U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III called for a complete federal immigration policy overhaul, police reform, and touted his work on behalf of the Latino community in an Essex Media Group editorial board interview on Friday.
The four-term congressman hopes to unseat U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey in the Sept. 1 primary.
Stripping away qualified immunity protection for police officers is only a first step, said Kennedy, to comprehensive law enforcement reform. As a former prosecutor, Kennedy said he witnessed substance addicted and mentally ill people charged with crimes and levied fines they could not pay before the charges were dismissed and they were back on the street without treatment.
“We do not address mental health and myriad of other challenges,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy said structural inequality and inadequate economic responses to climate change are among his central campaign issues.
“There are structural barriers that have been calcified in our system that prohibit and prevent all Americans from one, being treated equally, but two, from being able to participate in the America we aspire to be and that our founders claimed we were,” he said when asked about an earlier statement he made calling structural racism the “core of the American system.”
Throughout his interview, Kennedy continued to draw on the ways in which racial, gender, and economic disparities affect large portions of the country and Commonwealth.
Among other problems, he criticized the continuing impact of not only historically-racist practices such as Jim Crow and segregation, but also modern-day zoning laws and legislations such as the Fair Labor Standards and Fair Housing Acts, which he said don’t take all populations into account.
“The net worth of a white household in greater Boston is $247,000,” he said. “For a Black household, it’s eight bucks. For a Dominican household, it’s zero.”
Kennedy cited a June 2020 report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which, after finding 21.3 percent of the city’s neighborhoods had gentrified between 2013 and 2017, determined Boston to be the third most-gentrified city in the country.
Boston also has some of the worst traffic in the country, he noted, attributing the issue to a lack of affordable housing.
“The people who actually power that city can’t afford to live there,” he said. “I think the only conclusion we can come to is that there are structural barriers that have been deliberately and intentionally put into our system that prevent all of our people from being able to access the economic opportunity that our country promises.”
Kennedy said America’s immigration system must be rebuilt to reflect the “values … lived reality, and the history” of the country.
“My own great-great-grandfather arrived in East Boston during the (Irish) Potato Famine on a coffin ship with nothing, and he was not exactly greeted here with open arms,” he said. “The population of Ireland still has not recovered. An entire nation fled. That story of natural disaster, coupled with government oppression that forces people to flee to pursue a better life for their families, is the story we’re also seeing take place on our borders. It looks a little different, but it’s the same story.”
Kennedy said the next round of federal economic assistance during the coronavirus pandemic must ensure minority-owned small businesses receive assistance he said has been lacking to date.
“Government has not got it right,” he said.
Kennedy said he was the first candidate in 2020 to hold campaign town meetings in Spanish and said he is working to break down the barrier between people seeking representation and their representatives in Congress.
“Barriers exist between policymakers and our community,” he said.
Kennedy said “the best money that government can spend is on early childhood education,” calling it “a multi-generational investment.” Lack of early education sets a child up for “massive learning inequity,” he said.
He pointed to the military’s strong early education system aimed at aiding families with parents deploying and facing separation from spouses, partners and children.
He said the Green New Deal and his stance on the environment sets the stage for starting work on climate change reversal and putting thousands of people to work in alternative energy industries.
When asked what the differences were between him and Markey, he said, “there’s a bunch, so thank you for asking.”
Kennedy believes Markey has not been sufficiently engaged in being a senator.
“The biggest piece of that is literally the way in which we define the job as being a United States senator,” Kennedy said. “Markey’s argument has essentially been, ‘I voted the right way. I filed the right bill. I’m endorsed by this group because I voted the right way. I whole-heartredly respect that, but I whole-heartedly disagree with that limited idea of what it means to be a U.S. senator, particularly at this moment.
“Being a U.S. senator from Massachusetts gives you the platform and the ability to do good. And man, at this moment, there’s an awful lot of good that needs to be done.”
And he does not believe Markey is active enough in that respect.
“If you’re not out there, and you’re not fighting for someone, and you’re not out there fighting for the change that we need to try to address those issues, then what are you doing?” he asked.