When Marcelo Lucero was murdered in Suffolk County, one step in the right direction from my perspective of years of looking at hate crimes against Latinos, was the Feds opening up an investigation on a pattern and practice of hate crimes against Latinos, with local law enforcement and prosecutors being complicit by not acting on behalf of victims as per their jobs. The report released yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center confirms that the pattern and practice of fear and violence has its roots in decades old anti-immigrant speech that racializes immigrants as brown.

The Lucero murder, while the worst of the violence so far, was hardly an isolated incident. Latino immigrants in Suffolk County are regularly harassed, taunted, and pelted with objects hurled from cars. They are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles, and many report being beaten with baseball bats and other objects. Others have been shot with BB guns or pepper-sprayed. Most will not walk alone after dark; parents often refuse to let their children play outside. A few have been the targets of arson attacks and worse. Adding to immigrants’ fears is the furious rhetoric of groups like the now-defunct Sachem Quality of Life, whose long-time spokesman regularly referred to immigrants as “terrorists.” The leader of another nativist group, this one based in California, was one of many adding their vitriol, describing a “frightening” visit to an area where Latinos are concentrated in Suffolk: “They urinate, they defecate, [they] make sexual overtures to women.”

Fueling the fire are many of the very people who are charged with protecting the residents of Suffolk County — local politicians and law enforcement officials. At one point, one county legislator said that if he saw an influx of Latino day laborers in his town, “we’ll be out with baseball bats.” Another said that if Latino workers were to gather in a local neighborhood, “I would load my gun and start shooting, period.” A third publicly warned undocumented residents that they “better beware.” County Executive Steve Levy, the highest-ranking official in Suffolk, is no friend of immigrants, either. When criticized by a group of immigrant advocates, for example, Levy called the organization a den of “Communists” and “anarchists.” At the same time, immigrants told the SPLC that the police were, at best, indifferent to their reports of harassment, and, at worst, contributors to it. Many said police did not take their reports of attacks seriously, often blaming the victim instead. They said they are regularly subjected to racial profiling while driving and often to illegal searches and seizures. They said there’s little point in going to the police, who are often not interested in their plight and instead demand to know their immigration status.

Pero what does this have to do with Comprehensive Immigration Reform? According to the suggested remedies by the SPLC, plenty.

* First, local politicians should halt their angry demagoguery on the issue of immigration. There is abundant evidence that Suffolk County officials have contributed substantially to an atmosphere conducive to racial violence.
* Second, the county and state legislatures should mandate that crime victims and witnesses not be asked their immigration status during criminal investigations. As long as they are, immigrants will be unwilling to come out of the shadows to report crimes against themselves and others.
* Third, law enforcement officials should train officers to ensure that they take seriously cases of hate-motivated crime. Until they do, Latino residents will continue to distrust law enforcement officials and avoid cooperation.

These same recommendations can and should be applied to the current strategy pushing for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We already have seen an up in the levels of hate speech in the mass media via personalities like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and front groups like ALIPAC and FAIR. It does more damage to our communities when legislators like Charles Schumer, held up as the champions of immigration reform, support the loaded language of illegality. With friends like that who needs enemies.

It’s not enough to protect the victims and witnesses of hate crimes by not asking their immigration status. As the case of Julio Maldonado and Denis Calderon show us, it’s easy to make a Latino immigrant hate crime victim into a criminal. So called reforms to enforcement measures like 287(g) lay the groundwork for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that is palatable to the DC advocates but while denying the human rights of Latinos via racial profiling and the prison industrial complex.

The National Immigration Law Center delivered a letter to President Obama signed by 521 organizations (VivirLatino is one of the signatories) demanding an end to 287(g) programs. Immigration reform that accepts an expansion on enforcement powers, immigration reform that asks for people to be taken out of the shadows only put them under the spotlight of an already racist criminal justice system doesn’t have the best interest of immigrant communities at it’s core. People need to stop acting as if the immigrant law enforcement track, the comprehensive immigration reform track, and the struggle against racist hate crimes are parallel lines when they all intersect and feed into each other. Did the organization you work with sign the letter? Did the organization you support for support for supporting immigration reform sign the letter? If they didn’t we need to ask why are they trying to have it both ways, saying they support immigration reform while throwing immigrants under the bus in the name of something that looks only vaguely like justice.