Cambridge a sanctuary -- for immigrants who can afford it

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --This famously liberal city is serving notice that undocumented immigrants are welcome here, even as Congress considers tough new penalties. Police won't harass you. Education and health care are available.

Here's the hitch: You probably can't afford to live here.

Back in 1985, when Cambridge first declared itself a "sanctuary city," rent control kept apartments affordable.

These days, Cambridge no longer has rent control. Cheap apartments were turned into luxury condominiums, and the city -- home of such prestigious universities as MIT and Harvard -- is now among the most expensive places to live in the United States, with the average rent for a one-bedroom at around $1,400 a month.

So while the city renews its open-arms declaration -- as other U.S. cities are doing as well -- even supporters acknowledge that it's not exactly a magnet for new immigrants, particularly illegal ones who generally exist under the radar.

"Like anybody else, we look for places we can afford," said Elena Letona, a naturalized citizen from El Salvador who is executive director of Centro Presente, a Cambridge nonprofit that spearheaded the 1980s effort to provide sanctuary to immigrants from Central America, and which is backing the new push.

Portuguese and Brazilian markets and restaurants dot Cambridge Street near the Somerville border, but locals say there are fewer immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- in recent years.

The Santo Christo Center, a once-popular club for Portuguese immigrants, sits closed across the street. A Century 21 "for sale" sign hangs on the front door.

"Now, everybody's moving north," toward New Hampshire, said Goao Cafua, taking a break while slicing stickleback fish at Fernandes Market on Cambridge Street. "The housing is cheaper."

Cafua, who like most Portuguese here hails from the Azores Islands, bought a home in Lawrence, an industrial city about 30 miles north of Boston and near the New Hampshire border.

Of course, it's much harder for immigrants today to gain legal status. Cafua, 56, said he became legal three months after moving here in 1974. He says today it takes 10 years.

Immigrants comprise just over 14 percent of the Bay State's roughly 6 million residents, excluding the estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts.

Nationally, there are estimates of 11 million undocumented immigrants. Congress is debating measures ranging from granting citizenship to many of them, to making it a felony to be undocumented.

The Cambridge City Council is set to vote Monday to reaffirm its sanctuary status, which instructs agencies, including police, not to inquire about a person's immigration status when providing government services. The proposal would establish an immigrant rights and citizenship commission to "ensure the equal status of immigrants in education, employment, health care, housing, political, social and legal spheres."

"What's the point? Why invite people? The only people who can afford to live here are graduate students whose parents are paying their rent," said John Murphy, 46, said while visiting the city's Central Square neighborhood, where he lived for 20 years before moving to Austin, Texas. "It's creating false hope."

Letona said it's important to create a welcoming environment, especially in light of the anti-immigration voices nationally.

"A very basic human activity, which is migrate for survival, is now being viewed as a criminal activity," she said. "Their very existence is denied and they're called illegals. They're being scapegoated for stealing jobs. They're not stealing jobs. Jobs are being given to them because their labor is affordable."

Several other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco have made similar declarations. On the steps of City Hall last month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed "we don't ask for anyone's legal status" when providing city services.

Several smaller California cities also have declared themselves sanctuaries. The Los Angeles County town of Maywood, which is 96 percent Hispanic, recently disbanded a traffic control unit because it was perceived as a threat to illegal immigrants without driver's licenses. More than two-thirds of Maywood's 29,000 residents are undocumented.

But the movement has sparked a backlash. In Phoenix, a group called Protect Our City is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to require police cooperation with federal immigration authorities within the city boundaries.

In Colorado, an "anti-sanctuary" bill is pending that would deny state funds to cities that discourage or prevent police officers from working with federal immigration authorities. The measure would affect Denver, which has refused to round up illegal immigrants for eight years on the grounds that federal law treated legal and illegal immigrants differently and unfairly punished children and senior citizens.

"In Cambridge, of course, it has not been all that challenging because (Cambridge) has always been very welcoming to immigrants," Letona said. "We're based in Cambridge, so we wanted to start here. We're going to go to other cities. I'm hoping that this will catch on."