suozzi, are right to focus on the details of the ADU because those details can be very significant as to whether those ADUs are meeting minimum housing standards and don’t overstress local resources and infrastructure," said Christopher W. Niedt, an associate professor of applied social research and sociology at Hofstra, and co-author of the report. 
"Policies like ADU expansion provide one of the few opportunities for increasing the affordable housing stock," he said. "But I do think the design of those policies have to be developed carefully and incorporate the lessons we learned over the last 40 years of ADU policy." 
Niedt told Newsday that whether local governments should be limited in their power to block ADUs "is a difficult question." In addition to the changes ADUs can make on neighborhoods such as parking and density, "sometimes … (local governments) are motivated by architectural considerations, sometimes to restrict people from different classes or groups." 
The view in the lobbying world is more certain. Builders and the real estate industry — major lobbyists and campaign contributors to Hochul and legislators — strongly support the measure. 
ADUs aren’t new. Many were created during the Great Depression and through World War II out of necessity in hard times and, for the wealthy, as servant quarters or guesthouses. ADU’s continued to be created in the 1950s, although often illegally as communities adopted zoning laws that required many neighborhoods to be used only for construction of single-family homes as communities sought to plan development. 
"As the nation’s affordable housing crisis intensifies, there is a growing movement in high-cost areas for the legalization and expansion of accessory dwelling units," according to Freddie Mac, the company chartered by Congress in 1970 to promote affordable mortgages nationwide. "ADUs, such as Fonzie’s above-garage apartment in the 1974 to 1984 television sitcom ‘Happy Days,’ and Jesse and Rebecca’s attic conversion in the 1987 to 1995 television sitcom ‘Full House,’ have been making appearances in pop culture television shows for decades." 
California last year further encouraged ADUs in legislation that turned garages into small showpieces of suburban living often in upscale neighborhoods. 
In New York, several legislators are trying to bring that West Coast vibe here. 
In a bill nearly identical to Hochul’s proposal, legislators would expand ADUs under state Human Rights Law. That bill languished in the legislature last year, but revisions were made in December. Now, with several powerful co-sponsors, the bill was reintroduced to Senate and Assembly committees on the day of Hochul’s State of the State speech. 
The primary sponsors, Sen. Pete Harckham (D-Peekskill) and Assemb. Harvey Epstein (D-Manhattan), said the measure would "create tens of thousands of new, affordable homes while giving homeowners the opportunity to earn new sources of income." 
"This legislation," Harckham said, "will benefit our communities by providing seniors with added income to pay their bills and gray in place while also making affordable housing available to first responders, teachers, working families and young professionals."

Region/State

stHOUSING220206

Hochul plan to boost 'accessory' housing sparks debate on LI

Gov. Kathy Hochul said she wants to expand accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, by requiring local governments to change local zoning laws to encourage more of them. But some local officials are opposed to the state control, saying it could lead to overcrowding and should be left to the local municipalities. Newsday's Shari Einhorn reports. 


Debate over Hochul's plan to boost ‘accessory’ housing

Newsday

Debate over Hochul's plan to boost 'accessory' housing

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday addressed a bipartisan group of governors at the White House — including Gov. Kathy Hochul — urging them to tap into federal funding to address the "challenges out there," including an uptick in gun violence, aging infrastructure and a shortage of affordable child care. 
"We are at an inflection point," Biden said in remarks to members of the National Governors Association. "We have an opportunity. America is one of those nations, I think the only nation, that's come out of every crisis stronger than it went into the crisis … and I think that's where we are again." 
Biden, speaking from the White House East Room, told the gathering "we have a chance to sort of restate and reassert our world leadership on a whole range of issues and lead the world on everything from the environment to dealing with the issues of immigration." 
The president, who is set to travel to New York City on Thursday for a meeting with Mayor Eric Adams to discuss reducing gun violence, told the group of 30 governors on hand that they should direct money states received from last year’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package to hire more police officers. 
"I made it clear we should use these funds to combat violent crime as well, including hiring additional police officers, investing in community violence interventions that are proven to work in communities," Biden said. 
Hochul in a statement after the meeting said she raised her support for bipartisan legislation working its way through Congress aimed at boosting the country's economic competitive edge over China, particularly in the technology sector. Last summer the U.S. Senate passed a $250 billion measure that would provide incentives to manufacturers to build or improve computer chip production plants in the United States. The House is considering a similar measure. 
"I advocated for the passage of a final economic competitiveness package to strengthen the semiconductor industry, address supply chain issues, and create jobs in New York and across the country in this vital field," Hochul said. 
Vice President Kamala Harris also spoke at the event, urging governors to ensure "that all people who are eligible to vote have the ability ... to vote and access to the ballot." 
Harris’ remarks come after a failed push by the White House and congressional Democrats to pass voting rights legislation that would have created national standards around voting. The pair of packages pushed by the White House were meant to counter laws passed by GOP legislatures in more than a dozen states limiting access to voting. 
"I would ask that in this coming year we work together to ensure that all Americans who are eligible to vote actually have meaningful access to the ballot," Harris said.

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Biden urges governors to address gun violence, aging infrastructure

Biden urges governors to address gun violence, infrastructure

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<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Primary questions</h3> 
With New York’s June congressional primary fast approaching, a few GOP contenders are making moves to follow in Lee Zeldin’s footsteps in CD1. 
They include Brookhaven Town Councilman Neil Foley, who told The Point Thursday that he is "absolutely ready to run," along with Robert Cornicelli, Anthony Figliola, and Edward Moore, who have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to launch their campaigns. 
Figliola, a former Brookhaven deputy supervisor who works at Empire Government Strategies, calls himself a "conservative Republican" and "strict constitutionalist" focused on Long Island’s high cost of living and issues like vaccine mandates. 
He was once a Democrat and worked under a Democratic administration in Brookhaven, but says he left the party in his late 20s: "I grew up, I had a family, I got married, I found the Lord," he says, explaining the shift. 
Cornicelli, a military veteran and St. James resident who has already posted fundraising numbers, is a Town of Oyster Bay sanitation inspector supervisor and veterans advocate. He is a regular presence on 103.9 LI News Radio and his campaign says he’ll be stumping on "helping people who have been forgotten, namely veterans and individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities." 
His social media presence often wades into culture war issues, with mentions of "Fraud Fauci" and criticisms of immigrants here illegally and immigration more generally: "I am a vote for no climate refugees at all." 
Moore, of Smithtown, identifies himself as an entrepreneur who is running as a novice but hopes to show other people they can "do it themselves." 
Of course, he notes, "I may win." 
Other names floated for the sure-to-be-expensive, nationally watched race include John Thaler, a prominent Lee Zeldin donor who runs a hedge fund, but Thaler has declined. 
The next move appears to be with the county party apparatus — Foley, for one, said he didn’t want to hop fully into the race ahead of the county GOP and Conservative Party officially picking someone. 
Asked about the timeline for screening candidates or coming behind a nominee, Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia said in a text that the lack of district lines "has caused delays. February." 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>New race, old pals</h3> 
How long after communications executive Robert Zimmerman announced his candidacy for Congress this week would it take for an endorsement to come from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli? 
Not too long. The two have known each other for almost 50 years, and have been battling side-by-side in electoral politics since day one. 
"We met working on a campaign, the reelection campaign of Rep. Lester Wolff," Zimmerman told The Point Thursday, guessing it was in 1971. Wolff, who lived in Syosset, served 13 terms in the House from 1965 through 1981. 
Both Zimmerman and DiNapoli are 67, though DiNapoli is a few months older, and both have been involved in politics for five decades. 
But in political history, the two are most closely linked by DiNapoli’s brutal 2001 Democratic primary against another Long Islander whose political ambition is a headline this year: Tom Suozzi. 
That 2001 race has colored politics on Long Island ever since, with the alliances and enmity it created often persisting. Zimmerman has been a persistent and outspoken critic of Suozzi’s service in the House, and had floated the idea of challenging him before. 
"Robert is someone who has had a passion for government and politics, and has been a great spokesperson nationally for the Democratic Party and its positions," DiNapoli told The Point Thursday. "He’s in it to serve the people and I think he’d be a great advocate for the district." 
The seat Zimmerman seeks is opening up because Suozzi is seeking the governorship. And it surprised no one when, in October, DiNapoli endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul for that job. 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>The variants</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>GOP election strategy</h3> 
For a glimpse of where the New York GOP thinks the pulse of this year’s state elections will be, look no further than Lee Zeldin’s Facebook ads. 
A missive launched last week focuses on criminal justice issues and denigrates Democratic efforts to modify the state’s law enforcement, bail and parole systems. 
The ad’s rhetorical strategies include disdainful wordplay — critiquing the parole changes of the Less Is More Act by dubbing it the "Less is Moronic Act." There is an embedded video that highlights recent anecdotes of eye-catching crime — such as the man who set fire to what the ad calls a "public Christmas tree": the one outside the New York City headquarters of Fox News. And in general, the Zeldin campaign argues that the overhaul of bail is putting more people on the streets to commit crime — a subject that was widely embraced by victorious GOP campaigns for district attorney in Nassau and Suffolk counties last fall. 
The anecdotes and the general aura of cashless bail have for months now spread more rapidly than clear evidence about what the overhaul has or hasn’t done. State data meant to measure the outcomes of people released from custody has been muddled and revised, as the <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/GOP-calls-into-question-state-s-actions-on-bail-16768206.php">Albany Times Union has reported</a>, but in broad strokes, a single-digit percentage of recent cases related to the new state bail laws led to a violent felony rearrest while the previous case was pending. 
The raw rearrest number is not zero, however, providing the grist for anecdotal cases. And swaths of New York have seen increases in some crime categories, as has been the case nationally during the pandemic. 
Asked about the ad’s focus, Zeldin campaign spokeswoman Katie Vincentz pointed to a December Siena poll finding crime and economic opportunity as voters’ top two Albany priorities for 2022. 
Hence the GOP’s adoption of the tried and true law and order playbook so far: "We can simply surrender," the Zeldin ad says, "or we can save our state." 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

Opinion

OPTPOINT220120

The GOP roster to succeed Zeldin

Lane Filler

One year ago, when protesters angry that Congress was about to finalize President Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, the response from elected officials there that day wasn’t differentiated by party. 
Republicans and Democrats alike publicly shared their raw feelings, of fear, anger and sadness, and almost without exception decried the incursion into the Capitol and the bloodshed and death that followed. 
But a year later, at least when it comes to Long Island’s members of Congress, the line between the political parties and their public recognition of the anniversary, particularly on social media, is absolute. 
Thursday, the Democrats’ feeds were highly focused on memorializing Jan. 6, 2021. 
<ul> 
 <li>Tom Suozzi’s congressional Twitter account shared video of last year’s attack and several messages, including: "There is no doubt that today will bring back nightmares for all of those who were at the Capitol that day. My thoughts are with the Capitol staff, US Capitol Police, members, and anyone who may be struggling with the trauma."</li> 
 <li>Kathleen Rice’s several tweets focused mostly on celebrating those who fought the rioters off, and those investigating them, and attacking Republicans standing in the way, including: "Today we thank the US Capitol Police, DC Metro Police, &amp; other law enforcement officers who protect us every day. I hope all 147 of my colleagues who voted to overturn the results are able to reflect on how their decision put those officers in jeopardy."</li> 
 <li>Gregory Meeks posted a 12-tweet thread, leading with "Jan. 6, 2021 began peacefully. As I viewed the Capitol Dome that morning, I reflected on all its history as a structure completed after the Civil War’s failed insurrection. Little did I know what started off as a calm morning would dissolve into another failed insurrection."</li> 
</ul> 
But on the feeds of Long Island’s Republican House members, Jan. 6 was just another day. 
Lee Zeldin’s online activity was mostly focused on his push for New York’s governor’s mansion, with entries like: "As Governor, I'll END the draconian mask mandates on NY students. NO MORE 2-yr olds in masks! No COVID vaccine requirement for students. No more of this push of kids into remote education instead of IN-PERSON, FULL-TIME, IN THE CLASSROOM learning." 
And on Andrew Garbarino’s feeds, the emphasis was on immigration at the southern border and, with this tweet, local infrastructure: "I've spent years fighting to fix the Oakdale Merge, first in Albany and now in Washington. I was pleased to see today’s announcement that NYS will commence with an environmental review — a necessary first step to advancing this project now that federal funding has been secured." 
While the events of Jan. 6, 2021 softened partisan lines at the time, the way that day is being remembered has restored the usual walls of those divides.

