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Where does our elected state assemblyman stand on this issue? I hear from Mr. Tedesco, but we haven't heard from Mr. Amedore.

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Mr. Amedore,
Since there have been many things going on in New York State, especially since you just recently came into office, I was wondering if you could let me (and my friends at http://www.rotterdamny.info) where you stand on illegal immigration, what you think you could do on this at the state level, nd what your stance is on Mr. Spitzer ordering DMV to begin giving licenses to anyone who comes, regardless of if they have a social security card to show as proof of identity.

Thanks,

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EDITORIALS The wages of immigration reform failure

   For awhile earlier this year it looked as if the country was going to get the immigration reform it sorely needs, before President Bush’s sensible plan was shot down by members of his own party. Now we are left with only the punitive part of the package — tougher enforcement — without the incentives for illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows, such as work visas and an eventual path to citizenship. We see reminders of this failure every day, from the shortage of migrant workers to harvest crops on New York farms to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy change that will allow aliens to get a New York driver’s license without a Social Security card (and the furious reaction to it).
   Bush’s plan included a guest worker program where more immigrants could get visas to work in industries where they have special talents, such as science and technology, or where they are in short supply, such as picking apples. A combination of tougher border security and Immigration and Naturalization Service raids, an impending crackdown on employers, and the availability of less physically demanding or better-paying jobs in the service and construction industries have all contributed to a growing shortage of migrant farm workers.
   Without those workers, according to a recent study commissioned by the Farm Credit Associations of New York (and endorsed by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets), New York could lose approximately 900 farms, $195 million in production value and over 200,000 acres now in agricultural production over the next two years. That’s the last thing upstate’s economy, or its landscape, needs.
   As for Spitzer’s license plan, it is the whole immigration issue in microcosm: anti-immigrant sentiment and terrorist fears against an attempt to be humane and recognize reality, and perhaps buttress a political base. Whatever his motivations, it was a major political blunder on Spitzer’s part. The fact that he is a Democrat, and an already politically wounded one at that (see “Troopergate”), made him a much easier target for Republicans than President Bush was. And he doesn’t exactly have his own party’s full support, either.
   Immigration is a complicated issue, and some people still are not ready to see it that way. Which makes it all the harder to come up with the national political compromise that is so necessary.  

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ALBANY
Clerks vote against license policy
BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter

