There was a time when immigrants lived and worked peacefully in semi-rural Suffolk County, but those days are over.

In recent years in Farmingville, a city of some 16,000 inhabitants, the immigrant day-laborer situation has generated powerful controversy. Hispanics we interviewed in the past week confessed their fears of being attacked.

“If you walk along the streets, you'll have bottles and eggs thrown at you from cars, and they shout ugly things at you,” stated Enrique González, 23. “You no longer feel good being here and jobs have gotten scarcer because now everyone has started asking for papers,” he said.

González recalls that this past April a day laborer was miraculously spared when a car jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and plowed into a group of laborers. The police believe that this was a premeditated act.

To Ana Poppe, the host of Radio Fórmula, a program at the local radio station, the atmosphere for immigrants in Suffolk is “hostile.”

“Many Hispanics call up the station every day in tears to tell me they can't take the situation any longer, that they feel persecuted as if they'd committed a major crime,” Poppe averred. “In Suffolk anti-immigrant residents persecute the day laborers, they attack them verbally, they throw bottles at them and no one does a thing to stop them,” she asserts.

During the past few months, the noose around undocumented employees has tightened in Suffolk. Activism by anti-immigrant groups has resulted in the passage of several anti-immigrant laws by the County Legislature.

Last week the Suffolk legislators approved a law which creates a pilot program obliging all contractors who work for county agencies to verify the immigration status of their employees via the federal data base E-Verify. They also voted to appeal a January decision by a New York State Supreme Court judge that invalidates a law requiring all 17,000 contractors with county licenses to prove that their employees are not undocumented. And in addition, another bill was introduced in the county legislature which would force all employers, not just those with state contracts, to verify their employees' immigration status.

The fear that these anti-immigrant laws has unleashed among immigrants is evident in Farmingville's Paradise Bar on Ocean Avenue. No sooner have they noticed the appearance of this reporter, than dozens of Portuguese immigrants melted away

“People are scared,” explains Rui Reigota, an immigrant construction worker, as he follows a soccer game on television. “They see a person with a camera and right away they think he's Immigration,” he says.

In Bedford, a pair of gardeners mowing a local bank's lawn complain about the lack of opportunities.

“There's a lot of racism. They attack us from all sides, but at the same time they come looking for us to take care of their gardens. It's just not fair,” Adrián Ventura declared.

It is estimated that more than 300,000 Hispanics live on Long Island.

The anti-immigrant atmosphere is such that even those who reside there legally fear its effects.

Juan Arias, manager of the Compare store, fears that the anti-immigrant laws will damage his business.

“I've got many Hispanic employees, and I believe they are human beings who are trying to support their families,” he stated.

Samuel Contreras, manager of Gabino's Diner restaurant on Horseblock Avenue in Farmingville, declares that the police harass his clients.

“People are very frightened of going out to eat because they think they will be arrested. The police have arrested people just for being Hispanic,” he stated.

SIDEBAR:

Anti-Immigrant Measures

oLast week the Suffolk County Legislature passed a resolution to appeal the decision of a New York State Supreme Court judge which invalidated a January law that would have required the 17,000 county-licensed contractors to verify the immigration status of their employees.

oLast week the Suffolk County Legislature passed a law creating a pilot program requiring all contractors doing work for county agencies to verify the immigration status of their employees using the federal E-Verify data base.

oLast week the Suffolk County Legislature passed a law requiring the Probation Department to verify the immigration status of all offenders who enter the system.

oLast week a bill was introduced in the Suffolk County Legislature that would require all businesses to verify the immigration status of their employees, not only those who work for the County.