OPTTWIT220106

The Point: A year later, Jan. 6 perceptions differ

Capitol Riot Democrats Danger

<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Suozzi pitches campaign for governor</h3> 
Don’t be surprised if you get a call from Rep. Tom Suozzi sometime next week. 
Suozzi has been holding telephone town halls across the state, breaking New York into seven regions, inviting Democratic voters to hear from him and to ask questions or raise issues. 
But Suozzi’s effort isn’t directed only at his own constituents in CD3. Instead, these calls are about his campaign for governor, which has heated up as he increasingly targets Gov. Kathy Hochul on crime and other issues. 
On tap Thursday night: Parts of Brooklyn and Queens, with CD5, CD6, CD7, CD8 and CD9 participating. Voters received a robocall from Suozzi Wednesday night inviting them to the call. The meeting will be live, with Suozzi answering questions in real time. 
Long Island voters will get their chance next week, on Jan. 13 at 7:30 p.m. 
During Suozzi’s first session last month with Western New York and the Southern Tier, more than 5,000 people participated. 
In a tweet Thursday, Suozzi said he’d "answer your questions about my campaign and will discuss my plan to fight COVID, lower taxes and crime, improve our schools, &amp; my vision for the future of NY." 
— Randi F. Marshall <a href="https://twitter.com/randimarshall">@RandiMarshall</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>The conductor</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>A year later, Jan. 6 perceptions differ</h3> 
One year ago, when protesters angry that Congress was about to finalize President Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, the response from elected officials there that day wasn’t differentiated by party. 
Republicans and Democrats alike publicly shared their raw feelings, of fear, anger and sadness, and almost without exception decried the incursion into the Capitol and the bloodshed and death that followed. 
But a year later, at least when it comes to Long Island’s members of Congress, the line between the political parties and their public recognition of the anniversary, particularly on social media, is absolute. 
Thursday, the Democrats’ feeds were highly focused on memorializing Jan. 6, 2021. 
<ul> 
 <li>Tom Suozzi’s congressional Twitter account shared video of last year’s attack and several messages, including: "There is no doubt that today will bring back nightmares for all of those who were at the Capitol that day. My thoughts are with the Capitol staff, US Capitol Police, members, and anyone who may be struggling with the trauma."</li> 
 <li>Kathleen Rice’s several tweets focused mostly on celebrating those who fought the rioters off, and those investigating them, and attacking Republicans standing in the way, including: "Today we thank the US Capitol Police, DC Metro Police, &amp; other law enforcement officers who protect us every day. I hope all 147 of my colleagues who voted to overturn the results are able to reflect on how their decision put those officers in jeopardy."</li> 
 <li>Gregory Meeks posted a 12-tweet thread, leading with "Jan. 6, 2021 began peacefully. As I viewed the Capitol Dome that morning, I reflected on all its history as a structure completed after the Civil War’s failed insurrection. Little did I know what started off as a calm morning would dissolve into another failed insurrection."</li> 
</ul> 
But on the feeds of Long Island’s Republican House members, Jan. 6 was just another day. 
Lee Zeldin’s online activity was mostly focused on his push for New York’s governor’s mansion, with entries like: "As Governor, I'll END the draconian mask mandates on NY students. NO MORE 2-yr olds in masks! No COVID vaccine requirement for students. No more of this push of kids into remote education instead of IN-PERSON, FULL-TIME, IN THE CLASSROOM learning." 
And on Andrew Garbarino’s feeds, the emphasis was on immigration at the southern border and, with this tweet, local infrastructure: "I've spent years fighting to fix the Oakdale Merge, first in Albany and now in Washington. I was pleased to see today’s announcement that NYS will commence with an environmental review — a necessary first step to advancing this project now that federal funding has been secured." 
While the events of Jan. 6, 2021 softened partisan lines at the time, the way that day is being remembered has restored the usual walls of those divides. 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220106

Suozzi on the line

They traveled to Fiji, cooked in Oregon, sang as CGI avatars and performed for the president — this year's class of Long Island reality-TV stars was perhaps the most plentiful and accomplished ever. Among 2021’s most notable:
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Northwell Health Nurse Choir, various towns ("America's Got Talent"): The "America's Got Talent" finalists, 18 nurses and almost all who live or work on Long Island, have kept busy both on the pandemic's front lines and in performance. These include the national anthem at the New York Rangers' Essential Workers Night at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 29, and halftime entertainment for the Knicks' similar night there on Dec. 2 and, this month, appearances on ABC's "Live with Kelly and Ryan" and PBS' "In Performance at the White House: Spirit of the Season."
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Luann de Lesseps, Sag Harbor ("The Real Housewives of New York City"): De Lesseps, a charter member of the Bravo series, with aired its 13th season this year, has been on a multistate cabaret tour that included a stop at The Paramount in Huntington. She also launched a nonalcoholic wine, Countess Luann's Fosé Rosé.
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Bella DeNapoli, West Islip ("The Voice"): After making it to the top 20 on the NBC singing competition, she was eliminated in the Nov. 9 episode, bringing her coach, Ariana Grande, to tears. This month, she released her new single, "Idk," on streaming platforms. 

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Byron Gomez, raised in Central Islip ("Top Chef"): Still executive chef at Colorado's 7908 Aspen, the "Top Chef: Portland" contestant, who emigrated from Costa Rica as a child and is in the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, was among the dozens of notables in September who signed an open letter to Congress asking for immigration reform, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Debra Messing, Don Cheadle, Demi Lovato and Jericho native Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
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Samaera Hirsch, Glen Head ("Alter Ego"): A finalist on the Fox singing contest "Alter Ego," competing as the CGI avatar Misty Rose, the Tulane University senior sang the national anthem at the Knicks' Madison Square Garden game on Oct. 24.
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Bria and Lexi Martone, Dix Hills ("Unpolished"): The sisters continue to run their hair-and-nails emporium Salon Martone in East Northport. Bria is newly married, as seen on the show, and Lexi recently bought a new house.
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Harry Poole, St. James; April Nothdurft, Ronkonkoma; and Kate Wurtzel, Nissequogue ("The Great Food Truck Race"): Poole, who with his wife owns the restaurants Jackson's in Commack and Morrison's in Plainview, tells Newsday that this year was "filled with pivots as the pandemic rolls on." Adapting the name of the trio's food truck, BFD, Poole is developing the catering company Backyard BFD and working with local breweries on BFD dinners. Part of Long Island Cares' Restaurant Resiliency Program, he says, "It's incredibly exciting to be a part of the rebuilding process from the past two years."
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Carter Rubin, Shoreham ("The Voice"): OK, it was December 2020 when, at 15, Rubin became the show's youngest male winner. But it was in 2021 that his career accelerated. In Las Vegas on Nov. 5 with his "The Voice" coach, Gwen Stefani, he performed a duet with her on her and Blake Shelton’s "Nobody But You," then sang his major-label debut single, "Horoscope," live on "The Voice" Nov. 30 as part of a retrospective of his time on the show.After being home-schooled in order to spend time on his career, Rubin tells Newsday that 2022 "is my year to continue putting out music, grow my fan base and see live music come back stronger than ever."
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Tiffany Seely, Plainview ("Survivor"): The eighth elimination on the 41st season, Seely, a teacher, has begun selling what she calls "Survivor"-inspired jewelry at the online platform Shopify.
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Tommy Sheehan, Long Beach ("The Challenge"): After winning "Survivor" season 39 in 2019, Sheehan this year competed on MTV's "The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies." He suffered a concussion and was medically disqualified in the third episode.
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Kaitlyn Velez, Copiague ("The Voice"): Having made it to the Battle Round before elimination, the Blake Shelton team member released the single "Off My Mind" on Dec. 3.

Entertainment

etreal211231

Catching up with 2021 activities of LIers who appeared on reality TV shows

Catching up with LI reality TV stars' 2021 activities

etreal211231_photos

<h2>Parents dropping off kids is scary</h2> 
I have been reading other letters about drivers passing school buses and not obeying the laws ["Stop speeding past stopped school buses," Nov. 21]. Have you ever witnessed the driving and disregard for lives as adults drop off their children at school? 
As a parent and retired educator, I have encountered many near-misses at entry and dismissal as selfish adults park and drive haphazardly in order to get the closest and most convenient parking spot. Then there are those who create their own "spot" so neither the child nor themselves have to walk a few extra feet. 
Now as a grandparent doing drop-offs at nursery school, I am getting to relive this again. Please leave your house five minutes earlier and park in the designated area. And stay off your cellphone. If you need to talk, pull over in a less congested area. 
Remember, all our children’s lives are special — not just yours. 
— Francine Padula, Wantagh 
<h2>Rehabilitated felons deserve 2nd chance </h2> 
I reacted to the article on elder parole with great sadness ["Victims oppose parole reform," News, Nov. 10]. I can understand these victims’ point of view, and nobody can hold it against anyone who seeks eternal revenge on someone who has hurt them so much. 
However, our prisons are part of the Department of Corrections, not the department of eternal revenge. 
Everyone, victims included, should recognize that there are many older incarcerated people who, through working at self-improvement, are not the same people who committed whatever crime got them there. For those individuals, we might be able to say that they are corrected and therefore deserve to have a fair chance for relief at a parole hearing. I say they should have that chance. 
— Barry Nobel, Oyster Bay 
<h2>Congress still plays same old game </h2> 
So Republicans are alarmed because the "socialist Democrats" are "spending money we don’t have" ["House OKs $2T social, climate package," News, Nov. 20]. Within the past 200 years, some politician found a printing press, some green ink and blank paper and started printing money that "we" don’t have. 
Republicans do it, Democrats do it, and they all cry, "Look at what they’re doing to our grandchildren! Burdening them with this horrible debt!" You don’t like it, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell? Give the money for Kentucky back. Too much for you, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.)? How about if we throw another billion dollars into the coal industry? Some version of this bill will pass. The only thing that is certain is that there will be 535 elected officials telling their constituents how they "fought for" every single dollar. 
— Chris Marzuk, Greenlawn 
<h2>Bit of irony in LIer’s Rhodes scholarship </h2> 
It is wonderful that a Rhodes scholarship has been awarded to Devashish Basnet, who at 7, not knowing English, was brought to the United States by parents who had fled their Asian homeland to seek political asylum ["LIer’s a Rhodes scholar," News, Nov. 22]. 
It is inspiring that a young man who overcame such disadvantages has succeeded in earning one of the world’s most prestigious academic awards. It is noble that he intends, after Oxford University, to pursue a law degree in international human rights in order to work for a more humane American immigration policy. 
And it is indeed ironic, but especially gratifying, that the financial legacy of Cecil Rhodes, a proud British imperialist who regarded the British as superior to all other peoples, might serve to advance and promote the contrasting ideals of Emma Lazarus that are inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. 
— Thomas A. Schweitzer, Port Washington 
<h2>Pave highway seams in middle of lanes </h2> 
After reading "NY roads pricey, dicey" [News, Nov. 21], I couldn’t help but think about how our main highways on Long Island are paved. It seems they are always paved lane by lane, making the seams land basically where the dashed   lines are. These are the first places the road deteriorates, mostly because they are also where the majority of the tires of cars and heavy trucks are riding. The constant pounding and weather accelerate the undermining of the asphalt. 
Why don’t they start paving with a half-lane, beginning from the left lane, and then a full width paving lane, another full width   lane and then a half-lane? This would make the joints and seams be in the center of each driving lane where there is much less traffic, crossing and wear and tear. 
I am sure these roads would not need paving as often as they do now. 
— Anthony Palumbo Jr., Plainview

