John Degnan, landlord, contractor, and local Brewster politician, decided to lay out the welcome mat to illegal aliens, regardless of criminal history.

In 1999, John Degnan opposed an expansion of the social services center in Brewster because he feared it “would attract immigrants.” He even stated in 2000, that "Personally, I think it's a bad choice."

Somewhere along the line, the cookie crumbled, and John Degnan began to advocate on behalf of so-called day laborers, many of whom are illegally in the United States.

Degnan enlisted the aide of his sister, a professor at Columbia University, to come up with a "Master Plan" to redevelop the village and construct a day laborer hiring site. This Master Plan became a blueprint for Team Brewster, of which Degnan served as co-chair. Using his position as Village Trustee and later as Mayor, Degnan was able to officially adopt the Master Plan, which included the day laborer hiring site as a primary "node" for redevelopment.

As this Journal News story makes clear, by 2005, Degnan had certainly adopted the liberal position on this: "Brewster Trustee John Degnan said he wanted to avoid the controversy that Mount Kisco went through. He favors a plan to convert village hall into a community center, which would include a hiring area.

"It's not about enforcement," he said. "It's about demonstrating that this is a more safe and secure place for them to seek work." The idea was to have the day laborers build a 24-foot-long by 8-foot-wide and 13-foot high shelter out of plexi glass, supplied by Degnan's own W&W Glass contracting firm.

Degnan expected to use taxpayer money from the county's Main Street fund to pay for the shelter, which would have cost $15,000 to $20,000. Degnan got his wish in 2006, when according to the Journal News, "A plan announced this week by Team Brewster may help with such safety concerns. After nine months of planning and deliberation, the coalition - a partnership of elected officials and civic leaders formed to address various village improvement projects - has decided to build a free-standing shelter in the Tri-State railroad parking lot on Marvin Avenue, a site officials expect day laborers to use to congregate and solicit work."

"There's no enforcement here," John Degnan, Brewster's mayor-elect, said at a meeting Thursday. "It's simply an effort to begin to solve the problem."

A sanctuary city is a term given to a city in the United States that follows certain practices that protect illegal immigrants. These practices can be by law (de jure) or they can be by habit (de facto).

In 2007, Degnan said the laws should be enforced, but undocumented immigrants should not be lumped together and categorized as criminals. After two proposals for the hiring site were rejected, Degnan made an announcement in his State of the viillage address that the plan would move forward in June of 2007 by leveraging private funds. After a protest led by Assemblyman Greg Ball, the proposal was put to rest for good.

But this was not the end of the failed Brewster Mayor's plan to turn Brewster into a sanctuary city. Degnan, while a candidate for Southeast supervisor, invited the consul general of Guatemala to the village to discuss issuing the photo ID cards through a mobile service the consulate provides. Lack of identification has long been a problem in the undocumented population.

Although the cards attempt to remedy that, critics say they pose a threat to national security and encourage illegal immigration. Degnan said the card would help in enforcing quality-of-life infractions. The town of Southeast no longer accepts consular cards as proof of residency or identity, after residents complained in the summer of 2006 about their use at the lake.