Who Has Blood on Their Hands in Anti-Immigrant Murder?
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It’s been a little over a week since a group of youth in Suffolk County took the life of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero, stabbing him to death in what law enforcement officers called “a hunt to beat up some Mexicans.” Seventeen-year old Jeffrey Conroy has been charged with a hate crime for his alleged role in the taking of Lucero’s life.
Neighbors, friends and family struggle to come to terms with this senseless tragedy. Just how did seven young people with their whole lives ahead of them ever come to believe that they had both duty and permission to attack and murder someone because they perceived him to be an immigrant? Not only should Suffolk County be asking this question, but all of America as well.
In one tragic moment before midnight on November 8, Marcelo Lucero became America’s “canary in a coal mine.” Like a canary, Lucero’s brutal murder should serve as a warning of a coming crisis bubbling up in the wake of the failure to secure meaningful national immigration reform. A crisis that if ignored will wound civil society, multicultural democracy and the gains made during the 1960’s movement for civil rights.
Not surprisingly, Suffolk County, like the rest of America, is not immune from the poison of anti-immigrant organizing. For nearly 10-years, organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have been on the ground in Long Island seeding communities like Suffolk County with their special brew of racism, xenophobia and social Darwinism. The results have been devastating.
To have an understanding of who exactly FAIR is, one only has to look to its founder John Tanton. Tanton has long believed in eugenics, the idea that one race of people is genetically superior. He still sits on FAIR’s board, despite having written, “Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany did little to advance the discussion of eugenics among sensitive persons.” (John Tanton, The Case for Passive Eugenics).
After being on the ground in Long Island for nearly a year, the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s work began to show results. In August 2001, Christopher Slavin and Ryan Wagner (also young men) lured two immigrants under the pretense of work to an abandoned building on Long Island and attempted to murder them by beating them with hammers for no other reason than that the two immigrants were Mexican. At the time those who had been infected by FAIR’s dystopian view of immigration called the attack an “isolated event.”
Seven years later it appears that the song remains the same. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy who founded a FAIR front organization called Mayors and County Executives for Immigration Reform said this of the lynching of Marcelo Lucero “The beating, stabbing and killing of Marcello Lucero wasn’t a question of any county policy or legislation; it was a question of bad people doing horrific things,” [Associated Press, November 12, 2008] Levy said. However, newspapers across the country have correctly pointed out that heated rhetoric by anti-immigrant groups has been the source fueling growing attacks across the country.
Yes, seven youth are responsible for taking the life of a thirty-seven year old man who was on the way to a friend’s house to watch a movie. However, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Steve Levy are equally responsible—they created the environment that led seven youth to believe that beating immigrants was a socially acceptable pastime. It’s a little late for FAIR and Steve Levy to pass the buck when for years they have sat in judgment declaring to those very same youth that, like the Dred Scott Decision, “immigrants have no rights that citizens need respect.”
Several days later Levy finally understood that the whole world was watching and back peddled, offering a half-hearted attempt at an apology as reported by Newsday. In his statement Levy doesn’t apologize for manipulating the facts surrounding immigration, he doesn’t seek forgiveness for his continual portrayal of immigrants as a criminal and dangerous element, nor does he take the opportunity to finally distance himself completely from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Instead Levy only apologizes for being wrong that the story didn’t die alongside the body of Marcelo Lucero.
It is time to shun organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform and supposed leaders like Steve Levy. Levy and those like him have nothing to offer Americans but fear, lies, and now murder. They have torn our communities apart and now individuals like Marcelo Lucero are paying the price.
There are many views and opinions regarding immigration but we’ve come to a point where we must understand that Levy and FAIR and their allies do not represent any of those views accept the ones steeped in bigotry and hatred. We already know the costs of those views—we can see it on the bruised and battered body of Marcelo Lucero.
In the days to come we will see Steve Levy and the Federation for American Immigration Reform run for cover. They will attempt to shield themselves from responsibility by manipulating our sense of reconciliation and our attempts to find “middle ground” in all the tension surrounding this murder. However, it is time for each of us to draw a clear moral barrier against anti-immigrant bigotry. Marcelo Lucero was not the problem, nor is any immigrant, whether documented or not. The problem lies with those who continue to inject bigotry into the issue of immigration with no consequences from the American public.
If we fail to stand together with Marcelo Lucero by rejecting Steve Levy and his ilk only one thing remains clear—that while blood may be on the hands of Levy and seven youth it is surely on ours as well.
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