Recently named NY Senator "Borderline Xenophobic"

Gillibrand’s Immigration Views Draw Fire
New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: January 27, 2009

...Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, opposed any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants, supported deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws, spoke out against Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to allow illegal immigrants to have driver’s licenses and sought to make English the official language of the United States...

...A group of Hispanic state lawmakers have threatened to support a primary challenger to Ms. Gillibrand, who must stand for election next year. And El Diario La Prensa, the Spanish-language daily, described her as “a disappointing choice.”

“If Gov. David Paterson wanted to deliver a slap to immigrant New Yorkers, he effectively did so with his appointment yesterday of Representative Kirsten Gillibrand,” El Diario said in an editorial on Saturday.

The flap over Ms. Gillibrand’s immigration record underscores the political challenges she faces as she broadens her political constituency from an overwhelmingly white district along New York’s eastern fringe to the entire state. Census data show that about 21 percent of the state’s population and 36 percent of New York City’s residents were born overseas, said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College...more