The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 3

THE RECORD A-3 70 arrested in Passaic IN SATURDAY. MAY 23. 1998 raid mv A By ELIZABETH LLORENTE Staff Writer Immigration officials arrested more than 70 suspected illegal aliens at a Passaic garment factory Friday. The raid has caused some political controversy because immigration agents received the tip about the aliens from Rep. Bill Pa-screll's office.

Pascrell, a longtime champion of immigrants, also attended the raid. The Paterson Democrat said his role did not conflict with his usual support for immigrants and was proper. "I have no qualms of conscience here because I've fought for immigrants; for people who want to be here legally," he said. "But we cannot tolerate illegals who do not go through the process of being legal and who are taking jobs from people who need them." Pascrell's role, however, prompted criticism from a diverse group that ranged from the owner of the factory Cut Rite on Columbia Avenue to Republican they don't have papers to prove they're legaL" But in an interview at the factory, Mexican women arrested and released by the INS admitted they were here illegally. "We don't have our papers," said Francisca Vidals.

"We gave false papers to the employer when we came to look for a job because if you don't show something, you can't get work. We're not criminals. We need to feed our children." Told about the women's admission to being undocumented, Amoroso and Dell'Aquila expressed surprise. "That's the first time I've heard that," said Dell'Aquila. "I don't speak Spanish.

All I do is look at the documents and do what the Labor Department trains you to do to try make sure you hire authorized workers. I've had state and federal people come in and look at our files, and they haven't seen anything wrong." Joining the criticism of Pascrell was Rep. Marge Roukema, a legislators. "It's grandstanding," said Henry Amoroso, an attorney for the factory. "This is beyond the pale." Amoroso suggested that owner Anthony Dell'Aquila's annual $30,000 contributions to Republicans may have made him a target.

But Pascrell and his staff said they tipped immigration officials without knowing the identity of the factory's owners. Pascrell called the conspiracy theory "an attempt at damage control." "I haven't even heard of this person," he said, referring to Dell'Aquila. About 40 agents from the Newark office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service descended on the factory at about 9 a.m. Friday, surprising more than 150 foreign nationals who were hunched over their sewing machines. State and city police accompanied the INS agents.

Pascrell and at least one member of his staff also were there. After interviewing workers, the INS handcuffed and arrested about 70 immigrants who lacked proper documents, said agency spokeswoman Lynn Durko. The majority were Mexican women. Those who were pregnant or had young children were released on their own recognizance, Durko said. But all face deportation proceedings, Durko said.

About 50 percent of the factory workers are Mexican, 25 percent Polish, 15 percent Dominican, and the others are American-bom, Dell'Aquila said. Dell'Aquila said he runs a lawful operation, and noted that the workers are union members. He said his factory has passed all inspections. "This is a union shop, not a sweatshop," said Dell'Aquila, who lives in Paramus and lists Avon and Liz Claiborne among his clients. "The average person makes $7 an hour.

I check documents to make sure people can work. I turn away five to 10 girls a week who come looking for work because JAMES W. ANNESSSTAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Francesca Vidals, right, at the Cut Rite factory In Passaic, after her release Friday afternoon by the INS. She was among 70 arrested. Ridgewood Republican and one of the state's most vocal supporters of immigration control.

"I don't know why a member of Congress would go on INS business," Roukema said. "I think it's entirely inappropriate for a member of Congress to introduce himself into a raid. This is serious business. It For Teaneck's Longfellow School, a day of history and sadness -If "TV -V, US? J'H. By DON STANCAVISH Staff Writer TEANECK Ethel Scherer has had a certain fondness for Longfellow School all her life.

She's lived across the street from the brown-brick elementary school since 1924, the same year she earned straight A's at Longfellow. And when she wasn't studying, Scherer and her friends managed to have some fun, organizing school plays and, during the holidays, festooning the school with ornaments. This week, Longfellow was once again adorned with decorations, but this time the occasion was bittersweet: After 88 years, the cozy neighborhood school is closing its doors for good on June 30, part of Teaneck's ongoing plan to consolidate and modernize its school system. Next September, Longfellow's second- and third-graders will attend one of the township's three days during the 1950s at Longfellow school is closing after 88 years. walked through the school's front doors in the late 1950s.

