Illegal Immigration: National Issue, Local Effects: Rockland Officials

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — Forty years of federal inaction on immigration policy have begun to take a local toll, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said in a news conference Thursday with U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler.

They were joined by three officials from local food pantries, Juan Mena, Sloatsburg Food Pantry Board Member, Anita Dreichler, Rockland Community Against Hunger Coordinator, and Rosie Samudio, Director of WestCop Food Pantry, plus Rockland County Department of Social Services Commissioner Joan Silvestri.

There are many challenges, Lawler said. "What we are highlighting today is one part of it. The consequence of a broken immigration policy at the federal level and the impact that has on local municipalities and nonprofits who have to basically assume the responsibility because the federal government has been derelict in addressing this for decades."

Day said while it was impossible to tell how many migrants had moved into Rockland County, officials believe the influx has strained local schools, food pantries, social services and housing.

Lawler said he and fellow freshman Rep. Robert Garcia of California were going to try to round up eight other first-term members of Congress to work on federal immigration policy on a nonpartisan basis. While acknowledging Congress's inability to deal with the broken immigration system, and citing President George W. Bush's proposal, which was rejected by his own party, Lawler said the Biden administration was derelict in its duty.

"Our current system forces these people to live in the shadows and not with the American dream and that is plain wrong," Day said.

In Rockland, more people are going to local food banks, and residents who have been relying on those pantries "are being shut out," said Day.

Based upon numbers provided by the Rockland County Food Bank Member Statistics, in June of 2019 there were 37,826 persons served per month and in December of 2022 there were 79,432.

Day said it was unknown how many of those people are illegal or connected to undocumented immigrants, but he saw a connection.

"When we run out of food and at the same time we’re having this migrant crisis it’s pretty easy to draw parallels," he said.

As for the strain on social services, according to Day's office, in the last two years, on average the number of people served by the county's social services department has increased by 15 percent and the number of children in foster care has gone up 35 percent. They did not say what percentage of that was due to illegal immigrants.

Rockland Social Services Commissioner Joan Silvestri said the federal government should make it possible for undocumented migrants to receive social services.

"There are many reasons why children end up in foster care; one of the most high risk reasons is poverty," she said. "We’re forcing people to live in poverty."

According to the Cato Institute, a conservative think-tank, immigrants use significantly less welfare than native-born Americans.

Silvestri also said the coming cutback in SNAP benefits that had been increased during the COVID-19 pandemic would drive more people to food banks, upping the pressure on local nonprofits even more. Lawler would not say if he supported higher SNAP benefits but said the program was in the farm bill currently before Congress for reauthorization. "There's always a cost factor and that's part of the challenge," he said.

In another example, Day said more than 1,000 students had enrolled in the East Ramapo district since September, and that the district did not have enough language teachers. He did not elaborate. Patch reached out to East Ramapo officials to learn more but had not heard back before this article was posted.

Day also said pedophiles and the "criminalization of women" were immigration problems but did not link them specifically to Rockland County.

Both he and Lawler also linked the national drug crisis to illegal immigrant drug traffickers. "...Our broken immigration system and the Biden Administration's unwillingness to deal with it is resulting in an inflow of drugs like fentanyl into our communities," Lawler said.

The Cato Institute disagrees. In 2022, it said fentanyl is "overwhelmingly smuggled by U.S. citizens almost entirely for U.S. citizen consumers."

Lawler said tens of thousands of migrants were coming across the southern border between the United States and Mexico daily. According to estimates from the Department of Homeland Security between 9,000 to 14,000 migrants could try to cross the southern border daily once a pandemic-era rule ends that has kept their numbers lower.

"It is the federal government's responsibility to help us and help these families and individuals resettling in our community," Day said.

Lawler said the new group he and Garcia were planning would look at the whole picture. "This is a multi-pronged problem," Lawler said, citing immigrants coming through Westchester County Airport, 11 million undocumented residents nationwide, backlogged asylum courts and a "broken" legal immigration system. The problem won't be fixed "unless there’s a comprehensive approach and both sides are willing to give," he said. "You have to secure the border. There has to be a pathway to documentation."

"Immigration has a net positive impact," he said, adding that his vision was to create a process to allow anyone from anywhere in the world who wanted to, to come to the United States.