Latinos keep a low profile in face of protests
Students, immigrant day workers stay home, react to rumors
BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer

Heightened concern about arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants was reflected in higher numbers of students staying home from school last week, officials said.

At Red Bank Regional High School, more than five times the usual number of Hispanic and Latino students were absent from the Little Silver high school on Monday, according to Vice Principal Risa Cullinane.

She said that usually four or five Latino students are absent on any given day, but on Monday there were between 25 and 30 absent Latino students.

"At the beginning of last week," said Cullinane, "there was a lot of fear among the kids, not so much for themselves, but for their families. A lot of the older students work at night at places where they think they might be targeted."

According to Ernestine Fobbs, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there is no truth to the rumors that illegal immigrants are being targeted for arrest in Monmouth County.

"ICE agents conduct operations every day in locations around the country," according to a prepared statement from the ICE furnished by Fobbs, "as part of their efforts to protect the nation and uphold public safety. These operations are not random sweeps, but carefully-planned enforcement actions that result from investigative leads and intelligence."

Monday was also a day on which both legal and illegal immigrants participated in "A Day Without Immigrants," with protests nationwide to demonstrate the impact immigrants have on America.

Congress is currently debating immigration reform and the protection of America's borders from illegal immigration. Many immigrants reportedly did not go to work or shop on Monday in protest.

Cullinane said that although she sent a letter written in Spanish home with Hispanic students, assuring their parents that school was a safe place, many students did not attend school Monday.

Associate Pastor Pedro L. Bou at St. Anthony's Church on Bridge Avenue in Red Bank, said Monday that the church parking lot is a usual gathering area for day laborers. But since Wednesday of last week, there have been very few laborers waiting to be picked up for work.

"Wednesday, Thursday and Friday," said Bou, "no one was out there. Today, of all days, there were eight or 10. Usually, there are 60 or 80, and that's just here. Over by The Galleria, there are more."

Bou said there is a sense of uneasiness and, in some cases, fear among immigrants in Red Bank who are in this country illegally concerning rumors of arrests and deportations.

"They live lives of distrust," he said. "A lot of them are scared. A lot of them decided to do what they were called to do today. They were called to do something by doing nothing."

Although the illegal immigrants realize that they are breaking the law, said Bou, many have just come here to work.

"If we were going to Mexico," he said, "we'd have to have our papers in order. They know what they are doing, but they are still scared."

Bou said that a problem in the Hispanic community is that there are no national leaders within the community.

"I'm talking about what happened in the 1960s with Dr. Martin Luther King," he said. "We don't have that. The Hispanic community is on its own out there. We're still waiting for that prophetic voice to speak for the voiceless. We are desperately in need of that voice."

Bou said that he hopes Americans will take notice of how much immigrants affect their lives.

"This country has always been a country of immigrants," he said. "Americans have been very charitable to causes around the world. Why not this? We, as a country, have gotten so used to the presence of their work, I don't know what we would do if they were taken away from us."

St. Anthony's, according to Bou, was founded by Italian immigrants 25 years ago, and there are two services held in Spanish each week.

The issue of immigrant workers also reaches into neighboring communities, such as Long Branch, where the Long Branch Concordance, a grassroots collaborative that formed in March 2004 to address the needs of city residents, is planning a meeting for June to discuss the experience of the Latino immigrant.

Terri Blair, the executive director of the Concordance, said Monday that the goal is to provide better resources for immigrants in the area, and that she has reached out to Cullinane and other leaders in Red Bank to discuss the issue.

"We want to understand what the experience of the immigrant really is," she said. "We want to provide better resources for the people who are here."

Blair said that the recent legislation being proposed will probably come up in the discussion.

The meeting is set for June 21.

Long Branch Public School District Superintendent Joseph M. Ferraina said Tuesday that usually there is an absentee rate among Latino students of between 5 and 7 percent, but that last Monday between 30 and 40 percent of Latino students were absent.

"It was tremendous," he said. "It was in the 30s to the upper-40s percent in most [Long Branch] schools."