Back then, she told children, the school's bathrooms were called "The Court" because they were located in Longfellow's basement, Holiday travelers flock remaining elementary schools: Lowell, Whittier, or Hawthome. On Friday, students, teachers, alumni, parents, and administrators from Teaneck gathered on Longfellow's grounds to pay the school through eulogy and reminiscence one final tribute "You don't realize it now," Longfellow Principal Charles At-tanasio told the school's 245 students, "but you are each a part of history. With the closing of the school, it's like the last chapter in a book. This book has 88 chapters and you are writing the last one." To help visitors grasp Longfellow's history, alumni cobbled together a timeline of the school, complete with old report cards, class pictures, and news clippings. The tapestry of memorabilia reveal a school that has changed as Teaneck and the rest of America has changed.

When the school opened in 1910, for instance, the neighborhood around Longfellow was mainly farmland. But over the KINDEL New York List $20,075. SALE D12 34 1 186. Valley Furniture Shop Exquisite 18th Century Reproductions 51st ANNUAL STOREWIDE CLEARANCE SALE! Now Thru Memorial Day, May 25th SPECTACULAR REDUCTIONS! Drawing for Door Prize Trip to Colonial Williamsburg Alumna Debbie Kless recalls her School. The Teaneck elementary years, homes sprouted up around the school, and by the 1950s Longfellow found itself surrounded by surburbia.

Debbie Kless, a Longfellow alumna, was four when she first Sideboard. W75 D267, $12,999. shouldn't be show business." Pascrell said his presence at the raid was prudent, and not intrusive. "We waited for the INS to go in. We waited for about 10 minutes, then we went in and just stood to the side and watched.

I have a clear conscience." In 1984, Baynes remembers playing kickball on Longfellow's playground and witnessing, along with other students, a solar eclipse. It was something he has not forgotten. "Keep tight with your friends here," he urged students. "You guys are the last class." That won't be a problem for Sam Roney and Yacoba Annobil, both Longfellow fourth-graders. The two students are planning to keep close to their Longfellow friends and to never forget the school.

"This is the best school I've ever been to," said Sam, who attended nursery school elsewhere. Teaneck school officials are uncertain about what they will do with the Longfellow school building after it closes. A state-approved charter school in Teaneck has expressed interest in using the building, but it's not clear at this point whether board members in Teaneck will make a commitment to the charter group. to airports Monday is Memorial Day, a federal and state holiday in New. York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Post offices will be closed; there will be no regular mail delivery, except for Express Mail and special delivery. State and local government offices, schools, and courts will be closed. Financial markets and stock markets also will be closed. Banks in New Jersey have the option to close. NJ Transit trains and buses will operate on a Sunday schedule.

PATH trains will be on a holiday schedule. at some of the privately owned off-airport lots on Routes 1 and 9 next to the airport. Passengers should also consider being dropped off. The ramps at the terminals usually are very crowded during holiday periods, but there is a free drop-off point called the "kiss-and-ride" at the monorail station at Long Term Parking Lot E. The monorail connects all terminals and parking fields except Lots and 4.

This article contains material from The Associated Press. to beach fees "Beach fees are paying for police year-round," he said. "There is a four-month window of beach maintenance, yet we are paying public works employees for 12 months." Cohen and Caraballo are the latest lawmakers to get in line for a share of the realty fee surplus. Shore legislators themselves are anxious to get another $10 million out of the fund to increase spending on beach replenishment. They say it's more important right now to save the beaches than to make them free.

"There's always the threat that federal funding for shore protection will go away, and it's important to get state spending in place," said Assemblyman John C. Gibson, It-Cape May, chairman of the state Beach Erosion Commission. As for beach badge fees, "I would go In the other direction" and raise them to help pay for local beach replenishment, Gibson said. which some people referred to as a courtyard. Female students, Kless said, changed into their leggings on cold winter afternoons in "cloak rooms" at the back of the classroom.