Letters

OPLTR211129

Parents driving carelessly, rehabilitated felons, Congress and more

POY2021_NOVEMBER

<h2>Shock after verdict in Rittenhouse trial </h2> 
Having retired as a deputy inspector after 31 years in the Suffolk County Police Department, with a fundamental belief in the American system of justice, my faith has just been shattered ["Full acquittal for Rittenhouse," News, Nov. 20]. 
The Kyle Rittenhouse jurors chose to ignore the fact that an unstable teenage vigilante, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, killed two people and injured a third who posed no threat to anybody. 
The greater question is why did the Wisconsin police agencies and "civic leaders" do nothing to intervene? Standing in a distant street-blocking line obviously was not a deterrent. 
Shame on all of them. They need new leadership. 
— Howard Mandell, East Northport 
 
Is anyone else as shocked as I am about the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse? A teenager, carrying an AR-style semiautomatic rifle, kills two people and injures a third, who were not allowed by the judge to be called victims but instead had to be referred to as protesters. And the teen faces no consequences? 
What message does this send to other vigilantes out there? Self-defense? Please. 
He would have done the victims a favor by staying home and minding his own business.   
— Jo-Tina DiGennaro, Bayville 
Now that we’ve seen white justice at work (again and again), just imagine what would have happened if Kyle Rittenhouse had been a Black kid brought up on the same charges. 
— Gus Franza, Setauket 
<h2>U.S. immigration policy a disgrace </h2> 
The Afghan refugee situation illustrates the disgrace that the U.S. immigration policy has become ["Afghans’ kin fearful over entry bottleneck," Nation &amp; World, Nov. 20]. 
The Afghan refugees who are attempting to enter the United States legally are exactly the future Americans that we want. They have experienced firsthand the terrorism of extremism and the evils of radical Muslim fanaticism. America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. People come here for freedom and a better life for their families. 
The solution is simple, as our courts have done in other cases: allow Zoom-type meetings to count as face-to-face meetings. Many immigrants are our hardest-working and best future citizens. 
— Alan Cohn, Nesconset 
<h2>GOP inaction on Gosar is frightening </h2> 
I served in the military for eight years. I have lived through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I lived through the Cuban missile crisis, Gulf and Iraq wars, and 9/11.   
However, I have never been so frightened for our country or democracy as I am now. 
The Republican Party has brought me to this dark place. Except for two members, the Republican Party refused to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who thought it OK to depict himself killing another member of Congress and threatening the president of the United States with swords ["Rep censured by House for violent video," News, Nov. 18].   He also spread  the lie that the presidential election was stolen. 
 Republicans ignore those in their party who incite violence. Now they are trying to fix elections by making it more difficult for people to vote. We have one party upholding our democracyand the other trying to destroy it. 
We have seen the damage and corruption that the prior four years  brought us. One more Republican administration like that and we will lose our democracy. 
Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) speaks the truth. I pray that more in her party listen to her before it’s too late. 
— Richard T. DeVito, Long Beach 
<h2>Own up to voting for ‘the other guy’ </h2> 
 A reader took exception to what he called the misleading characterization of Republicans by Lane Filler ["Don’t mischaracterize who Republicans are," Letters, Nov. 17]. 
In an election between two people, you don’t get to "vote for the other guy" in a vacuum. A vote against one candidate becomes a vote for the other — a "lesser of two evils" vote. At election time, former President Donald Trump carried four years of documented baggage . That’s what you voted for. 
If you still support Trump today, you can add attempting to overturn an election  to a laundry list of misdeeds. If that’s what you voted for when you "voted for the other guy," you should at least have the courage to own it.   Filler was absolutely right in his characterization. 
— Robert Emproto, Huntington 
CORRECTIONS: Trial evidence showed that Kyle Rittenhouse drove himself from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse got the rifle used in the Aug. 25, 2020, shootings at the Kenosha home of a friend’s stepfather. Information in a previous version was incorrect.

OPLTR211123

Rittenhouse verdict, immigration policy, Paul Gosar and more

USRITTENHOUSE211120_photos

Three weeks ago a few youngsters, mostly from Central America, disembarked a bus late at night at MercyFirst in Syosset, a long-established Catholic nonprofit foster care center. 
The drop-off apparently was uneventful and the number of kids could be counted on one hand. But the matter drew outsized, sensationalized attention — simply because they were the latest among unaccompanied children to arrive in recent years from across the southern U.S. border. 
Apparently the hour of the trip grew late that day because that’s just how the chartered flights are sometimes run or scheduled, this one into the Westchester County airport, which has seen such unremarkable flights before. 
That is, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, brings unaccompanied minors, supervised by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to places to stay temporarily before being released to parents or sponsors. They’ve worked with MercyFirst since 2014. 
All these minors get vaccinated against COVID-19, officials say. 
Nowadays it’s easy to see how a yearsold humanitarian operation gets whipped into a frenzy of rumor and fearful suspicion as part of our overwrought political conversation about immigration. 
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) complained: "We have no concrete information about what sort of vetting these migrants have gone through, why they are being relocated, where they will stay, who was involved in this decision-making process and so much more." 
He’s right that more information is needed. President Joe Biden’s HHS and other agencies should respond by answering detailed questions about these operations. Otherwise, his policies run more risk of being seen as furtive or worse. 
Biden’s border policies from the start have felt improvised, with bad visuals such as U.S. Border Patrol using horses to corral Haitian migrants at Del Rio, Texas. Biden condemned this, but what his team expected instead is unclear. 
Also hazy are full details of how the administration plans to meet its vow to compensate families separated during the last administration, in response to a federal lawsuit pending in San Diego, and for how much. 
Comprehensive immigration reform has eluded Washington for decades, but its absence is no excuse for the day-to-day confusion amid a wave of those escaping hostile conditions in their native nations. 
Even if hard facts might result in valid criticism of the federal government’s performance, the White House should reveal them in real time. 
Border policies should be painstakingly explained and communicated to Congress and to local officials so people can judge them realistically. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) says he’s been looking to meet with DHS and the Department of Education regarding unaccompanied minors on Long Island. They should accommodate him. 
Lack of clarity on this web of operational issues would spell failure.

