Two members of the board of trustees of Nassau Community College said they felt “intimidated” by private investigators hired by a teachers’ union who came to their homes unannounced last week to ask them about potential immigration issues at the school.
Lead investigator, retired FBI agent Jim Murphy, said, however, the visits were proper, and there were no complaints at the time from the two: Board Chair Mary A. Adams and the vice chair, former Rep. John LeBoutillier.
The two trustees discussed the experience at the Nassau County Legislature yesterday before the lawmakers approved the college’s $196.4 million budget for 2009.
“I felt so intimidated. I was flabbergasted when somebody showed up at my door,” Adams, who lives in Roosevelt, said, adding that she had expected the visit because LeBoutillier had called her after the agents visited his home in Old Westbury about an hour earlier.
LeBoutillier also said he felt intimidated. He said Murphy told him in his training as an FBI agent it was best to catch people unaware when doing an investigation. “I said it is very improper …,” LeBoutillier said.
Murphy confirmed in an interview yesterday that he had been hired by Charles Loiacono, head of the Adjunct Faculty Association, which represents about 3,000 part-time professors, to determine whether the college violated immigration laws by moving about 100 students into a different program where they were not studying for a degree. Murphy also said he was accompanied by a retired Nassau County detective during the visits.
He said federal immigration law required students on a visa to be studying for a degree or report their whereabouts annually to the federal government. While that law was meant to track foreign visitors, it was invoked by Loiacono because the school was not using union teachers in the other program, Murphy said. NCC spokesman Chuck Cutolo said the college did nothing improper.
The two trustees were “polite and receptive … very pleasant,” during the interviews, Murphy said, and they said nothing about being intimidated.
However, both LeBoutillier and Adams said outside the legislative chamber that they felt the visits were improper, and both said they urged the private investigators to make an appointment through the school to meet the entire board, or to meet with school administrators.