"It wasn't a closet," she said, "It was a cloak room." During lunch, students walked home to eat, and then stopped at a penny candy store on nearby Morningside Terrace on their way back to the school. "They had thousands of things you could buy for a penny," she said. Jason Baynes, who attended Longfellow and is now a senior at Princeton University, said the school changed his attitude about learning. "When I was six I didn't want to go to school," he said, "I told my mom I wanted to stay home for two years and watch cartoons. But then I came here and read great books, saw great plays, and learned all kinds of cool ways to solve math problems." normal.

Craig and Debbie Underhill, who recently moved to Westfield with their 2-year-old daughter, Allison, glided right to the check-in counter for their trip to Fort Wayne, Ind. The only brush they had with congestion was in the long-term parking lot, Craig Underhill said. "They sent us to overflow, but they had buses waiting to bring us right here," he said. "It was great." Even Thomas Robinson, a gray-mustached sky cap who has survived dozens of holiday seasons at the airport, said this Memorial Day seemed manageable. "This?" he said.

"This is nothing." Authorities at Newark Airport, which ran out of parking for the first time on Dec. 26 and nearly ran out of space during Easter and spring break weekends, said lots and terminals were expected to re--main crowded throughout the holiday weekend. Cahill advised people heading to the airport to call ahead dial (888) 397-4636, and then press 22 to get up-to-the-minute information about parking availability. Motorists already within a mile of the airport can tune to 530 AM radio for parking information. If all lots are filled, Cahill said, motorists should look for parking call for end only a few towns since last year, according to an Asbury Park Press survey.

But the idea of free beaches appeals to some shore residents as well as tourists. "I'm all for that because I spend a lot of time In Florida and it's free there," said Joe Maida, a retired schoolteacher who lives In Monmouth Beach. "I don't like the idea of beach fees because I pay taxes and I'm always suspicious about where the revenue goes said Maida, 62. "It just seems that if you pay taxes, you ought to be able to get onto the bench for free. It's just beyond me." Kelly O'Hern, a 34-year-old nurse who lives In Neptune, said, "I think they should be free.

I really don't think anybody should pay, expeclnlly people In Belmar. I've never liked tho thought of having to pay for the beach." Using state money Instead of beach fees would make seaside towns more accountable, Cohen Raid. i HANCOCK MOORE Austin Sofa. W85 D40 H36. lit $4745.

SALE $2699. (stock only) By SEAMUS McGRAW and JEFFREY PAGE Staff Writers Not only were the skies crowded Friday, there was no room on the ground, either. Newark International Airport filled its long-term parking lots by midafternoon as thousands of travelers got an early start on the holiday weekend, which one group predicted would be the busiest ever. Nearly 450,000 passengers were expected to depart from or land at Newark aboard 6,300 flights between Friday and Tuesday, according to the Port Authority. The agency also expected 429,000 passengers at John F.

Kennedy International Airport and 315,000 passengers at La Guardia. That's a passenger increase of 3.6 percent from the Memorial Day period last year, and an increase in flights of 2 percent, Port Authority spokesman Bill Cahill said. But although the Air Transport Association announced this week that Friday had the potential for being the single busiest day in American passenger aviation history, Cahill was reluctant to join the prediction. And most passengers at the airport said they encountered no more delays than Lawmakers ttnn narre DV IVUV D. DMItJ, SUSAN LIVIO, and KIRK MOORE Special horn Asbury Park Press Two Democratic lawmakers from northern New Jersey re newed the call for free ocean beaches with a new twist: a proposal to pay beach maintenance costs with state real estate transfer taxes Instead of beach badge fees.

As they did a year ago, Assem blymen Neil M. Cohen, D-Union, and Wilfredo Caraballo, D-Eftsex, on Thursday called for making bench access free, but only after a November ballot question to ask voters on whether beaches should be maintained with state money. The lawmakers say $10 million to $15 million from the state realty transfer fee fund which they contend Is currently fat with $15 million surplus could handle maintenance costs along 127 mllus of coast, now mostly financed by beachgoers who pay to get on the sand between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Bench fees have Increased In a 1 li- 1 HENKEL-HARRIS Rice Carrol Bed. W76 List $6095.

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