[Marxism] Crackdown on L.I. Landlords criticized as Immigrant harassment

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Full:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/nyregion/15housing.html? 
ref=nyregion

The New York Times
January 15, 2008
Crackdown on L.I. Landlords Is Criticized as Harassment of Immigrants
By COREY KILGANNON

WESTHAMPTON, N.Y. — The officers showed up at 6 a.m. at the four
  connected apartments on Old Country Road.

They went from bedroom to bedroom, waking children and photographing
  the premises and the residents, who all were Latino immigrants, of
  varying legal status.

“They asked everyone for their papers and we did not know why,”
  said Marco Yat, 40, a Guatemalan who lives in one of the apartments  
with
  his wife and three young children. “The children were scared.”

Thirteen Guatemalan passports were confiscated. But while the Oct. 30
  raid may have seemed like an immigration raid to the residents, it
  turned out to be a building inspection, conducted by code enforcement
  officers and police officers from the Town of Southampton, which  
includes
  Westhampton.

And within hours, the occupants of three of the units — more than a
  dozen people — had packed up and moved out, because they suspected
  that the inspectors were more interested in their immigration  
status than
  in broken smoke detectors and certificates of occupancy, said Mr. Yat,
  a construction worker who remained, he said, because he and his family
  are United States citizens....

Several notices of violations were issued to the landlord. The
  citations and other details of the inspection were posted on the  
town’s Web
  site, along with those of other inspections carried out “to identify
  and crack down on unsafe and overcrowded living conditions within
  Southampton Town.”
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