Editorials

VPBORDER211112

Biden's HHS must clarify border policy

Border policy needs clarity

liYEAR181221_gallery

According to the Public Religion Research Institute an astonishing 30% of Republicans believe that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence" to save the country. The poll was conducted as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection continues to uncover collusion among protest organizers, Republican members of Congress and Trump White House staff. Together, they reveal the unavoidable fact that one of the two great political parties in the United States has been transformed top to bottom into a vehicle for far-right extremism. 
While Donald Trump's presidency was the fillip, this fundamental change is the culmination of three decades of dynamic interaction among white supremacists, far-right organizations and populists within the Republican Party. Across these years, party insurgents enlisted the energy and ideas of radicals outside the system to ignite and direct the passions and resentments of White Christian voters inside it. Their success depended on the ability of activists to provoke racial resentments without openly embracing white supremacy. 
This phenomenon starts with Pat Buchanan, who was a presidential speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon, communications director for Ronald Reagan and a popular syndicated columnist and regular Sunday morning talk show guest. He was a consummate Republican insider, yet his GOP primary campaigns in 1992 and 1996 were waged in opposition to the GOP mainstream. He racked up early success against President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 primaries by explicitly playing up White grievance in populist language. With a sluggish economy, unemployment hovering above 7% and significant job losses in the manufacturing sector, Buchanan was able to portray cultural liberalism, immigration and Bush's embrace of free trade as an attack on "Middle America" from all sides. 
Buchanan was among the first to understand that the end of the Cold War meant that the post-World War II era of ideological consensus was over. There was now room to begin building a nationalist right that could dispense with democratic pluralism. That time had not yet come, but his prophetic language was resonant enough to secure him a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, where he delivered his famous "culture war" speech. 
When Buchanan ran again in 1996, it was discovered that his campaign co-chair Larry Pratt had appeared with members of the Aryan Nation at a white-supremacist Christian Identity meeting, and another co-chair had attended a banquet honoring people convicted of shooting abortion providers. Two other subnational campaign chairs had organizational ties to David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and Louisiana state representative. There would be no prime-time speaking spot for him at the convention this time, but his campaign was able to capture the platform committee to keep strong antiabortion language and to add an anti-immigrant plank that called for a constitutional change to the 14th Amendment to undermine birthright citizenship. 
Perhaps as consequential for the future development of a far-right GOP was Buchanan's informal political adviser, Samuel Francis. Francis, an award-winning columnist at the Washington Times, was also a racist and nativist die-hard. He understood that white supremacists and other authoritarians then relegated to the fringes could someday play an important role in the mainstream right. Francis observed about Duke's 1990 U.S. Senate run that for all of his attempts to cleanse his image, there was a "subtext, communicated by the continuous depiction of Mr. Duke in Nazi uniform and Klan hood by his enemies . . . that the historic racial and cultural core of American civilization is under attack." While the symbols of Duke's past white supremacy could not be openly embraced, they nevertheless spoke to many White voters. 
Francis knew the Republican Party would never choose Buchanan as its presidential candidate, but for him that was hardly the point. Buchanan had begun a process, Francis said, that would empower "new social forces" on the right and provide "an organized mode of expression that will allow them to develop and mature their consciousness and their power." 
Francis was eventually fired by the Washington Times for stating at a conference of the eugenicist American Renaissance journal that the "genetic endowments" of White people made them the "creating people" of Europe and America. Yet the dynamic tension between overt white supremacy, authoritarianism and party-building that Francis identified in the Buchanan campaigns slowly developed on the margins while the national GOP committed itself to neoconservatism, free trade, military interventionism abroad and soft multiculturalism at home. 
After more than a decade of growing economic disparity, war and simmering tensions over immigration, the twinned events of the Great Recession and the election of the first Black U.S. president in 2008 set the stage for racial populism to come roaring back in the form of the tea party movement. Tea partyers largely did not proclaim white supremacy as such, but they took up the racial sentiments embedded in the xenophobia developing since the Buchanan campaigns, the Islamophobia sparked in the wake of 9/11 and the racism and the anti-Blackness summoned forth in reaction to the election of Barack Obama. They showed up with firearms to disrupt health-care town halls, demonstrate against immigration and swarm city councils to prevent the imposition of what they deemed "sharia law." This movement marched into party politics and political power when 138 candidates backed by the tea party ran for Congress as Republicans in 2010, about a third of whom won seats. 
But far-right extremism did not work its way to the heart of the Republican Party until the nomination and 2016 election of Trump. Neither single election cycles nor individual presidencies determine the trajectories of political parties. But through racial demonization, the treatment of political opponents as enemies and an embrace of executive authoritarianism, Trump achieved two critical things at once: He moved far-right radicals toward the Republican Party and the Republican voter base toward greater radicalization. 
This was an uneven process, to be sure. The now-infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017 was the first major public demonstration by far-right forces in the Trump era. As white-nationalist leader Richard Spencer later said: "There is no question that Charlottesville wouldn't have occurred without Trump. It really was because of his campaign and this new potential for a nationalist candidate who was resonating with the public in a very intense way." 
However, from the torchlight march by young men chanting "Jews will not replace us" to the killing of counterprotester Heather Heyer by self-avowed neo-Nazi James Fields Jr., the event was disastrous for the far right. In its aftermath, much of the movement collapsed under infighting, federal lawsuits and nearly unanimous public condemnation of white supremacy. As Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, later commented, "Armband neo-Nazism is never going to be that popular." 
Trump's supporters took an embattled and defiant stance against the "deep state" and Democrats in the House over the next three years in response to the Russia investigation and Trump's subsequent impeachments. Social media algorithms helped harden this identity, but an authoritarian nationalist vision that could bridge party identity, presidential leadership and militant extremism was already long in the making. 
By the summer of 2020, a variety of right-wing groups began to succeed where the openly racist alt-right had failed. The mass social movement that arose in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor also gave rise to vigilantes who took to the streets to oppose what they saw as the mob violence and Marxist agenda of Black Lives Matter. 
Some were organized into groups like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys and white-nationalist groups, but many more had no affiliation, simply seeing themselves as defenders of their communities. It was in this context that unlike Fields, Kyle Rittenhouse received accolades from local and national Republican officials and became a folk hero for fatally shooting two men and wounding a third in Kenosha, Wis., during protests sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a White police officer. 
On Jan. 6, these same forces would become the battering ram at the doors of the U.S. Capitol, acting on behalf of the tens of millions of Republican voters who falsely believed that Joe Biden was fraudulently being installed in the White House. Shaken GOP leaders condemned Trump in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, but within weeks most had not only walked it back, but affirmed Trump's leadership of the party. By midsummer, a dumbfounding counternarrative emerged among GOP leaders that neither Trump nor the rioters were responsible for the tragic events on Jan. 6, but rather House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Since then, condemnation of the insurrection itself has steeply declined among Republican voters. 
Francis had hoped that the "new social forces" he identified in the Buchanan campaigns would someday "make use of Caesarism and the mass loyalties that a charismatic leader inspires" to overcome settled arrangements of power. That moment has arrived as the Republican Party, from national leadership to voters, has come to embrace violent authoritarianism. 
Joseph Lowndes is associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon and co-author of "Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity." This essay draws inspiration from a chapter by the same author in "A Field Guide to White Supremacy" edited by Kathleen Belew and Ramon A. Gutierrez.

Commentary

WEBOP1211109

Far-right extremism dominates the GOP: It didn't start, and won't end, with Trump

Far-right extremism dominates the GOP

Capitol_Breach_Real_Estate_Agent_67200

Americans share core values and pride in our nation, but profound divisions over race and political issues such as abortion and the 2020 presidential election, along with concerns about a lack of empathy and dedication to the common good, have many worried about the fate of the country, according to a national survey conducted by Siena College. 
The study, "America at a Crossroads: Can We Save Our Union?", surveyed more than 6,000 Americans on what divides and unites us, as well as gauging their hopes for the nation’s future. 
It also sought to "measure dedication to elements of our central principles," such as liberty, equality and progress. 
Siena found Americans, no matter where they live or land on the political spectrum, expressed strong support for core values. They strongly agree with ideas such as all people are created equal, no one is above the law and treating others as you would have them treat you. They say we are held together by our Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. 
And the respondents are hopeful in general: Almost 90%, no matter left or right politically, agreed tomorrow always holds the possibility of a better day. 
But we are divided stridently on some high-profile issues, not surprisingly including immigration, abortion and Donald Trump's unfounded claims about his 2020 election defeat, the survey found. <a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50397665" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50397665">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Beyond the survey questions, Siena conducted extensive interviews with 20 respondents, using open-ended questions, to get a sense of their view of the state of the union. 
Social media, hardening partisanship, Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, frustration with an unproductive Congress and the quest for personal enrichment threaten to rip up the nation, possibly even fracturing it permanently, the interviewees said. 
"Are we divided? Yes. Do we share core values? Absolutely. Are we proud to be Americans? For the most part. Do we think our great experiment will weather this storm? We’re somewhat hopeful, but concerned," Siena pollster Don Levy told Newsday. 
He continued, in a Newsday interview: "Is there anything in our foundational values that will allow us to overcome the level of partisan destruction? Some of our interviewees said we are headed for break-up or even civil war. So, yeah, I think there is every reason to be worried, if not scared. The question is: What can be done about it?" 
Chris Gibson, Siena College president and former Hudson Valley Republican congressman, said, "I am really concerned. We’re on a path to come apart and if we want to disrupt that path, then we need to pay attention to this survey and we need to take action." 
What gives him hope is the survey shows "America still holds a common language" around liberty, equality and progress that is "consistent with our founding philosophy." 
To do the survey, the Siena College Research Institute said it completed online interviews with a representative sample of 6,077 Americans, including respondents from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, from April 23 to May 3. Respondents were selected and agreed to participate via an online panel service while meeting demographic breakdowns on race, gender, geographic region, age and political affiliation that reflect the national electorate. The margin of error on the survey is plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398762" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398762">Story Widget Link</a>
 
There is strong support for principles of equality, liberty and progress, with about 80% of Americans across the board. And there is very little regional variation. 
This was measured by asking general questions about providing equal opportunity and treatment, respecting voting rights and religious practices, allowing free speech and valuing optimism and achievement. 
"I think that the belief that as flawed as our nation may be, we're the best approximation of that thing we're aspiring to. So I think we all share this desire that we're not going to give up on the Great Experiment," a 49-year-old woman, an independent voter from Maryland, told Siena, which provided demographic details of interviewees but not names. 
"I think we have really strong social infrastructure to participate from the local to the federal level, whether that's in our hometowns, serving on civic elected bodies, or committees, or task forces, or volunteer organizations, and then all the way up to the national and even international levels, to have our voices be heard," she continued. "When we have that 1,000-foot perspective, we know that we can be part of a change that makes humanity better." 
"Basically, we want the same thing," an 82-year-old Republican woman from Kansas said. "We want a decent job, a decent education for our kids, reasonable housing and opportunity to go as far as we possibly can on our own abilities." 
It’s true people can tend to respond in an "aspirational tone," Levy said, leaving a "gap between values and behavior." For example, 83% of those surveyed said we should look out for the well-being of others, but just 69% agreed with the idea that "no person is complete if they do not give of themselves in service to others." 
"One might argue that these values, whether we are talking about perceiving others as equal, being of service to others, saying that Americans should be self-reliant, endorsing free and varied speech, believing that no one is above the law, etc. mean different things to different people," Levy said. "However, we choose to highlight that beneath the current partisan divides, as real as they are, we find an underlying base of not just support for traditional American values, but more importantly, an assertion that those values guide us in our thoughts and actions on a daily basis." 
New immigrants and first-generation Americans said Americans don’t realize the flexibility and opportunities they have. 
"I’m a minority and I was a minority in another country, so there’s a big difference," said a 40-year-old male, an independent voter in California. "You all have opportunity to get somewhere here." 
"I came here as an immigrant and I am excited with my progress," said a 75-year-old woman and an independent voter in Georgia. "You can find your place in this society." 
<h2><a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398763" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398763">Story Widget Link</a></h2> 
Six questions in the poll provided the biggest differences of opinion and they come as no surprise: Abortion rights, assault weapons, voting rights, immigration, election integrity and "fake news."<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398764" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398764">Story Widget Link</a>
 
