By David Cruz
Correspondent
Seven-term Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage won his most recent re-election last year running unopposed. The mayor of the fourth largest city in the state is a Democrat and — for the most part — aligned politically and philosophically with other big city mayors. But Bollwage is facing criticism these days after city police helped immigration agents raid a local business in an attempt to arrest an allegedly unauthorized immigrant.
Bollwage made matters worse, according to some immigrant advocates, when he said that Elizabeth would not join the state’s other big municipalities in declaring itself a sanctuary city. Elizabeth is a majority minority city — 60 percent of its residents are Latino, with some estimates putting the unauthorized population in the tens of thousands.
We reached out to the mayor several times but he wouldn’t take our call and he wouldn’t call us back. He says that he won’t declare Elizabeth a sanctuary city because he doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that there are tens of thousands of unauthorized immigrants living here, which has some immigrant advocates scratching their heads.
“The cat is out of the bag on that one, Mr. Mayor,” responded Analilia Mejia, executive director of New Jersey Working Families. “The reality is that your community is composed of several different immigrant groups, different vulnerable communities, that have expressed their concerns.”
The mayor has supported municipal IDs but even some of his allies are wondering about his logic on sanctuary cities, although none agreed to talk about it on camera. Edison Hernandez is a 15-year city resident — unauthorized — who volunteers with Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrants rights and service organization. Hernandez has two children, one born here, the other a so-called DREAMer, brought here by her parents when she was very young. He says having the mayor say he won’t declare Elizabeth a sanctuary city is disheartening.
“Maybe having a sanctuary city might not sound like much, but it’s a message to the community that we’re protected by the mayor,” he said, in Spanish. “So, if we know this is a sanctuary city that means local police aren’t going to be acting like immigration agents, and that makes us feel that we’re protected by the mayor.”
Sarah Cullinane is Make the Road’s state director. She says the fear in the community is not an exaggeration.
“Every day we get dozens of text messages, people wonder if the police is working with immigration, if there are raids happening. If there’s a traffic stop or a police stop, people are automatically terrified that it will involve immigration,” she said. “And Elizabeth is a city of immigrants and having immigrants be able to work with the police, trust the police and feel protected in their home city is really critical.”
“For us it’s a big difference because if we’re not a sanctuary city we feel unprotected and we know that, in other cities that are sanctuary cities, the police protect their neighbors, they protect us,” added Elizabeth resident Olga Armas. “It’s a big difference. I don’t know what the mayor doesn’t understand.”
The unauthorized don’t vote, so it’s unclear what political cost Bollwage might have to pay for his position, but members of the immigrant community say they know who their friends are and — nowadays — aren’t entirely sure that Bollwage is one of them.