The Dark Side of Sanctuary Cities. And We Don't Mean Crime
It was Valentines Day. My wife and I had decided to celebrate that romantic evening at a friend's Thai restaurant in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. While enjoying a glass of moderately priced Merlot and exchanging politically incorrect assessments of other diners on the down-low, I noticed a trio of guests being seated at the table adjacent to ours. It was an elderly White male with, whom I presumed, was his elderly wife. The wife was a paraplegic in one of those extremely expensive, all purpose wheelchairs with the high neck brace. The third person in the group was a withered looking upper middle aged Black woman. I don't know why, but I began to wonder.
Somehow, it was clear to me that the Black woman was not the social equal of the elderly White couple. Perhaps it's when I overheard the Black woman's heavy Caribbean accent, as she dutifully attended the needs of the paraplegic woman, that I concluded the Black women was no family friend. The Black women was a servant. And even though the elderly White man ordered an entree for the Black woman, when the waiter arrived, her job was to constantly clean drool from the elderly White paraplegic's chin so the elderly White man could enjoy his meal in silence. I began to wonder some more.
I wondered how anybody could enjoy a fine, Thai meal when every bite taken was interrupted by having to mop slobber off the face of another. I wondered what other duties the Black woman was responsible for. And it wasn't long before I found out. The elderly paraplegic White woman motioned for assistance to use the restroom. I'll skip what I wondered about that. But still curious, I wondered how much money servants get paid to do work like that. And if it's not a lot, I wondered why anybody would want to be a slobber mopper or a butt wiper. I wondered if the Black woman with the heavy Caribbean accent was one of the UNDOCUMENTED CLASS! After all, not every undocumented is Mexican.
Since New York City is clearly a Don't Ask Don't Tell sanctuary space in America, I wasn't sure if I should be wondering about these things. But after my second glass of the moderately priced Merlot, I couldn't stop myself. I wondered if the Black woman had her "PAPERS". After all, slobber mopping and butt wiping are the types of jobs most Americans avoid when they can. And if she didn't have her "PAPERS", I wondered what that said about the elderly White couple? I wondered if this Black woman was one of the more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants doing New York City's dirty work.
I was so taken by this story building in my mind, my wife graciously indulged me during dinner, so I could google my wonders on her smartphone. I wanted to know what I was seeing in real time, so I queried Wikipedia right then, right there at the table while my better half enjoyed Siam Square's No. 61 Koong Tamarind. BTW, It was a kick ass dish of shrimp and chicken lightly breaded, topped with mild tamarind sauce, onions, bell peppers and scallions. And served with curried rice. While she grubbed out, this is what I learned:
According to Wikipedia: Although undocumented immigrants do not have legal permanent status in New York City, they have a significant presence in the city’s economy and job market. As former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained, “Although [undocumented immigrants] broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported”. According to a Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of 2000 to 2006 data, there are 374,000 undocumented immigrant workers in New York City, which makes up 10 percent of the resident workforce. That number has increased significantly since then.
Still, I was seeing only a small part of the picture. Another part of the story came into focus when I began to wonder about the wonderful food we were having and the friendly service being provided. Were these people servant types, too? We see the small statured Latin-looking men and women washing dishes, busing tables and delivering meals on bicycles around the city everyday. So I Googled that, too, and here is what I learned:
The restaurant industry may be the industry that employs the most undocumented immigrants. In 2007, 36 percent of restaurant workers were undocumented immigrants. According to a 2008 estimate from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks in the United States are undocumented immigrants. According to a 2005 report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York and the New York City Restaurant Industry Coalition, undocumented immigrant workers in the restaurant industry in New York City receive substantially lower wages than legal workers. Like this is news.
According to the report, the median wage of all restaurant workers in the city was $8.00 an hour. However, when undocumented immigrant workers’ earnings were taken out of the sample, the median wage rose to $9.00 an hour. A Manhattan chef and restaurateur explained, “We always, always hire the undocumented workers… It’s not just me, it’s everybody in the industry. First, they are willing to do the work. Second, they are willing to learn. Third, they are not paid as well. It’s an economic decision. It’s less expensive to hire an undocumented person”
I wondered if this was just the way things were. And if so, I knew it couldn't be right. By my observations, these people sounded more like slaves than workers. They labor long and hard hours for less pay than others workers. They have no rights to speak of other than human rights and human rights aren't taken very seriously in America anymore. If an employer wants to jerk an UNDOCUMENTED immigrant around for complaining about issues like shorting them on wages, time off, sexual harassment or a hostile work environment, they can be fired on the spot, ratted out to ICE and sent back to wherever they came from with few if any consequences to the employer.
When I realized New York City has a population of roughly 8.6 million with more than a half million "UNDOCUMENTED PEOPLES" among the count, I did the math. And what I found was one in every fifteen New Yorkers doesn't have their "PAPERS". This fact opened my eyes. I started seeing Black, Brown and Asian slaves everywhere. From my perspective, people finding themselves living on the down-low in America, without a hope or prayer for a pathway to citizenship, can consider themselves part of America's sanctioned SLAVE CLASS.
Bottom line: I now wonder if "Sanctuary Spaces" in America are really as benevolent as the term implies. I wondered if New York City's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy toward the UNDOCUMENTED is just a clever way of maintaining a docile and disposable slave labor force to serve Americans and American employers. I began to wonder if my wife and I could enjoy romantic evenings like this Valentine's Day, without a slave having to be exploited to make the evening affordable. I gave a generous tip. Podcast below.
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