Right and Wrong

Town and village officials, and police departments, on the South Fork all deserve a round of applause and unqualified support, both for their recent principled stance on the Trump administration’s new aggressive policies toward the immigrant community, and for taking steps to reach out and make sure the men, women and children in that community get the message: Don’t be afraid of police officers. They’re there to help you.

East Hampton Town and Village led the way last week, making a special effort to send a clear message. They said the town and village, and its police departments, will cooperate with federal authorities when it comes to arresting criminals — but will not enforce the worst of the Trump administration’s belligerent new immigration policy.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez noted that Town Police will be “steadfast in treating all residents with fairness and dignity, recognizing that immigrants are vital to the strength, character and success of our community.” A federal warrant is required, not simply a detainer sought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In other interactions, local law enforcement won’t even inquire as to a person’s status.

Burke-Gonzalez called the policy “prioritizing public safety and human dignity.” East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen acknowledged the “fear in our community that’s been developed by the new policies of the federal government,” and said, “The most important message I want to get out to everybody is that the local police are not immigration police.” Sag Harbor Village officials echoed the message, and Southampton Town officials, and those from other villages, have followed suit.

It didn’t take long for the New York Post to offer its own wry take. Its headline online: “East Hampton officials reassure wealthy residents that officers won’t deport illegal migrant maids, landscapers and nannies.” Fox News included a helpful shot of Alec Baldwin’s house, to help make its partisan point.

The Post isn’t wrong: People on the South Fork are worried about “maids, landscapers and nannies” — and health care workers, and construction workers, and those in the service industry, and every other single part of the region’s economy, and culture. But it’s not just the “wealthy residents,” it’s also co-workers, employers, employees, classmates and playmates who are still able to afford to live here. The South Fork’s tourism-driven economy will suffer without immigrant labor. Business owners have made this clear. It’s irritating to have to state it yet again.

There is a national passion right now for deporting people. It’s a Trojan horse to focus on “criminals”: Of course we all agree that dangerous and reckless men and women should face legal consequences. But even in the earliest days, these sweeps have been less about surgical strikes and more about sweeping up the immigrant population, documented or otherwise. As NPR reported, “ICE has arrested scores of migrants in the U.S. who have no criminal records.”

So the region’s police, and the elected officials who employ them, have a choice to make. It’s rooted in a basic idea: What’s right and what’s wrong? The police, more than any agency, are duty-bound to the idea of addressing wrongs; sometimes that mission comes into conflict with policies, and with trends. Here, the police have chosen a path that’s about helping people first and foremost. That it’s a controversial path, to some, only underscores the moral choice at stake.

America has a long, checkered history of racial oppression. In the early 1800s, it was President Andrew Jackson’s “Indian Removal” policy. There was the horror of slavery throughout the republic’s first hundred years, and Jim Crow laws after. Japanese Americans were interned in camps during World War II. Each was a policy of the federal government. History has shown them to be black marks on this nation’s soul.

There is an unmistakable prejudice rooted in this new policy as well. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is blooming again like some awful, foul-smelling weed that can’t be truly eradicated. It used to be “No Irish Need Apply,” and demonizing Italian immigrants as subhuman. The same bitter sentiments are driving the idea that immigrants, migrants and refugees in 2025 are “lazy, undisciplined, violent criminals.”

The reality: People are working here illegally because Republicans and Democrats alike refuse immigration reform measures that are reasonable and sensible, with an adequate number of visas to serve business needs. Our seasonal economy has winter homelessness and overwhelmed food pantries in part because there is no realistic system allowing seasonal workers, both American and foreign, to make a fair wage during a time when our economy thrives, summer.

President Donald Trump has said the stated policy of his administration is that anyone without legal status should be deported. (And he has revoked legal status for a number of groups who are here legally, exacerbating the problem rather than trying to solve it.) The scope of his deportation push will only expand over four years. The mass deportation of law-abiding workers is coming: Trump recently complained that the daily deportation numbers are not high enough. He is going to change his policies to boost those numbers, and the deportations will become more and more indiscriminate.

Public safety relies on trust between the public and police. Crime victims, regardless of immigration status, should be able to go to the police to report crimes without fear of deportation. Not only for their own safety, but also for the safety of everyone else — citizen and immigrant alike — who might fall victim to the same perpetrators.

An immigrant who sees red and blue light flashes behind them should feel comfortable pulling over and accepting a minor traffic ticket — and not feel like he has to flee the cops because he could be detained and deported. That threatens public safety and overburdens our police.

Mayor Jerry Larsen noted, “We don’t want chaos in our community.” With their actions, the region’s leaders and police departments have chosen against belligerence and in favor of peacefulness, a path of tolerance. They’ve chosen well and should be commended for it.