Your (New York's Suffolk County's) Tax Dollars at Work

While, on the one hand, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is hamming it up with Governor Spitzer to get some property tax relief . . .

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said: “I'm pleased that the Governor has incorporated in his budget many of the tax-trimming measures I've stressed, including capping the local share of the pre-school handicapped program, allowing schools to save through a health benefits consortium and expanding joint purchasing ventures.”

. . . it seems there are better ways in which he could be spending the County's monies.

To great fanfare in October 2006, Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, signed a new law requiring 6,000 contractors working for the county to affirm that their employees were not illegal immigrants, prompting fear of impromptu inspections and roundups of Hispanic men.

Since then, county officials have found exactly one worker without proper immigration documents, after conducting two sweeps of a total of 33 contractors last summer and fall. A second worker at the same construction company, North Star Concrete, was initially suspected, but the $9,500 fine regarding his status was dismissed when the company produced proper documentation.

Suffolk County is one of several municipalities nationwide to have experimented with such laws after seeing sharp increases in their Hispanic populations, which are often blamed for spikes in crime and overtaxed social services, schools, hospitals and jails.

So you pretty much waste the money it takes to enforce this law, the money it takes businesses to comply with this law, and all you have to show for is one worker without proper documents.  That's what happens when the Federal government is stuck in political limbo when it comes to immigration reform and the States - or counties - decide they "are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore!!!"