A New York Times Editorial

A Catastrophic Silence

   Suffolk County executive
   - Steve Levy [Enlarge]
The killing of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on Long Island this month brought with it a cruel blessing. From a shocking crime — an assault by a gang of boys accused of making a hobby of hunting Latinos — came a chance for a stricken, divided community to bind old wounds and to bury anger.

Instead, the moment is collapsing into the same old shouting. Advocates for immigrants are condemning the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, as somehow complicit in the killing for his rigid devotion to immigration enforcement. Mr. Levy is lashing back and trying to distribute blame fairly. He wonders, for example, how a gang out of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ could have run free for so long, firing BB’s and hateful slurs at random victims, jumping and punching them for sport.

Why, he asks, were their friends and acquaintances silent? It’s a fair question, but there is another silence Mr. Levy should focus on.

The silence that echoes most painfully is that of the Latino victims of these and other hidden crimes. Mr. Lucero’s death has set loose a flood of stories of abuse and harassment. A police precinct commander lost his job over his handling of two other attacks against Latino men that fatal day, an acknowledgment that in Suffolk, equal protection may not always apply to everyone.

Mourners Grieve for Slain Immigrant

Suffolk is not the only place with hate crimes or fearful immigrants. The same silence ruled in Postville, Iowa, where children worked brutal hours on a slaughterhouse killing floor. It hung over a factory in New Bedford, Mass., that systematically cheated workers of wages and the Louisiana shipyards where legal guest workers were held in modern-day indentured servitude.

The Racist ‘Republican’ Killers Jeffrey Conroy, 17, foreground, and other teens arrested in a hate crime murder, are led out of the Fifth Precinct in Patchogue, N.Y., for arraignment on gang assault charges in connection with the death of a 37-year old immigrant. Police said the seven high school students looking “to beat up some Mexicans” attacked the immigrant from Ecuador who worked in a dry cleaners shop. According to police, Conroy fatally plunged a knife into the man’s chest him during the brawl.

The silence of undocumented immigrants is the catastrophic silence of people taught by legislative harassment and relentless stereotyping to live mute and afraid.

Mr. Levy sees no role for himself in this drama.

‘Since when is enforcing the law seen as something negative and inflammatory?’ he asked his critics this week.

Here is an attempt to explain. — [ READ MORE ]

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References:

1. Grand Jury Indicts 7 Teens in Immigrant Killing — Seven teenagers learned Friday that they had been indicted in the fatal stabbing of an Ecuadorean immigrant who police say was targeted because he was Hispanic, but they must wait to hear the specific charges.

2. Teen Crime Suspect to Face Murder Charges — Police say man was targeted in the killing because he was Hispanic.

3. Welcome to the Action Center for Justice for Marcelo Lucero

4. Key Findings In New Report: Immigrants Contribute $10.6 Billion to Long Island — Long Island WINS released a new report yesterday entitled “Strengthening Long Island: The Economic Contributions of Immigrants to Nassau and Suffolk.”

5. News about Marcelo Lucero — including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

6. Related Content from NYDailyNews.com — Marcelo Lucero

7. Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News — “Number one, the illegal aliens shouldn’t be here. And number two, the culture from which they come is a lot more violent than the USA.” — The O’Reilly Factor, January 15, 2007