   The state Association of County Clerks on Thursday voted to oppose Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy of permitting illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses.
   The vote was 29-4, with three abstentions and 16 clerks not present.
   All but one of the clerks voting to oppose the Democratic governor were Republicans, and all those supporting Spitzer or abstaining were Democrats. Three of the ‘no’ votes came from Democrats in this region: Schenectady County Clerk John Woodward, Albany County’s Thomas Clingan and Montgomery County’s Helen Bartone.
   “My personal position doesn’t really matter,” Woodward said later. He said he believes it is his duty under the law to carry out the policy determined by the motor vehicles commissioner, a Spitzer appointee.
   Saratoga County Clerk Kathleen Marchione, president of the association, questioned whether the law was on the governor’s side. She cited statutory language saying applicants shall be required to provide Social Security numbers, which illegal aliens do not have. Opponents also said that complying with the Spitzer policy could amount to aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
   Marchione was one of 13 clerks, including Rensselaer County’s Frank Merola, who said they will not cooperate with the new policy and will decline to take applications from those who cannot demonstrate their legal status, directing them instead to state Department of Motor Vehicles offices.
   Schoharie County Clerk Indica Jaycox voted against the Spitzer policy, but did not say she would defy it. The Fulton County clerk was not at the meeting, but has previously indicated opposition to the Spitzer plan.
   DMV Commissioner David Swarts said anti-fraud measures that are part of the Spitzer initiative will enhance security. While Marchione and other clerks supported some of those measures, many said the provision of licenses to illegal immigrants was inconsistent with that approach — “going in the opposite direction,” as Marchione put it. She and others cited a potential risk of increased terrorism.
   Swarts said increased revenue from the initiative would more than cover its costs.
   Spitzer issued a statement decrying the vote. “Our homeland will be less safe when law enforcement does not have a more complete database of names, photographs and addresses to help them track down criminals and terrorists,” the statement said.
   Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, issued a statement supporting the clerks’ resolution, and promising a bill to overturn the governor’s action when the Senate returns to session on Oct. 22. However, such a bill does not seem headed for enactment since Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, is backing Spitzer.
   Also backing the governor is the New York State Catholic Conference, which put out a statement Thursday saying: “While this matter is partially one of economic justice for the immigrants themselves, the state also has an economic interest at play. In certain sections of our state, we see labor market shortages, which are being filled by this population. In order to fill these positions, which are of critical importance to our state’s economic well being, the immigrant community needs valid licenses in order to get to the jobs.”
   Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco said giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants could potentially provide a tool to terrorists. He said his conference will file a lawsuit against the governor’s policy at the beginning of November, unless it is reversed by then.
   As the association started meeting Thursday morning at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, about 15 people demonstrated outside on State Street against the Spitzer plan. Some of them were staffers from the Assembly Republican minority. They were all volunteering on their personal time, one said.
   Asked about this later, Tedisco he had not been aware of the demonstration, but his staffers can take time off to protest if they make up their work at another time. He also questioned Spitzer’s trip to Schenectady City Hall earlier his year, when the governor was engaged in a budget dispute with Senate Republicans, and used the occasion to criticize Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna. Tedisco said that amounted to a political appearance, at which the governor was accompanied by state employees on state time. Spitzer’s press office has said the governor was engaged in government business on that day, although Mayor Brian Stratton was absent. Tedisco staffers demonstrated then, too, saying they were using personal time.
   The Democratic clerk who voted with the Republicans was Sandra DePerno of Oneida County, who also was one of the 13 clerks who said they would not process the applications of illegal immigrants. She and other clerks said they are reflecting the views of their constituents.  

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Illegal aliens don’t deserve driver’s licenses

   Re Sept. 22 AP story, “State will let illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses, Spitzer says”: With a passport and some other identification (valid?), no Social Security number and no proof of English proficiency, the alien hits the jackpot of a valid document that opens all doors.
   The calls to overturn the directive were voiced by Senate Majority Leader Sen. Joseph Bruno, Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco and Sen. Hugh Farley. But the opposition is bipartisan in an attempt to protect the United States from disaster.
   The pro-illegal proponents — such as the chamber of commerce, big business, Catholic bishops, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Ted Kennedy, President George Bush, Gov. Eliot Spitzer — are hell-bent on destroying the United States that veterans of World War II fought and died for.
   I am compelled to express my strong opinions based on my being a victim of uncontrolled illegal immigration. My daughter, Ellen Victoria Paige, was killed in Temecula, Calif., in a vehicular homicide episode. She was with a bicycle group on a two-lane road and was crushed by a truck, speeding in the wrong lane, She died instantly. The driver was a 19-year-old illegal alien, using a truck without authorization, uninsured and speaking and reading no English. He was jailed for five years, released, and never returned for the hearing by a judge. The killer is enjoying life in California and my beautiful, accomplished, daughter lies in her grave.
   Would all these champions of illegal immigration be willing to sacrifice a child on the altar of open borders and its consequences?
   ISABELLE PAIGE
   Niskayuna  

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Licenses for illegals? Follow Jim Tedisco
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