The largest gaps are immigration (63% favor a path to citizenship, 37% oppose) and an assault weapons ban (60% favor, 39% oppose). 
While those issues are familiar, perhaps more telling of the American divide is 31% of respondents believe Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite being refuted by dozens of legal jurisdictions and government agencies. Courts have rejected virtually all of Trump’s claims. 
Some poll respondents said such claims about the election are the single biggest cause of division among Americans. 
"The election has been over for six months now and he’s still lying about winning the election … that people still believe him and the big lie," a 49-year-old Democratic man from Texas said. "You’re going to hold on to something that’s not true, based on someone else’s lie, even though there is no proof." 
Using a cluster analysis of the six divisive issues, Siena said Americans fall into three distinct groups: 
<ul> 
 <li>35% are left of center, favoring voting rights, abortion, assault weapons ban, path to citizenship and legitimacy of the 2020 election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.</li> 
 <li>34% are right of center. They take the opposing view on every question except voting rights.</li> 
 <li>31% are centrists who generally lean more to the left than right. They also tend to vote at a lower rate (68%) than the left (83%) or right (84%).</li> 
</ul> 
The New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area is more liberal than the national average: 45% left of center, 35% centrists, 20% right.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398765" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398765">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Dig deeper and respondents say they are troubled by current trends. 
They say they see too many people — especially politicians — dividing into "teams" instead of cooperating. Or social media "ripping us apart." Some see a lack of understanding driven by hate speech and prejudice. 
While some described Americans as tolerant and good-hearted, others used words such as abrasive, selfish and cutthroat, that it’s all about "I’m going to get mine." 
"Antisemitism is on the increase. Anti-Asian. Anti-Black. Anti-white. It’s anti-, anti-, anti-," the Georgia woman said. 
"I actually don't really think there's one common thing or many common things that hold all Americans together anymore," a 40-year-old Democratic man from Illinois said. "But maybe there never was, but it just seems more prominent. I also have gotten older so maybe I'm more aware of those things." 
"There's no middle," the California man said. "It's basically if you believe in conservative ideas and if you're conservative and you believe some progressive ideas, your own party or your own people will bash you because you express those feelings. The same from the left side, if you express some conservative ideologies, you want to be in the middle, we bash you." 
"People were so polarized and now you politically can’t really speak what you believe without at least one person in the room deciding that they hate you," a 22-year-old woman from Colorado said.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398766" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398766">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Siena, in its analysis, said "race and racism" come up repeatedly as an issue dividing the nation. Some minorities said they feel "powerless." 
But one thing was clear: "More than any other divisive factor, politics and politicians were brought up by respondent after respondent." 
Politicians generally are seen as stoking divisions, more interested in "divide and conquer" than working together, respondents said. Some thought the fight against COVID-19 would force people to work together, but it hasn’t. 
"They are not doing work. Everything is about whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. They can't work together," a 76-year-old Democratic woman from Colorado said. "I feel like everybody else is still stuck in that Trump crap. … Even though people say they want jobs for the population, then that kind of thing doesn't happen." 
In contrast, a 55-year-old Delaware woman, an independent, said the four years Trump was in office improved the nation’s standing in the world: "I think the way Trump turned around and brought us back from how bad we were, ensuring we weren't going to take any mess, anything from anybody else and we stood up for ourselves and we took care of our own." 
The influence of social media exacerbates the problem, some said. 
"Social media, that’s so dangerous. That’s ripping us to shreds," said a 43-year-old Republican male from California.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398767" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398767">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Given the harsh assessments of current times, many told Siena the political climate will get worse before it gets better. Others said they were still hopeful. Because of the long march of progress over time. Or resiliency. Or the younger generations. 
"I am very hopeful because we have already survived so much," said a 75-year-old woman, an independent voter from California. "I think we have a resilience. I hope we have." 
"The younger generation. I think they are starting to be more acceptable to other people," said a 66-year-old man, a Democrat from California. 
"I think America is in good hands," said a 57-year-old man, a Republican from Texas. "The population will be more diverse, more ethnic minorities, it's going to be a minority majority country, but we're going to still have those shared values and shared things that make us Americans. We're just going to have more and different perspectives. And so diversity is not something to be feared, so I think the way of life is going to be even better than it is now." 
A 21-year-old Florida man, a Democrat, said he isn’t hopeful for the immediate future of the United States: "I guess introduction of Trump and his politics seems to be radicalizing more and more people. And in turn, that would radicalize people on the other side of the aisle in an attempt to move away from the right wing, even the GOP itself is somewhat splitting, and I think it's making it harder for America to work together." 
<h2><a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50398768" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50398768">Story Widget Link</a></h2> 
Siena said some suggestions for holding together the union include getting Congress to reassert its power as legislators and stop deferring to the president or, even, the courts. Others are to: strengthen voting laws, revamp money’s role in political campaigns, consider congressional term limits and institute national service initiatives. Also, reward political compromises where the parties work together. 
Siena said it could reenliven government, strengthen national unity and enact the values the study shows Americans share. 
"Even though we share values, it’s like a language. If you don’t use it, you lose it," said Gibson, the former congressman. "If we don’t use these values, it’s going to fall out of use."<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50397666" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50397666">Story Widget Link</a>

usPOLL211024

Poll: Americans share values, but are deeply divided on key issues

Poll: Americans share values, but are deeply divided on key issues

Long Island residents react to the extensive national survey conducted by Siena College which asked 6,000 Americans for their thoughts about what unites us and what divides us. Newsday's Steve Langford reports.


Americans say they share values, but deep divisions persist

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Jean-Paul Salamanca

Nearly 200 people marched in downtown Riverhead on Saturday calling for Congress to pass meaningful immigration reforms for thousands of immigrants on Long Island and millions more nationwide who entered the country without legal permission. 
With signs reading slogans like "No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here" and "Essential, not deportable," a diverse crowd comprised of Hispanic, white and African-American marchers, along with State Assemb. Fred Thiele Jr. (I-Sag Harbor), stood along the Peconic riverfront during the East End March and Rally for a Pathway to Citizenship. Some shared stories of their personal hardships while waiting to become U.S. citizens, as marchers called on Democrats on Capitol Hill to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living here without legal permission. 
Jade Stoute, 22, of Coram, emigrated from Trinidad more than 20 years ago with her mother and is a recipient of DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers protection from deportation for children whose parents brought them to the United States. 
Stoute told Newsday her road to becoming a U.S. citizen "was not easy," having lost her job working security for Southampton Town earlier this year due to her DACA status renewal being delayed. Stoute received her green card in May through the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status program. 
"I’m glad I got my green card, but I know there’s so many people who have shared their stories about them not knowing whether everything is going to stop," Stoute said. "So I really hope a pathway towards citizenship works out, and I think it will, because if we continue doing this, I don’t think that they can just ignore it." 
Jhonatan Zelaya, 26, of Coram, is the son of El Salvadoran immigrants and is also a DACA recipient, having enrolled in the program in 2012 before he got married in 2017 and received his green card at a later date. Zelaya told Newsday he went through a lot of uncertainty in the years before receiving his green card because of fear of what would happen if or when his DACA status would expire. 
"There’s a lot of uncertainty. People feel like they don’t matter, like they’re less. I felt like less, like I didn’t matter, like I was worth less than somebody who was born here, which isn’t true," Zelaya said. 
Several advocates who spoke from groups such as the New York Immigration Coalition, the North Fork Spanish Apostolate in Riverhead and OLA of Eastern Long Island, which advocates for Latino immigrants, called on U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to deliver on a pathway to citizenship, noting he had promised such change when Democrats won the House and Senate in the last election. 
Angelo Roefaro, a representative from Schumer’s office issued a statement on the rally on Saturday. 
"Senate Democrats are not giving up the fight," Roefaro said. "They still have a menu of options, are working with the advocacy community, and will continue fighting to get immigration reform done." 
For Zelaya, he wants lawmakers on Capitol Hill to act soon. 
"I feel like it comes down to priority. And if they don’t pass it, then it’s not a priority to them," Zelaya said. "And then that’s where we as a community have to start looking at other ways and other resources to vote people in that are actually going to do what they said they’re going to do."

Long Island

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Marchers in Riverhead: Immigrants 'essential, not deportable'

Marchers: Immigrants 'essential, not deportable'

A couple hundred people marched in Riverhead on Saturday, to rally in support for immigration reform. Steve Langford reports.


Rally in Riverhead to support immigration reform

Immigration advocacy groups are holding a march and rally on Saturday in downtown Riverhead to urge Washington to pass legislation allowing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living and working locally and nationwide. 
Organizers behind the "Pathway to Citizenship March and Rally" said they will push for Congress to enact immigration reform immediately by keeping provisions in the pending budget reconciliation bill that provide a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers, essential workers and DACA and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients. 
Sandra Dunn, associate director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, told Newsday that during the COVID-19 pandemic many immigrants on the East End and nationwide have worked in essential industries yet have no legal protection. 
"It’s high time that the federal government does what it is supposed to do on this," Dunn said, citing New York Immigration Coalition statistics that 50,000 to 80,000 Long Islanders would be eligible for a pathway to citizenship. 
Immigration advocates are worried about the prospects of including immigration reforms in the pending U.S. Senate budget bill. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said last month that a plan issued by Democrats to allow roughly 8 million immigrants nationwide to apply for permanent legal status cannot be included in the budget reconciliation process. 
Sister Margaret Smyth of the North Fork Spanish Apostolate said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had promised that immigration reforms would be a part of the agenda in Washington. 
"I meet people who have TPS for 15 years and they don’t know if it’s going to be renewed," Smyth said. "In the meantime, they’re paying taxes, they’re contributing to the country, they’re working very hard and being integrated to our society, their children are going to school and they still don’t know where they stand in the country." 
Noemi Sánchez, Long Island associate coordinator for the Rural and Migrant Ministry, which has offices in Riverhead, said many immigrants who are without documentation have been working and paying taxes for years, and they want a chance to become permanent citizens. 
"We know that without immigrants, this country is not the same," Sánchez said. "So we’re starting locally. That way, the state can hear not what we want on this issue, but what we need. Sometimes, that’s what’s needed to make change in this country." 
Saturday’s rally starts at noon at the North Fork Spanish Apostolate at St. Johns Place and will head toward the Peconic Riverfront Park. 
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the time of the rally, which begins at noon.

Suffolk

TORALLY211015

Riverhead rally planned to push Washington to prioritize path to citizenship

John Asbury

Immigration advocates are posting billboards around Long Island to put pressure on congressional leaders and advocate to create a path to citizenship for immigrant workers. 
The signage, which read, "Immigrant essential workers take care of us. Now let’s take care of them. Citizenship Now!" were erected by the organization Make the Road New York, urging Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other congressional Democrats to include a path to citizenship and green cards in the budget reconciliation bill being debated by Congress. 
The signs are posted in each of Long Island’s four congressional districts in Westbury, Brentwood, Central Islip, Glen Cove, Port Washington, Franklin Square, Carle Place, Manhasset, and North Valley Stream. 
"Enough is enough. We’re tired of false promises and we want to make sure we have immigration relief in our communities," lead organizer Eilana Fernandez said. 
Organizers unveiled a poster Thursday at a bus stop in front of the Brentwood Post Office where they called on local officials to give immigration status to essential workers. 
The group is asking Schumer to add immigration policy to the Senate’s budget reconciliation package, which includes President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion measure to boost safety net, health and environmental programs. 
Last month the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian recommended the infrastructure spending bill should not include an immigration component because it did not follow Senate rules. 
Protesters have camped outside Schumer’s Brooklyn home and urged him to defy the parliamentarian to include immigration plans in the bills. 
Senate Democrats have said they are still pursuing options to find a path for legal status for immigrant workers. 
Angelo Roefaro, a spokesman for Schumer, said Thursday evening: "Immigration is a top priority for Senate Democrats in the budget reconciliation process, and we are working with the advocacy community to finalize our next steps. We will fight until we get immigration reform done." 
Demonstrators read a letter from Daniela Garcia, a 19-year-old Suffolk County Community College student who said she has been stymied by immigration delays after President Donald Trump halted the DACA pathway to citizenship. 
She said she was born in Mexico and came to the United States with her parents when she was 2. She applied to DACA when she was 15, but before her application could be processed it was derailed when the Trump administration moved to rescind the program. 
"The federal government ripped away the chance for me to have a sense of safety in the only place I have ever called home," Garcia said. "I live with a stress inducing uncertainty because of my undocumented status. I have been denied countless school and employment opportunities because of my status, even though I meet every single other requirement … I live in a constant fear that one day, that my family will be ripped apart." 
The posters feature Garcia and German Huaranga, a Suffolk County construction worker who came to Long Island from Peru 20 years ago to raise his family. He said his business and other immigrants were hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. 
"To me, having a pathway to citizenship would allow me to live freely without the fear of being separated from my family and it would give me the opportunity to continue to help raise my grandchildren and watch them grow," he said.

