Bishop, Altschuler Divided Over Immigration Issue

President Barack Obama’s executive order last Friday to allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to remain in the country has forced Republicans and Democrats nationally to take a stance on the thorny issue—including here in the race for the 1st Congressional District seat on Long Island.

U.S. Representative Tim Bishop, a Democrat seeking his sixth term, wholeheartedly embraced the new policy, and has already dedicated a Congressional staffer to help individuals become temporarily legalized. His Republican opponent Randy Altschuler has criticized the president’s unilateral move to bypass Congress, and attacked Mr. Bishop for using his office to “promote Obama backdoor amnesty policy.”

The new immigration policy saves young undocumented immigrants from deportation if they are younger than 30, were brought into the country before they were 16 and have lived here for at least five years. They must also be in school, have graduated from high school, or have served in the military.

The policy also requires an individual to demonstrate good standing, by not having been convicted of a felony, a serious misdemeanor, multiple misdemeanor offenses or pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Mr. Bishop said he’s been moved by the immigration issue, and said he has found it particularly “heartbreaking” when he visits high schools in the district where undocumented students are at a loss as to how to live their lives after graduating. Often the soon-to-be-graduates ask him “Now what do I do?” he said.

“I think at its heart is fairness,” said Mr. Bishop. “This is, it’s very carefully crafted, to deal only with those individuals who came to this country through no choice of their own. They were brought here by their parents. I think the simple question of fairness demands that we 
provide these people with an opportunity for a life out of the shadows.”

Like other Republicans across the country, including Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Mr. Altschuler has framed the move as an election-year stunt and called it “political pandering at its worst.” He assailed Mr. Bishop, saying the congressman should instead be focusing on job creation in the district.

“The president is effectively sidestepping the problem,” Mr. Altschuler said on Monday. “He hasn’t done anything to fix the problem and frankly, Congressman Bishop’s stunning release just shows how out of touch he is.”

Asked if he would support the policy if called to vote upon it in Congress, Mr. Altschuler did not answer yes or no, saying only that “It’s got to be considered in the context of a larger program to deal with the entire illegal immigration problem.”

“We can’t be granting amnesty to people,” Mr. Altschuler said. “And we can’t not put in place a long-term solution to the problem.”

Long Island’s 1st Congressional District has become a hotbed for immigration issues in part after it was thrust into the national spotlight in 2008 after Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was fatally stabbed in a racially-motivated attack by a group of teenagers in Patchogue. It’s unclear how the politics of the executive order will play out in this race, given the emotion surrounding immigration issues here and the rapidly rising number of Latino residents.

The number of people self-identifying as Hispanic or Latino in Southampton and East Hampton towns swelled, according to figures in the 2010 Census. In East Hampton, the percentage climbed from 14 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2010, or 2,746 people. In Southampton, that figure skyrocketed from 8 percent in 2000 to nearly 20 percent in 2010, for a total growth of 6,595 people.

Observers of the race can’t be sure whether Mr. Bishop’s stance will help or harm him in November’s election. Two years ago, Mr. Bishop narrowly kept his seat by about 600 votes against Mr. Altschuler. With a race that close, anything could affect the election, according to Albert Cover, Ph.D., a political science professor at Stony Brook University. But he said he thinks it’ll ultimately boil down to how President Obama does in the district.

“Given the peculiar nature of how close the race was, you certainly are going to be able to point to specific things like this and say, ‘that affected the outcome,’” the professor said. “And you can say that about a lot of things because, again, the race was so close. But I think the real story will be the more 
general one of how popular President Obama is in the district than the extent to which that spills over into the Congressional race.”