   Assemblyman Jim Tedisco is sort of like a sensor for me when it comes to politically promising issues. If he sniffs something out as a winner, I’m ready to put my money on it, which is why I’m ready to bet that the new issue of drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants is going to be a big one. Jim is all over it.
   Right off the bat, right after Gov. Spitzer announced his new policy, Jim proposed that Osama bin Laden must be celebrating with champagne and saying, “Hey, that governor’s really assisting us. He’s tying one hand behind the back of law enforcement officials.” Then a couple of days later he held a hearing at Republican offices in New York City with testimony from a team of alleged experts on the dangers posed to our society by illegal immigrants, which he did in his capacity as Assembly minority leader.
   Call it cheap fear-mongering if you like, call it pandering to antiimmigrant sentiments, call it riding the bogey of terrorism. It doesn’t matter. This one, I predict, will be as successful as Jim’s earlier winners — missing children and tortured animals.
   Indeed, the day after the New York City hearing he told me, “The only thing that beat this was the Buster Bill,” referring to his bill to make it a felony to torture an animal, named for a cat that was set on fire in Schenectady.
   The phones rang off the hook for that one, about nine years ago, and they’re ringing off the hook again. “Who do you know who supports illegal immigration?” he asked me rhetorically, much as he might have asked nine years ago, “Who do you know who supports setting cats on fire?” or, 22 years ago, “Who do you know who supports the abduction of children?”
   These are the things he sniffs out, the things that are guaranteed winners because nobody is on the other side. And also because they have a deep emotional component. As genuine social problems they might be legitimate or not. That hardly matters.
   Missing children was largely bogus. Almost all children reported missing are either teenage runaways who soon return or else children taken by one parent or another in a custody dispute. Very few are missing in the sense implied, abducted by strangers.
   But never mind. When Jim was a mere second-term assemblyman in the powerless minority party, he not only succeeded in getting the Thruway Authority to print photos of missing children on toll tickets, he got the powerful Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo, to come out to Exit 24 and join him in ceremonially handing out the first such ticket, in probably the only instance in New York history of a governor sucking up to a sophomore assemblyman.
   A month later the Thruway-ticket program quietly ended, having been judged ineffective, but Jim was on his way.
   Then came flaming cats, which one could also argue was not a huge problem, but given the infatuation of so many people with domesticated animals, especially dogs, and their treatment of them as surrogate children, surrogate friends, surrogate spiritual guides, this was also a guaranteed winner, once it had been sniffed out. And again the majority Democrats had to feed off Jim, the minority Republican, this time by stealing his bill and sponsoring it themselves, which only added to his luster.
   And now we have drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, unilaterally promulgated as policy by Gov. Eliot Spitzer in perhaps the most politically inept move of the year. Jim is right, of course: Who do you know who supports illegal immigration?
   And especially after 9/11, who do you know who supports giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immi- grants?
   Not the county clerks of New York, who voted the other day 29 to 4, with three abstentions, against it, with 13 of the clerks actually declaring they would not obey the policy.
   As I wrote in this space before, I doubt if the governor’s policy will have much practical effect, since the great mass of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America hardly have the passports that will be required, in lieu of Social Security numbers, to get drivers’ licenses. But the symbolic effect is huge.
   It’s like saying, Welcome lawbreakers! Come right in! Let us give you a photo ID!
   You can imagine how it plays with thinly veiled anti-foreign groups like the Border Patrol Council and 9/11 Families for a Secure America, whose representatives testified at Tedisco’s New York City hearing. But it doesn’t play much better with ordinary rankand-file people, because, again, who do you know who supports illegal immigration?
   The anti-foreign aroma, meanwhile, is easily masked by the perfume of upholding the law: We’re not against immigrants; we’re just against lawbreaking.
   “The hearing was tremendous,” Jim told me. “I was on national TV with Fox News.”
   Now he’s sponsoring a bill in the Assembly to make explicit that a Social Security number is required for a driver’s license, and if that fails, as he expects it will, since the majority Democrats won’t support it, he’s preparing a lawsuit to block the Spitzer administration from implementing its new policy.
   So this will go on and on, and Jim will be the friend of law-abiding citizens and the friend even of properly documented immigrants, just as he was previously the friend of missing children and of poor abused animals.
   I don’t see any risks, there being nobody on the other side except the governor, Eliot “Shoot-Yourselfin-the-Foot” Spitzer, and some inconsequential groups like the New York Immigration Coalition.
WORD WATCH
   A pet peeve of mine is the tiresome, never-ending use of “struggle” as a euphemism for do lousy, as in, a kid is struggling in school, or a pitcher is struggling on the mound. I say to myself, if the kid really struggled maybe he would do better, and likewise the pitcher.
   Then I saw a sentence on the BBC Web site regarding a businessman in South Africa: “He struggled to get access to finance during his career as a black entrepreneur but kept persevering,” which gave the game away, since to keep persevering means essentially the same as to struggle. You can’t say someone struggled but kept persevering unless one of those words really means something else, which it obviously does. “Struggle” doesn’t mean struggle; it means “do lousy.”
   In plain English, the guy couldn’t get any money but he kept trying. Why don’t they just say so? Why don’t they lay off the hackneyed euphemism and write straight? That’s what I’d like to know.
   Then, in the Rain-Rein-Reign Department we have The New York Times declaring on its front page that the government of Burma “has mostly allowed the monks free reign in the streets” — this was before the big crackdown — followed by an AP story quoting a 9/11 relative as saying, “He’s really kind of raining on their coattails a little bit.”
   The first one goes in the Homonym Hopper — “reign” is what a king does, whereas a horse running loose has “free rein” — and the second one goes in the Metaphor Mixer, since you rain on a parade and ride on coattails; you don’t rain on coattails.
   If only the AP had written “reigning” on coattails, or “reining” on them, I would have had a nice twofer.
   Further in the ever-popular Homonym Hopper we have the Leader-Herald rendering someone’s spoken words as “air on the side of caution.” The scout who passed that one along noted that the regulatory agency represented by the speaker is often believed to be full of “hot err,” a joke that I do not necessarily endorse.