LIBILLBOARD211008

Billboards urge creation of path to citizenship for immigrant workers

Billboards urge creation of path to citizenship

LIBILLBOARD211008_photos

<h2>Traffic safety requires the ‘3 E’s’ </h2> 
Several traffic safety advocates stated that the need to reduce motor vehicle speed lies in improved engineering and driver education ["Suffolk led NY in 2020 roadway fatalities," News, Sept. 27]. But the more inclusive "three E’s" approach is what’s required: education, engineering and enforcement. 
Educating the public with cliches such as "leave extra early for appointments" may generally appeal to our better angels, as would engineering measures such as adding rumble strips to slow traffic. Short of restricting when and where Long Islanders can drive, controlling "road anarchy" (drinking and driving, texting while driving, changing lanes without signaling, reckless speeding, etc.) will always require the visual presence of law enforcement. 
The use of proactive enforcement appears to have declined in recent years. As an example, when was the last time motorcycled police were present on our roadways other than for ceremonial events? 
With the increasing prevalence of micromobility vehicles such as e-bikes and scooters, the need for a motorcycled police presence only intensifies. 
Traffic education and engineering can only go so far to make our roads safer, but if drivers forget that their right to operate a motor vehicle is a privilege and not an automatic entitlement, the third pillar, enforcement, will need to make a strong comeback — if we ever want to see an end to the daily headlines of Long Island roadway fatalities. 
— Lowell F. Wolf, Farmingdale 
The writer is program director for the New York Coalition for Transportation Safety. 
  
We have all seen this type of driver. The one that weaves in and out of lanes driving like they have zero regard for anyone’s safety. Driving on Long Island has made me feel like I am risking my life every time I get behind the wheel. Pick-up trucks are driven like sports cars, and drivers use the right lane to pass. Aggressive driving has made traveling by car unsafe. 
How many more people have to die before the police and state and local governments admit that the current state of driving dangerously has become an epidemic. 
Speed cameras that would catch and ticket drivers with points should be introduced on parkways until drivers start obeying speed limits, which would create safer driving. 
More traffic stops by police need to happen, and ticketing data should be made public. 
Troopers camping on the roadside in plain sight only temporarily deters dangerous driving. Enough is enough! 
— Carmine Ricciardi, West Babylon 
Reader letters struck a chord with me ["Fed up with LI’s reckless, bad drivers," Aug. 1]. I have been disgusted and fed up with drivers on Long Island for some time now. 
I live in Suffolk County, and it is the worst! Besides speeding and reckless driving, the amount of drunk or impaired driving is incredible. More incredible is the mere slap on the wrist and visit to court. That’s nonsense. 
People are dying from drunken driving, and we don’t jail most of these drivers? Where are the politicians when we need them? It’s disgraceful. 
I live near Mooney Pond Road, where there is a nearby school. The speeding cars on this road are unbelievable. A police officer could give out 30 tickets an hour if they wanted to. When is someone going to do something about all this? 
— Grace Califano, Coram 
<h2>Congress must fund, repair immigration </h2> 
I agree with the editorial "Desperation over immigration" [Sept. 26] that "Coming here legally must be made easier. Coming here illegally must be made fruitless." The problem is that Congress has failed to implement prior acts and neglected funding for border security and immigration reform. 
Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 focused on amnesty and enforcement to prevent future illegal entry and prohibited hiring and harboring of  undocumented immigrants. Few resources were allocated, and poor funding tied the hands of enforcement officials. 
Ten years later, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, boosting enforcement, but poor funding hindered the actual enforcement of the laws. 
It’s time to implement real solutions with adequate funding, and not superficial acts to satisfy political agendas. 
Immigration became a federal responsibility in 1876. Handling border security, immigration enforcement and amnesty as three separate issues will permit a more focused approach to arrive at the proper solutions for each, without detracting from each and stalling progress. Congress must act and fund the solutions to provide legal, humane immigration and protect the border. 
— James T. Rooney, Centerport

OPLTR211001

Traffic safety requires the 'three E's,' repair immigration

LICRASH210331_photos

The photos and images from Del Rio, Texas, over the last few weeks where thousands of Haitian migrants fled across the border were nauseating - but the steady stream of excuses that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security turned out to be worse. Facing national outrage, the Border Patrol union argued that technically the horseback-riding agents weren't using "whips," they were using their "reins," and that they weren't hitting the migrants, they were trying to keep them safe from the horses. Meanwhile, as DHS and the Biden administration scrambled to explain how unprepared they were for this most recent surge and to diffuse the potent images that seemed to have come from the darkest Trumpian nightmares of the new president's voters. 
The scenes crystallized a larger, more fundamental problem: The Border Patrol and its parent agency Customs and Border Protection represent the worst impulses and excesses of the post-9/11 era. The Border Patrol, as currently constituted, is the wrong blunt instrument for the challenge of the southern border. The agency imagines itself, still, as the counterterrorism force it newly advertised itself to be after 9/11; it outlines its mission, first and foremost, as "keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. while facilitating lawful international travel and trade." But for the last decade, its heavily armed and kitted-out agents have primarily faced a much different challenge that it's proven itself repeatedly poorly equipped to handle - and not just poorly equipped to handle, but culturally uninterested in tackling. 
We've spent much of this September already reckoning with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but arguably few of our domestic mistakes have had more lasting damage and more unintended negative consequences to our country than our decision to reframe how we approach immigration - to view it, first and foremost, as a security threat. With hindsight, it's clear why: All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers traveled to the United States on normal visas; amid the panic of the immediate response to the attack, we realized how understaffed the Border Patrol was and how broken, overworked and poorly led the Immigration and Naturalization Service had long been. Amid all the reforms and bureaucratic recriminations after 9/11, INS was the sole government entity targeted with the "death penalty," completely disbanded, broken apart and moved to another department. The Bush administration didn't even tell its commissioner ahead of time. 
But the cure - to surge new agents and officers of the new CBP, itself part of the newly formed DHS - turned out to be arguably worse than the disease. The Border Patrol and CBP suffered bureaucratically from all the worst instincts of the Global War on Terror; they recruited based on that image that the Border Patrol would be an elite counterterrorism force - America's watchers on the wall - and wasted millions (and probably altogether billions) on high-tech, fresh-from-the-battlefield toys like drones. The biggest problem came in hiring: The Bush administration cut corners and surged agents into the field, lowered already low recruiting standards and deployed newly trained agents before it had completed background checks. It rebuilt the agency around a macho, in-your-face culture that enabled racism, sexual assault and dehumanized the very people showing up on America's border and asking for help. 
That took an agency founded a century ago to enforce explicitly racist policies, an agency whose nativist and white supremacist roots trace back to its earliest operations against Mexican farmworkers and Asian immigrants, and managed to make it even more racist. In a Border Patrol of around 20,000 total agents, some 9,500 people, many current and former agents, joined a secret, racist Facebook group where they could trade insults, and sexist and racist memes about immigrants and even members of Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Agents even have an infamous nickname for migrants: "Tonks," supposedly after the sound that a migrant's head makes when hit by an agent's heavy flashlight. Tonk. 
Due to sharp bureaucratic elbows, CBP wasn't allowed to have "investigative" authority, only "enforcement" authority, meaning that it couldn't police its own ranks with internal affairs investigators, and the corners cut on hiring and training enabled a tsunami of misconduct, crime and corruption. 
The result was predictable and horrifying: Border Patrol agents allegedly kidnapped and raped migrants, trafficked drugs and humans, sexually abused children and engaged in domestic abuse. One agent is even accused of being a serial killer. (Another agent's drug smuggling operation with the Gulf Cartel was uncovered after one of his smuggling colleagues was decapitated by the cartel.) On duty, its agents reportedly killed with impunity and relied on aggressive use-of-force and pursuit policies far at odds with modern law enforcement. An agent who was indicted on a charge of using his patrol truck to run down and hit a Guatemalan migrant - and then allegedly lied about the incident - repeatedly used racial slurs in text messages and referred in one to migrants as "disgusting," "subhuman" and "unworthy of being kindling for a fire." 
The wrong people hired for the wrong reasons combined to create what for nearly 15 years now has been the most corrupt federal law enforcement agency in the nation - even though, in what might pass as good news, the arrests of its personnel have slowed from the nearly decade-long pace where a CBP officer or Border Patrol agent was arrested almost every single day for corruption or misconduct. 
Today, in many ways, the Border Patrol seems even more lawless than ever: The agents' union saw its political power swell during the Trump years and its leaders become Fox News regulars, and it felt emboldened and unleashed to mistreat and abuse migrants all-but systemically. All of that grew worse amid Donald Trump's ongoing mismanagement of DHS, which so broke the department and abused the normal functioning of government that for much of his administration's final year, DHS couldn't even convince a federal judge that someone was legally in charge of the nation's third-largest Cabinet department. 
The migrant surges across the southern borders have gone through multiple phases and chapters - there was the "unaccompanied children" crisis of the Obama administration, the "migrant caravans" of the Trump years, now the Haitian crisis for Biden. But they all share the same fundamentals: Largely peaceful and desperate refugees, driven by violence or economic instability to our borders, seeking to avail themselves of a legal international right to asylum. Yes, there are surely some criminals hidden among the crowds, but these are not populations running across the border en masse today. 
Five years ago, during the height of the crisis of unaccompanied children and as the Republican Party convened to nominate Trump for president, I spent a night driving the border in the Rio Grande Valley with the man President Biden appointed this August to head the Border Patrol. Back then, Raul Ortiz was the deputy head patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector, the center of the migrant surge. As dusk fell, he drove me around the levees and fields that marked the U.S. side of the Mexican border. 
In about a half-hour, we found 37 migrants. It was all as routine as a parking ticket; the four groups we found - mostly that night from El Salvador, part of the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America that has driven much of the U.S. migration in recent years - all happily sought out our Border Patrol truck, eager to turn themselves in and seek asylum. They didn't need to be met with armed agents; they would have happily surrendered to me, in khakis and a button-down shirt, holding a notebook and pen. 
The moment has stuck with me in all the years since, as we've weathered one "border crisis" after another - including the heated episodes of the Trump administration's inhumane child-separation policy - because it's clear that the Border Patrol is simply the wrong tool. 
We've made the same mistake on the border that we made in the War on Terror abroad: Just as the U.S. military was a poor match and a blunt instrument when precision was called for - young lieutenants and captains in MRAPs outmatched for the delicate and generation-long project of nation building and encouraging the growth of civil society - armed law enforcement personnel, trained to confront drug cartels, are spending day in and day out on what has been primarily a humanitarian mission for the last decade. 
The images of the horse-mounted frontier-style Border Patrol cowboys facing down arriving Haitian migrants crystallized the problem. This isn't what those agents signed up for - and they shouldn't be doing it. And they're clearly not happy; CBP remains at the bottom of government-wide morale and satisfaction surveys. The agency's "mission match" between employees and skills ranks 399 out of 411 components in the entire federal government, according to the most recent "Best Places to Work" survey by the Partnership for Public Service. 
The country is a decade overdue building the capacity to respond adequately and competently to border crises - crisis that will only get worse as the effects of climate change upend economies, destroy livelihoods and literally flood the world's poorest countries. 
Now three administrations have failed to build what we actually need along the border: A well-skilled and robustly staffed agency that can step in to take over the routine processing of asylum-seeking migrants and refugees, one that approaches them not as a security threat but as the international legal responsibility that it actually is - and an agency that views those at the border as suffering humans, not "illegal aliens." 
Right now, this role is split between three agencies across two different Cabinet departments, all woefully understaffed and under-resourced: CBP intercepts and detains incoming asylum seekers, who then are handed off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for detention and removal or to the Department of Health and Human Services's Office of Refugee Resettlement. Each agency is critically poor at its role - bureaucratic weaknesses and cultural faults that harm people, traumatize families, prolong misery and, ultimately, fail U.S. taxpayers and the migrants they're working with alike. 
A new front-line border refugee and migrant agency, staffed by people trained in trauma care, social services and medical needs, would allow the Border Patrol to focus on what its agents want to do: Catch smugglers. There are real threats at our southern and northern borders, and none of them are Haitians seeking asylum. There's no need for CBP to deploy hundreds of armed agents and sworn officers to do what is effectively thousands of interviews and tons of paperwork processing. 
We are nearly a decade overdue to redeploy our law enforcement resources on doing actual law enforcement - trying to catch the people who don't want to get found by the Border Patrol. Dividing our official response between what the Border Patrol calls "give-ups" - those who turn themselves in willingly and are coming for what agents see as humanitarian reasons - and "runaways" - the criminals, smugglers or border-crossers with more nefarious intent - would help make the situation much more manageable and humane. Because by now, the Border Patrol has proven that it's the wrong organization to ask to do the whole job. 
Garrett M. Graff is the author of several books, including "The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI" as well as, most recently, "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11."

