BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer
LONG BRANCH – A higher than average number of Latino students skipped school last Monday, apparently in protest of pending new immigration laws.
Long Branch Superintendent of Schools Joseph M. Ferraina said Tuesday that usually there is an absentee rate among Latino students of between 5 and 7 percent, but last Monday between 30 and 40 percent of these students were absent.
“It was tremendous,” he said. “It was in the 30s to the upper-40s percent in most schools.”
Monday was the day that both documented and undocumented immigrants participated in “A Day Without Immigrants,” with protests held nationwide to show the impact immigrants have on America.
Congress is currently debating immigration reform legislation and the protection of America’s borders from illegal immigration. Many immigrants reportedly did not go to work or shop on Monday as an economic boycott.
Terri Blair, the executive director of the Long Branch Concordance, a grassroots collaborative that formed in March 2004 to address the needs of city residents, is planning a meeting of the concordance for June to discuss the experience of the Latino immigrant.
Blair said Monday that the goal is to provide better resources for immigrants in the area, and that she has reached out to leaders in Red Bank, another municipality with a burgeoning Latino and Hispanic population, 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 will probably come up in the discussion.
The meeting is set for June 21.
Absences were also reportedly due to apprehension about rumored roundups of illegal immigrants.
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.”
In nearby Little Silver, more than five times the usual number of Hispanic and Latino students were absent from Red Bank Regional High School on Monday, a rate attributed to fear of arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.
RBR Vice Principal Risa Cullinane said Monday that usually four or five Latino students are absent on any given day, but Monday there were between 25 and 30 absent Latino students.
“In 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.”
Cullinane said that although she sent a letter in Spanish home with Hispanic students, assuring their parents that school was a safe place, many students did not attend school Monday.
The Pedro L. Bou, associate pastor of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Bridge Avenue, said Monday that although the church parking lot is a usual gathering area for day laborers, 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 ten. Usually, there are 60 or 80, and that’s just here. Over by the Galleria, there are more.”
Bou said that there is a sense of uneasiness and, in some cases, fear among illegal immigrants in Red Bank, 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 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 big 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 that there are two services held in Spanish each week.