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Driven to give in Spitzer’s license plan may be unpopular, but it is a realistic move
BY PETER HUSTON For The Sunday Gazette

   Gov. Spitzer recently proposed giving illegal aliens who reside or work in New York the chance to earn a driver’s license. Naturally, the proposal has come under criticism. Although it’s clearly distasteful to admit that at the present time our national immigration laws cannot be properly enforced, an underlying premise of the proposal, as my acquaintances in recovery are quick to say, “The first step to fixing something is to admit that you have a problem.” I say it’s a good move that will help make New York safer and better.
   By contrast, James Tedisco, one of my least favorite politicians, recently gave a speech that somehow linked the issue to Osama bin Laden and national security. Apparently, Assemblyman Tedisco believes fanatic terrorists, unlike many underage drinkers, cannot obtain fake I.D.s, and therefore will behave themselves.
   Since it’s possible to drive a car without a license, licenses are intended to ensure and encourage safe driving. Although many people in this state are not here legally, they still often drive.
   Let’s frame the problem. People in poor countries come to richer countries, legally and illegally, to earn money. This is a global issue, not limited to the USA, and the illegal flow of humans is based on opportunity and demand. Although many come here, others go to Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Even Taiwan has a problem with illegal workers from poorer areas of Southeast Asia.
SUPPLY, DEMAND AND OPPORTUNITY
   With modern transportation and global economic inequities, such a situation is globally unavoidable. Workers risk death, abuse, humiliation, even rape and sexual slavery, driven by supply, demand and opportunity.
   As I have studied the issue of illegal Chinese workers, that’s where I will draw examples, although the issue is much broader, fueled by supply, opportunity and demand. Within this framework, there are three ways to fix this, and the USA cannot or does not wish to do any of them.
   First, remove the supply. End global poverty. Nice idea, but it’s not going to happen. As long as people live in poorer countries and think they can make more money here, they will wish to come.
   Second, remove the demand. Make it so people in this country do not wish to employ illegal aliens. Yet a quick look at the Wednesday, Sept. 26, Gazette, B8 reveals (“Immigration crackdown hurting farmers”), many do not want this.
   Remember Zoe Baird, 1993 Clinton appointee for Justice Department head, and how her peers seemingly considered employing an illegal alien as nannies commonplace? In New York, illegal Chinese are primarily employed by restaurants and the garment industry. Peter Kwong, an academic who specializes in New York Chinese issues, proposed 10 years ago in his book “Forbidden Workers” that if all labor laws were enforced in New York for all workers at all times, with all here paid minimum wage and guaranteed equal protection, the advantage and demand for hiring illegals in New York would be reduced.
   But this isn’t likely to happen. It costs money to monitor and enforce laws and few wish to pay it. Besides, I think the powers that be thrive on a bit of exploitation. As Kwong also notes, both former Govs. Pataki and Cuomo crossed garment workers union picketlines in Chinatown to lunch with management. And we all enjoy dirtcheap Chinese takeout right? (And trust me, some of these employ illegals.) So we’re guilty of fueling demand too.
   Which leaves enforcement. Any security system is a trade-off between actual security needs, perceptions, comfort and privacy issues and economics. This includes U.S. immigration security.
PLENTY OF AVENUES IN
   How do illegal Chinese get here? According to a 2004 National Institute of Justice study, there are three main methods. First, travel to Mexico or Canada, then cross over, often with the help of a “snake-head,” a highly paid, often exploitive Chinese human smuggler.
   Second, take a boat and land in an isolated coastal spot, again probably with help from a “snake-head.” (Tangentially, previous belief was snake-heads were highly organized, integrated members of organized crime networks. Current belief is they are loose-knit, disorganized and economically driven, making enforcement even more difficult.)
   Third, buy a ticket and fly here on an airplane. Upon arrival, use fraudulent documents to disembark. Of course, there are government systems to prevent these things. Obviously, they don’t work completely. Fixing them costs money.
   Others come legally and overstay visas. To catch all these people would require becoming a police state. When caught, illegals would have to be jailed and processed. (Roughly estimating $100 a day to jail someone, that’s a cost of $12,000 to $18,000 to jail someone for washing dishes in the wrong country during lengthy immigration appeal.)
   Furthermore, as I understand it, there is legal confusion over how much immigration enforcement is enforceable at the local, nonfederal level anyway.
   As long as supply, demand and opportunity exist, people will work here illegally. Although distasteful, Spitzer’s driver license proposal is a realistic move. Proposing something this unpopular and controversial probably shows its need. Although it may take adjustment to learn that a driver’s license is not synonymous with legal status, I don’t see other real negative effects.

