Gentile And Donovan Split On Immigration Issues

Councilman Vincent Gentile and Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan are divided on how to handle the millions of undocumented immigrants who live in the United States.

While both congressional hopefuls are in favor of securing the Mexican-American border, Democrat Gentile supports offering a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants who are already in the country, while Republican Donovan says the process would take too long, according to a recent Staten Island Advance article.

Donovan, on the other hand, isn’t in a rush to give citizen status to those who have broken the law.

“I think what we have to do is reward people who have followed our process,” he said. “We have an immigration process in place. It takes a very long time to become a citizen of this great country and maybe that’s the reform we have to look at, making the process shorter.”

Donovan has not proposed an alternative to granting undocumented immigrants amnesty.

The Staten Island prosecutor broached the issue again in a campaign email yesterday, calling on Gentile to join him in condemning a bill that would grand undocumented New Yorkers voting rights. He criticized Gentile for not apposing Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverit’s election, since she has expressed interest in passing such a bill.

The bill in question, proposed several years ago by Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm, never made it to the Council floor, though a new bill is in the works that would grant “legally present” non-citizens voting rights, as first reported by Newsday.

Gentile spokesperson Justin Brannan offered a snarky response to Donovan’s charge, via the Advance:

We’re happy to see Camp Donovan has woken up but unfortunately for them this attack misses the target. Because just like Dan Donovan is against raising the minimum wage and protecting Social Security and Medicare, Deputy Leader Councilman Gentile has always been against the Non-Citizens Voting Bill. But hey, never let the truth get in the way of a scorching press release, amirite?

Earlier this month, both candidates commended House Republicans for putting aside hard feelings over President Barak Obama’s executive action on immigration, and approving a $40 million spending budget for the Department of Homeland Security – preventing partial a shutdown of the agency, reports Capital New York. Obama’s order extended millions of deportation stays and work permits for undocumented immigrants.

Both candidates are seeking election for the seat of former Congressman Michael Grimm, who resigned after pleading guilty to tax fraud in January. The special election will be held on Tuesday, May 5.