Once again, S.C. Steve Levy's proposal to require that companies doing business with the County are law abiding, and that they enjoy no unfair advantage over their competitors by hiring illegal immigrants, has come under assault. Once again, we speak out in defense of the measure and urge the Suffolk County legislature to withstand these assaults, and adopt it.

This time, the Long Island Council of Churches has lashed out calling the measure mean and inhumane. Spokespeople for the organization, which undeniably does a tremendous amount of good work in our communities, testified that these illegal immigrants are flocking to our cities and communities because they have no other way of finding work and feeding their families. They outlined some of the deplorable conditions they live under in their own countries, most of which we can't honestly reject.

Their reasoning, however is seriously flawed. And, the organization is not taking a broad and objective position with regard to all of the tenets of their JudeoChristian philosophy, namely that kindness, caring and concern for our fellow man must be applied within the framework of personal responsibility and justice.

As the LICC reaches out to the individuals who have entered our country in blatant violation of our laws, encouraging even more to do so, they ignore the millions of Americans who are hurt by their misapplied compassion. They include older Americans struggling to live in their homes as taxes skyrocket, poorer and uninsured Americans who can't get decent health care, and schools that struggle with funding, caused in part by the burden illegal immigrants have placed on our social systems. They include business owners who are forced to compete in an economic system that has been skewed by those who continue exploit illegal immigrants while government and organizations such as the LICC turn their heads-and their compassion- on all of them.

It's important to understand the basic equity of Levy's proposal and to speak up and defend it because this measure draws a line in the sand. If the County Executive's bill is buried by the misguided likes of the LICC, that defeat will resound from the halls of the legislature to every city and state in this country, and straight to Washington and it's the extremists in this country who will then be deciding immigration policy in this country for all of us.

We urge our county lawmakers to resist the voices of the pick-and-choose compassionates who want to open our homes to their missionary endeavors, and to stand up on behalf of those to whom they have pledged to protect, by passing this reasonable bill into law.