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George Latimer. Westchester County Executive On the Record. WPCNR Media Library Photo by WPCNR

WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. MAY 12, 2023 Opinion  From the Westchester County Executive George Latimer.

The lack of a coherent federal strategy to deal with immigration into the United States forced the issue to the front doorstep of those states and towns that span our southern land border. This is not unprecedented in our national history: the ports of New York City, Boston and San Francisco faced the same influx of poor, oppressed people seeking a better life in America over an extended span of time more than 100 years ago.

Then, as now, a significant portion of the existing American population wanted nothing to do with the newcomers. The immigrants looked different. They spoke a different language. They may have worshiped a different religion. Those already here made no connection to their own family immigration stories and treated the newcomers as aliens, strangers and dangerous to their way of life.

“They are not us.”

“We owe them no entry.”

“If they are suffering poverty or persecution in their land, we cannot be expected to take them all in.”

That mantra has become once again the firm policy of one of our political parties, and no coherent strategy can be constructed with such opposition.

A rational strategy is essential

In the book of Matthew, given that sacred scripture is often quoted to support other political policies, the disciple who writes is clear: when you offer food and drink, shelter and compassion to the stranger, you have done so to the Almighty. Eternal reward or punishment is meted out depending on your response.

A rational direction of immigration can make America stronger, not weaker.

How Westchester will respond

I am the chief elected official of a suburban county of one million people directly north of New York City. As the city exceeds its capacity to handle the flood of people in need, they have turned to their neighbors for help. Political philosophy applies — and some neighboring counties want no part of the problem and fight any shared assistance vigorously.

My administration in Westchester County sees this in pragmatic terms. The people who are migrants are in dire need. Our city neighbor is trying to address that need. They, too, need help. Realistically, we have limited resources and can help to a limited degree. If we can manage some numbers, with proper services and controls in place, we, too, can help. We do not have the resources to take on overwhelming numbers — if other places, everywhere each do a modest share, we can make this influx manageable.

There are some of our residents and not just a few, who will bitterly oppose any such rational response, however well managed and limited that may be. And there are as well many other residents who support compassion and rational responses to this.

I don’t doubt we’ll see at the next Election Day how we are judged.

And I don’t doubt that when the political careers are over, and when our time on this planet is over, we will be judged again.

All of us. Every single one of us. Judged for how we treated our neighbor.

George Latimer is Westchester County Executive.

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JOHN BAILEY INTERVIEWS DR. JOSEPH RICCA SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS ON THE SCHOOL BUDGET VOTE MAY 16 — THE FUTURE OF THE BUDGET GOING FORWARD, THE TAX SAVINGS, SCHOOL AID, IMPACT ON YOU AND WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THE BUDGET.

ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR BUSINESS, ANN VACCARO-TEICH ON THE NUMBERS

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President Biden speaking at Westchester Community College Wednesday morning.

Governor Kathy Hochul, flanked by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman

President Joe Biden in his 15-minute address to educators and local Westchester politcians took Republicans to task for putting the U.S.at risk of defaulting on its world debt for refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless the President agreed to spending cuts. He said Republican efforts to cut spending would hurt education and veterans. He assured Americans that inflation was coming down, pointing to 12.7 million jobs added was a sign of economic turnaround. He said no negotiations could start until the debt ceiling was raised.The President also took the occasion to advocate for junior college educations, and said how much he admired educators.

“It’s important for the American people to know what’s at stake. This isn’t just a theoretical debate going on in Washington. The decisions we make are going to have real impact on real people’s lives,” Biden said.

“They’re literally, not figuratively, holding the economy hostage,”

Governor Kathy Hochul in the text of her speech reinforced the President’s message:

“I am so delighted to be here once again with some extraordinary individuals, my partners in government. And you’ll be hearing from someone that we’re so proud is the President of the United States, and that is President Joe Biden  Our Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand has joined us. Congressman Jamaal Bowman has joined us as well.

We are also so fortunate to have the Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. I believe that we also have Congressman Mike Lawler in the house. County Executive George Latimer is here. The Mayor of White Plains, Tom Roach is here. Mayor of Mount Vernon, Shawyn Patterson-Howard is here. Brian Sullivan, teacher at Highlands Middle School  (White Plains) is here. (Editor’s Note: Mr. Sullivan addressed the gathering, introducing the President .) I want to thank Dr. Belinda Miles for hosting us here today. Thank you.

We also know that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer is working right now – working right now with the future Speaker of the House Representatives, so that would be our very own, from Brooklyn as well, Hakeem Jeffries. 

They’re both working together, working with our President – working being the operative word here. You get elected, you work together to do the job. And having to encounter a lot of opposition – from guess who? Republicans don’t want us to work together. They don’t want us to do what we’re required to do, and that’s called paying your bills.

I’m sure a lot of you would like the chance to like, run up some debt, pay for things you need. You’ve got to pay for your house, you’ve got to pay for your electric bill, you’ve got to pay for the diapers, and tuition, all these other things.

And if you could walk away from paying your bills after just having a couple of fights, probably be interesting wouldn’t it? But we don’t do that. We’re responsible. We do what we’re supposed to do.

And so, you come to New York, New York is the beating heart of the U.S. economy. So, you mess around with the debt ceiling, you’re hurting New York. You’re hitting us hard. And not just the state in general, but let’s think about who. How about the students right here at SUNY Westchester who will have their financial assistance unavailable to them.

It’ll put us closer to a recession, cause unemployment to go up. It’ll be devastating. It also shakes the confidence of the rest of the world in the United States of America. And we don’t need that at this time. We need friends. We don’t want people to question our ability to govern.

And brinkmanship is their attempt, Republicans attempt, to just bring it right to the edge. Make everybody all anxious – affect the stock market because they don’t care. They don’t care. This is going to play out in their political games. And I’ve got a message for them, it doesn’t work.

In 2011, I was elected as a Democrat in the most Republican district in the State of New York. Clearly there were a lot more Republicans than Democrats in that district. How did I do that? I talked about issues that people cared about regardless of their party.

Because here’s the message to Republicans, when you think you have a great political strategy, I’m telling you now it’s going to backfire. There actually are Republican seniors who don’t want you to mess with Medicare and Social Security. There are Republican veterans who don’t want you to affect their benefits. There are Republican students who don’t want you to mess with their student loans. There are Republican businesspeople in particular who aren’t real excited about you playing around with this.

So the message is, you might think it’s a political strategy, I’m here to tell you it is going to backfire because the people in this nation and in this state, Democrats and Republicans, want you go and do the job you’re elected to do. And that’s exactly what President Biden wants to do.

Let’s get this done. What’s the big deal? This is what we’re supposed to do. And so, this is an attempt to focus attention, to say ‘You have to do what we want you to do.’ But it’s going to fail. It’s going to be a cataclysmic failure because the longer this plays out, the more uncertainty, the more volatility, the more anxiety – not just in the markets, not just around the world, but in people’s houses, at their kitchen table. Because they need to know that the confidence that their government is actually going to work together.

So that’s what we’re just saying. That’s what President Biden is saying. Come on. Let’s roll up our sleeves, we can get this done. It’s not complicated and there’s no reason to play these games at this time.

So here we go. My message is: Stop playing games with the American people. Stop playing games with the American economy. Stop playing games with our farmers. Stop playing games with our citizens. Stop playing games with our small businesses and just do your jobs. Thank you, President Biden for being our leader. Thank you very much.

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