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Don't allow illegal immigrants to get licenses  
First published: Sunday, October 7, 2007

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, in a covert operation released for publication on a Friday afternoon, where it would get the least amount of publicity, has ordered change so that illegal immigrants with valid foreign passports can obtain driver's licenses. His decision is arbitrary and has no relationship to the real world. Attorneys make poor leaders, as they live in the unreal world of the courts.
  
A driver's license, together with your birth certificate next to a U.S. passport, is the most valuable identification American citizen's possess.

Just how qualified are county clerks to authenticate the validity of a passport? How can a county clerk know whether a foreign passport is valid or forged? They are not qualified. Can one imagine the crush of illegal immigrants crowding into the county clerk's office for their driver's license? It makes no sense.

Having recently obtained a passport for myself, the time it took the clerk to process my passport was a good 20 minutes even with all the required documents including my birth certificate.

In real life, there are passport factories that will manufacture a faux passport on demand that purports to be valid. Immigrants have been known to carry half a dozen passports from various countries.

What Spitzer proposed, in the dead of the night, with an unnamed select group, is an impeachable offense. This madness needs to be reversed. I will be glad to sign a document for his recall. Power corrupts and total power corrupts totally. Governor Spitzer should be held accountable.

HAROLD B. SHUGAR
Albany

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Now he’s sponsoring a bill in the Assembly to make explicit that a Social Security number is required for a driver’s license, and if that fails, as he expects it will, since the majority Democrats won’t support it, he’s preparing a lawsuit to block the Spitzer administration from implementing its new policy.

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Let’s frame the problem. People in poor countries come to richer countries, legally and illegally, to earn money. This is a global issue, not limited to the USA, and the illegal flow of humans is based on opportunity and demand. Although many come here, others go to Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Even Taiwan has a problem with illegal workers from poorer areas of Southeast Asia.

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LICENSE TO KILL
ELIOT'S PASSPORT TO TERROR
By JAMES TEDISCO
Spitzer: Rolling back post-9/11 ID safeguards.October 8, 2007 -- WHEN I got my first driver's license at 16, my parents told me that having a license is a privilege that I should take very seriously. It looks like young Eliot Spitzer never got that Civics 101 lecture.