WEBOP1210930

The Border Patrol is the wrong solution for the problems at the border

USBORDER210815

On Labor Day, 7.5 million Americans lost their federal unemployment benefits, and another 3 million unemployed lost the $300 bonus that had been in place since March. That’s a lot of people with no immediate way to support themselves and their families, and it got me to wondering: What would Franklin Roosevelt — who put America to work during the Great Depression — make of the way Washington has responded to this economic crisis? 
I began thinking about FDR last month, when my wife, Laurel, and I visited Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and Eleanor spent many summers and where, at age 39, Franklin fell ill and lost use of his legs. I had recently finished reading an excellent history of the Works Progress Administration, "American-Made," by Nick Taylor. And a trip to Campobello offered the chance to see the home that Roosevelt visited in June 1933, just days after the close of the Hundred Days that "start[ed] the wheels of the New Deal," as he said that summer. 
To get there, we drove our motorhome across the FDR Bridge that connects Campobello to America’s easternmost town, Lubec, Maine. The border had recently re-opened, and there was no line at the customs check. 
"Have you been busy?" I asked the Canadian border agent. 
"Busy turning people away," he replied. 
In addition to proof of vaccination and a negative COVID test within 72 hours, Canada requires visitors to enter their information into an app. The agent told us most Americans lacked some of the necessary documentation, and Laurel sensed he was surprised that travelers in a Winnebago with New York license plates had all of theirs. 
Just a few miles past the checkpoint is the old Roosevelt home, now part of a 2,800-acre international park jointly operated by the U.S. and Canada. At the visitor center, the receptionist told us that the afternoon tour of the grounds had been canceled because of a heat warning. It was 77 degrees. Oh, Canada. 
The Roosevelt Cottage, as it’s called — it has three floors and 18 bedrooms — was open. Its large front porch facing west across Friar’s Bay offers spectacular views of the sun setting on America. Inside, a guide informed us that Eleanor’s decorating style — which might charitably be called motley — reflected her view that since there are all different kinds of people, the décor should be equally varied. The furnishings included an oil painting of a Confederate battleship that FDR hung in the White House, an inadvertent but inescapable reminder of the accommodation on Jim Crow that marred the New Deal — and, in Roosevelt’s defense, made it possible. 
The New Deal’s attack on the Great Depression had four main components: temporary direct relief for the impoverished, in the form of cash grants administered by the states; a stronger social safety net, through new programs such as Social Security; an expanded regulatory state, with new policies and agencies aimed at stabilizing and strengthening the economy; and — most important of all, according to FDR — jobs for the legions of unemployed. As he said in his inaugural address: "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work." 
Just four weeks after that speech, Congress adopted FDR’s plan for a program to employ unmarried men aged 18 to 25 to live in camps while working to plant trees, build reservoirs, strengthen flood-control systems, stop soil erosion and improve campgrounds. They were paid $30 a month but received only $5; the rest was sent home to their families. When 3,000 veterans of World War I showed up at the White House demanding early payment of a bonus due to them in 1945, Roosevelt turned them down — but offered them jobs in this new Civilian Conservation Corps. Some 2,600 accepted. 
By August 1933, 300,000 young men and veterans were working for the CCC. By winter, more than 4 million more were repairing streets, building dams and constructing schools, playgrounds, pools, post offices and other public facilities. New Deal programs would also employ teachers to conduct literacy and vocational classes for the unemployed, artists to paint murals, actors to stage plays, writers to document the nation’s culture and folklore, and musicians to write songs. Woody Guthrie wrote "Grand Coulee Dam" while on the federal payroll to promote it: 
"Uncle Sam took up the challenge in the year ’33 / For the farmer and the factory and all of you and me." 
Since even before President Joe Biden took office, Democrats have been likening him to FDR: a president with a chance to use an economic crisis to redefine the limits of government and transform the country. Nine months into his presidency, that’s still a popular line of thinking on the left, even though Biden’s most significant domestic policy accomplishments concern only the first of the New Deal’s four parts: direct relief, in the form of the additional unemployment benefits that began under President Donald Trump, a second stimulus check to most Americans, a 30% increase in average monthly food stamp payments, and a temporary expanded tax credit for families with children. 
The Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill (which probably will be scaled back, given internal party opposition) and a variety of White House initiatives take aim at two of the other New Deal components: strengthening the social safety net and expanding government’s role in the economy. The spending bill includes funding for child care, pre-K, family leave, health care, affordable housing, long-term care for seniors and people with disabilities, and a host of other things, including clean energy and climate change. 
These are worthy initiatives in the spirit of the New Deal. But what about FDR’s top priority, jobs for the unemployed? 
The $550 billion in new infrastructure funding passed by the Senate will create construction jobs, provided it clears the House. But these jobs will largely be for career professionals (and union members), not the general population of unemployed Americans. And for the most part, the jobs will not materialize until 2024 and 2025. Over those two years, the bill is expected to create about 2.5 million jobs, a far cry from New Deal numbers, when the country’s population was two-thirds smaller. 
Today, about 8 million people are out of work, and millions more are working only part-time. Unemployment has fallen from last year’s highs, but the nation’s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, both have rates above 10%. Chicago and Philadelphia are at or higher than 8%. The unemployment rate for Black Americans is 8.8%, well above the pre-pandemic low of 5.2%. 
Since the start of the pandemic, Congress has authorized more than $5 trillion in emergency spending, much of it on relief. Some of this went toward keeping existing workers employed in small businesses and state and local governments. But not a nickel went to hiring the unemployed into temporary job programs created to help the nation tackle pressing challenges. 
It’s true that Biden’s proposal for Civilian Climate Corps — an echo of Roosevelt’s CCC — is included in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending plan, and it may yet pass. Even so, it would create only about 10,000 jobs, a tiny fraction of the army Roosevelt put to work. 
The fact is, though we don’t often think of it this way, Democrats and Republicans have come to share a core economic conviction: In a crisis, government’s role in addressing unemployment is to offer relief, not work. 
This reflects a general left-right consensus among the nation’s leading economists on how government should respond to market downturns. Maximizing the speed of the recovery, they argue, calls for cash payments and tax cuts. Makeshift jobs may only slow the pace of private investment and hiring. Had today’s bipartisan adherence to macroeconomic efficiency carried the day in the 1930s, FDR might have scrapped public employment in favor of broader and more generous direct relief — and the country would be poorer for it. 
This common economic denominator is noteworthy, because for all the talk on the right about the Democratic Party’s radicalism, it remains far more conservative on economic policy than it was in FDR’s day. The Democratic Leadership Council that helped elevate Bill Clinton’s brand of centrism may be defunct, but its faith in the private sector to create jobs during a period of high unemployment still holds more sway over the party than Roosevelt’s belief in the need for direct temporary employment measures. 
Yet today’s progressives stand to the left of Roosevelt in a crucial way: their willingness to provide cash relief without expecting — or empowering — anyone to work. 
In his first month in office, FDR made plain his preference — and the public’s preference — for work over relief: 
The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans, who are now walking the streets and receiving private or public relief, would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings. We can eliminate to some extent at least the threat that enforced idleness brings to spiritual and moral stability. 
He returned to this theme in his annual address to Congress in 1935: 
" … continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers. The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief." 
Today we do not hear Democratic Party leaders speaking of idleness posing a threat to society, or the power of relief to destroy the human spirit, or "the joy and moral stimulation of work," as Roosevelt put it in his first inaugural address — even though labor market participation rates have steadily declined over the past 20 years, and are now at levels last seen in the 1970s, when many women remained out of the workforce. 
I suspect FDR would be surprised to learn that we have forgotten something he viewed as fundamental to the New Deal, as it is with any deal: an understanding that each side had obligations to uphold. Government had an obligation to provide relief, and able-bodied citizens had an obligation to labor for their checks. 
During the pandemic, the compact between citizen and government has been mostly one-sided: Government provides. The $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan that Congress passed in March gave $611 billion in direct financial relief to Americans, in the form of $1,400 checks and $300 unemployment bonuses. The title of the bill — a "rescue plan" — reflects the Democratic Party’s heroic mindset: Save the helpless. But the voters Democrats are trying to pry from the Republican Party don’t want Washington to ride to their rescue. They want to be able to save themselves and their families through the work of their own hands — just as those who took New Deal jobs did. 
The difference between a deal and a rescue is worth contemplating, given its broader political ramifications. Democratic leaders and activists are continually frustrated that so many working people vote Republican, and they usually lay the blame on cultural flashpoints, from abortion to immigration. Those certainly play a large role. But as I heard while traveling across the country over the past year, many people are concerned about what they perceive as the country’s declining work ethic, and they often lay the blame for that on a Democratic Party that they view as more concerned with providing benefits than promoting work. 
This is not a new problem for the party. FDR battled Republicans who attacked the New Deal as nothing but "shovel-leaning" jobs that fostered dependence on government. But FDR countered their attack with results: The American people could see the fruits of the New Deal labor in their own communities, and workers took pride in knowing they had earned their paychecks. Both of these outcomes helped Democrats keep the White House for 35 years, interrupted only by the centrist war hero Democrats had hoped would run under their own banner, Dwight Eisenhower. 
Today, Democrats employ neither FDR’s rhetoric around work nor his interventionist strategies. But had Biden and congressional leaders opted to offer Americans a deal rather than a rescue, they could have directed much or all of the $611 billion in stimulus checks and unemployment bonuses to creating temporary jobs benefiting the nation in a variety of ways: fighting wildfires in the West; helping communities recover from Hurricane Ida; running summer school sessions for the millions of students most harmed by remote learning; paying artists to enrich communities with public art; and tackling the $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects in our national parks, which have seen record attendance this year. Spending the money on jobs rather than relief also would have helped private employers fill positions, as more workers returned to the labor market. 
It’s now common to think that a second New Deal is unrealistic because unemployed Americans are too out of shape or unskilled to do manual labor, a notion that is self-defeating. An American president could, as FDR did, use mass media to inspire participation in jobs programs. 
What holds the U.S. back from adopting a large, temporary public employment program has less to do with the skills and fitness of Americans than with changed attitudes — as well as with the red tape that now routinely delays projects by months and years. The expansion of the regulatory state that accelerated under the New Deal has never stopped, and it has helped undermine any serious reconsideration of the New Deal’s focus on temporary work. 
That strikes me as an opportunity for Democrats, since it’s at least conceivable that some Republicans might support a temporary jobs program that also streamlined federal regulations, especially if legislators were given input into the kinds of jobs that would be funded. 
We can only guess what FDR might have thought of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But from the Roosevelt Cottage on Campobello Island, Laurel and I could see Eastport, Maine, where there is a model of the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, an idea hatched in the 1920s to generate hydroelectric power from the region’s powerful tides. As a neighbor, Roosevelt eagerly threw his support behind it, and as president, he directed $7 million to it. Thousands of workers arrived to begin constructing it, only to have Southern opposition defeat it before completion. 
The project was ahead of its time, three generations before clean energy would become a national priority. Yet the historical model stands as a reminder of all the new needs facing the country, and the power that can be generated in a crisis by putting people to work. 
Frank Barry is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. This column is part of a series, "Looking for Lincoln: A Portrait of America at a Crossroads."