Gov. Spitzer last month announced a complicated and expensive plan to allow illegal aliens to get New York driver's licenses. It's wrong - and it's dangerous.

Wrong? Definitely. Of course, anyone here legally ought to be able to get a license. But we should not reward those who come to our shores illegally.

Dangerous? Absolutely - in this post-9/11 world.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, seven of the 9/11 hijackers used fraudulent means to acquire legal ID in Virginia. In fact, it's been reported that the terrorists paid illegal aliens to falsely vouch for the terrorists' residency, and help them get those Ids.

This allowed the killers to move about our country freely, to rent vehicles - and to board the planes they used to slaughter 3,000 innocents.

After 9/11, our state tightened its rules to make sure a New York driver's license couldn't be a "passport to terror." Now the Spitzer administration intends to roll back those safeguards - and so risk the safety of our citizens.

Actually, the governor's plan presents a clear and present danger to the safety and security of our entire nation.

It's also a clear violation of state law: Section 502, subsection 1 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law directs the governor and commissioner of motor vehicles to require a Social Security number of all license applicants.

And the "Illegal Eliot" plan also conflicts with federal law.

The Real ID Act and the regulations to implement it require states to meet certain minimum security standards in issuing driver's licenses. One requirement: An applicant must produce a valid Social Security Number or proof of ineligibility. The only acceptable foreign documents would be a foreign passport with a valid, current U.S. visa. Those standards were developed to protect against identity theft and to protect our national security.

The governor's unwise plan also means trouble for New Yorkers traveling to Canada. Right now, you can cross the border with a N.Y. license and a birth certificate - no passport needed. But the rules are set to tighten in May, and the state's been working with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure a New York license is still good enough. There's no chance of that if Spitzer's program goes ahead.

That's more than an inconvenience - it's a problem for the New York economy, especially the ailing Upstate areas that the governor claims to care about.

There's even a real risk that "Illegal Eliot" may leave a New York license as invalid ID for airport travel.

The problems don't end there. The governor is also begging for increased voter fraud, since voter-registration is virtually automatic once you get your license under the federal "motor voter" law.

Of course, Spitzer's plan ignores more than 230 years of U.S. law on immigration. We're the land of opportunity, and should continue to welcome people to our great country - but it should be done in a lawful way. Any change in licensing policy should conform to the Real ID Act.

My Assembly Republican colleagues and I are calling on the governor and the DMV to act by Oct. 31 to rescind this proposal, follow the law or face legal action. If necessary, we'll sue to prevent this misguided plan from taking effect.

In case Gov. Spitzer decides to drag out the fight in court, I'm also introducing legislation to prevent his change from happening. I've asked Speaker Sheldon Silver to put this urgent national-security matter at the top of our agenda when the Assembly reconvenes this month. (Just this week, the first Democratic Assembly member, Ginny Fields of Suffolk County signed onto my bill.) All Assembly members should have their say on a policy that affects all New Yorkers.

This isn't a partisan issue; it's a matter of public safety. It's why county clerks, who run the local DMV offices across the state, are saying they won't enforce the governor's reckless plan. (The clerks' association just voted 29 to 4 against the Spitzer changes.) And it's why Democrats like Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, former New York Mayor Ed Koch and Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand have come out against the plan

If it is a privilege to have a driver license, then the state has a responsibility to award that privilege with great care and judgment. The fairness and integrity of our legal system, not to mention the safety of all New Yorkers, is at stake.

James Tedisco is the minority leader in the state Assembly.

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County Clerk to appear on CNN
Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola to talk about drivers license dispute  
  
By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer
Monday, October 8, 2007

TROY -- Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola will appear on the Lou Dobbs program at 6 p.m. on CNN to speak about his opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plans to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
  
``I feel great. My message has always been the same,'' Merola said in a telephone interview from the Amtrak train he was taking to New York City.

``I'm adamant about the fact I'm not going to process a license in my county,'' Merola said about his stance on Spitzer's proposal.

Merola will report to the Rensselaer County Legislature Tuesday night about his stance.