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What FDR got right and Biden got wrong about relief

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ALBANY — The story of 9/11 is not complete without a telling of the battle for essential health care and compensation for the first responders who spent days and nights digging for survivors at Ground Zero. 
It was a long slog to establish the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, initially approved by Congress in 2010 and reauthorized for good in 2015, as well as the related, but separate 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, enshrined into law in 2019. 
Eighteen years of lobbying and heartbreak, and in the end not elation at success, but what those involved in the fight called subdued satisfaction. 
"There’s no celebration, ever. It doesn’t bring joy, it just brings justice," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said. "It’s like a righteous fight. … It’s not easy, it’s sad. It takes a toll because there is so much loss associated with this issue. You feel relief, I guess. You say, ‘Ah, at least we have the health care covered. At least we have the compensation needed.’ " 
It’s the story of legislation bogged down by Washington politics, filibusters and attempts to tack on unrelated issues, such as tax cuts and immigration curbs, onto a 9/11 vote. Skepticism about the need — as if it was just another fight for highway funds, a former congressman said — doomed early attempts to get something passed. 
But it also included powerful moments of first responders, aided by walking canes, wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, lobbying in Washington hallways, and a television star shaming officials at hearings. 
And it included crucial, unseen moments: 
Backroom coaching for a freshly minted senator. A one-on-one meeting of two Senate giants. A surprising act of bipartisanship. A frantic flurry of phone calls to keep lawmakers from leaving Washington one December, in what one called a "Christmas miracle." 
All told, it amounted to three major pieces of legislation, committing at least $20 billion in aid. 
"If I had a dollar for every time someone told me this wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t be on the phone with you now. I’d own a sports franchise," said John Feal, a Ground Zero worker from Nesconset who made the Zadroga Act his cause. 
"We didn’t invent lobbying. We just made it our own," Feal said. "We’re proof that something can be done." 
The health of Ground Zero workers wasn’t the foremost concern among lawmakers in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. That came a few years later. 
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) in 2005 proposed a "Remember 9/11 Health Act," which never made it to the floor of the House for a vote. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed a different health bill in 2006, which didn’t really advance. 
"For the first five years, it wasn’t a big deal because we didn’t understand it," said former Republican Rep. Peter King of Seaford. The focus was on victims’ compensation, terrorism and homeland security. 
"It was after that, 2006, 2007, 2008, that we really got into looking at health care," he said. 
In 2009, Maloney, who wasn’t available to comment for this story, took another shot with a new bill, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. It was named for an NYPD officer whose death was linked to exposure to chemicals in the Ground Zero aftermath. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), with Maloney, led the push on the Democratic side. 
King, who led the effort to secure Republican support in the House, believed they’d gotten enough votes to make it a go in 2010. But then Republicans attached an illegal-immigration amendment to the bill. That gummed up the bill and Democrats didn’t want to vote on it in an election year. 
A parliamentary move by the GOP put it on a legislative calendar without the amendment, but it required a two-thirds majority to pass. 
"So it went down," King recalled, falling 21 votes short. "I was furious with that. I was furious with the Democrats, but I was already mad enough with Republicans." 
His fellow Republicans believed the cost would be too high or saw it as a boon to trial lawyers and unions, King said. 
"I hated it being treated as just a New York issue, like we were fighting for our share of highway funds," he said. 
Gillibrand then got involved. 
She had been a House member but was appointed to fill Clinton’s seat when the latter became secretary of state. 
"When I was first appointed, the first issue that Senator Schumer asked me to try to lead was the 9/11 health bill," said Gillibrand, in an interview with Newsday, referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "It seemed like a really daunting task because there had been no movement in the Senate up until that time. It had never had a hearing. It had no bipartisan support." 
She met with Mary Landrieu, then a Louisiana senator, to ask how she built support for a Hurricane Katrina aid bill. Landrieu advised her to "explain why you care." Gillibrand worked with Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine to build Republican support. She teamed with Feal and his army of activists. 
The legislation seemed to have sufficient support, but on Dec. 9, 2010, it was voted down. Republicans had been refusing to pass Democratic legislation unless the Bush-era tax cuts were renewed. 
"It was the worst day of my career ever. The worst gut punch you could ever imagine," Gillibrand recalled. 
Time was running short. This was a lame-duck congressional session and, come January, the GOP would take over the House after its "Tea Party"-inspired wins in November. The new House wouldn’t support Zadroga, many figured. 
So the New York delegation rallied to try for another vote. 
The same week, television star Jon Stewart devoted an episode of his "The Daily Show" to the issue, featuring first responders and building public pressure on the issue. 
Meanwhile, Gillibrand and Schumer met with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), the lead Republican negotiators. 
"I remember sitting in a meeting with Senator Coburn and literally bursting into tears," Gillibrand said, "and saying, ‘I don’t know how to do my job if you won’t help us do this bill.’ " 
"Coburn had the ability to block it and get the Republicans to block it," Schumer recalled in an interview with Newsday. "I had four meetings with him, just me-him, one-on-one. First, telling him all the stories. 
"Then, at the end of the day, he said, ‘Look, I will not make it permanent,' Schumer said. "I said, ‘How can you turn your back on these people?’ He said, ‘I’ll give you five years.’ " 
Schumer said he spoke to activists and colleagues, telling them, "We’re taking it. And that’s how it got done." 
Gillibrand said: "The deal would not have happened without Senator Schumer" to close it. 
But fast action still was needed because the Christmas recess was about to hit. The Senate quickly approved the bill and it was rushed to the House, lawmakers said. 
"People were getting on planes to go home," King said. "The entire New York delegation was on the phone asking people to stay." 
"I remember being on the phone with Pete King, asking, ‘Who do we need to call?’ " Gillibrand said. 
King said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a commitment earlier in the year to get the bill done. After the Democrats lost the majority in the elections, that promise could have evaporated. 
"But she kept her word. I give her credit like that," King said. "Lots of people wouldn’t have after losing the speakership." 
In the end, it was approved 206-60. Some 169 House members weren’t on hand to vote. 
It was the very last bill approved in 2010. In early January, President Barack Obama signed it into law. 
"In a sense, it was a Christmas miracle because everything had to fall into place," Gillibrand said. "Ten different things could have gone wrong. … And it took a full decade to do what we wanted to do on the first day but couldn’t." 
It had to be renewed, though, in 2015. 
There were testing moments, but nothing quite like before. Plus, Stewart helped even more, going to Congress with first responders and lobbying. 
"I went to every office and told every member of Congress or their staff, ‘If you’re not going to help, I’m going to make your life miserable,’ " Feal said. 
 "You know, once it was passed, it was hard not to extend," Schumer said. "That was a little easier than 2010." 
This time, the law authorized the Zadroga health act for 75 years at a cost of $3.5 billion. It renewed the victims’ compensation for five years for $4.6 billion. But this portion also was extended for 75 years in 2019, with cost estimates of $10 billion for the first decade. 
When they got the third and final piece, it all hit Feal. 
"That’s the only time I cried in D.C.," he said. "We knew it would pass, but when I saw Jon (Stewart) in the hallway, it was a decade and a half of pent-up frustration. We had gone to Congress 300 times." 
As of July 2020, the act has paid for $7 billion in victims’ compensation and $5 billion in health care costs.

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The long fight for health care, compensation for 9/11 first responders

The long, hard fight for health care, compensation for 9/11 responders

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Immigration reform has not been on Washington's agenda lately, but that may change soon: The final version of the Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget proposal, released last week, is widely expected to offer a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers. That means the debate about immigration reform may also soon return, along with zealotry on both sides. 
The debate over immigration is so difficult because it twists together at least two distinct and challenging subjects: economics and culture. On the economics at least, there should be no further debate: Immigration is a net gain. The cultural arguments against immigration are harder to counter, but addressing some of the economic anxieties could help ease some of the cultural ones. 
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, mastermind of the harshest border polices in recent history, articulated both the economic and cultural cases against immigration in a 2017 speech, saying that millions of people from around the world want to come to the U.S., but the U.S. could not accept them all. Doing so, he said, would drive down wages for struggling Americans and overwhelm the ability of society to assimilate them. 
On the first assertion, the data show otherwise. Economists have debated the effects of immigrants on native wages for decades. Tellingly, the strongest critics of immigration argue that the effects are small and limited to lowest-skilled workers. Supporters argue that the effect is large and positive. 
What both groups agree on is that high-skilled immigration increases innovation and per capita GDP, thereby lowering the tax rates necessary to finance public services. Even hard-liners such as Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, who advocates cutting legal immigration in half, support reforms that would focus on admitting the highest-skilled immigrants with the best economic opportunities. 
Proving or disproving the second assertion is harder. Proponents of greater immigration often point out that until 1875 the U.S. had no restrictions on immigration at all, and few against Europeans until 1924. That period saw an enormous boom in U.S. economic power and the development of a unique culture envied around the world, based on the assimilation of immigrants from scores of far-flung nations. 
Proponents of less immigration point out that the percentage of foreign-born Americans today is approaching the highs of the early 20th century. Those levels induced a sharp cultural backlash and, eventually, the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which led to sharp quotas based on national origin. Today, even as 75% of Americans say that immigration is on the whole a good thing, only 33% actually want to see immigration levels increased. And 81% of Americans view illegal immigration as a "critical" or "important" threat to the country. 
The polling indicates a potential path forward: Both sides should accept the public's embrace of current levels of immigration. Republicans would abandon their demands to reduce overall immigration. Democrats would abandon attempts at increasing immigration through further decriminalization or lax enforcement. 
Specifically, Congress should legalize both former President Barack Obama's DACA policy, which allows children of immigrants currently in the country to stay in the country, and former President Donald Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy. This would ease uncertainty for immigrants who already here, while making it clear that future immigrants will not be able to take advantage of the asylum system. 
On legal immigration, Democrats should accept the skills-based reforms proposed by Cotton's Raise Act so long as Republicans agree to keep the level of legal immigration, as a percent of population, constant. This would eliminate any concern about the effect of immigration on low-skilled wages, while at the same time allowing the pace of immigration to rise over time. 
This type of compromise will not sit well with hard-liners on either side. But by addressing the situation at the border, the economic impact of immigration and the ability of the country to assimilate its current immigrant population, these moves could bring clarity to the issue and, in time, reduce the influence of extreme voices. 
Karl W. Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was formerly vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation and assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina. He is also co-founder of the economics blog Modeled Behavior.

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