Thread: City Council crafts bill to protect immigrants from deportat

City Council crafts bill to protect immigrants from deportation at Rikers Island

nydailynews.com
BY Sam Levin
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, October 2nd 2011, 5:33 PM


City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said a bill making it more difficult for the Feds to deport immigrants held at Rikers without being charged had a chance of passing with the Mayor's support.

With Mayor Bloomberg's backing, the City Council is set to take up a bill Monday making it more difficult for the feds to nab and deport immigrants from Rikers Island.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has championed the bill - now nearly certain to become law - saying unfettered local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Rikers needlessly splits apart immigrant families.

"We are on the verge of a great victory, not just for immigrant New Yorkers, but for all New Yorkers," Quinn said Sunday outside Ascension Church on the upper West Side.

Under the current system, all immigrant inmates face detention and deportation for being undocumented - even if they are never charged with a crime.

But the new bill would bar ICE from getting info about every foreign-born inmate at Rikers. Those who are released because prosecutors decide not to press charges would get a pass.

Mayor Bloomberg, who had initially publicly defended ICE's Rikers efforts, said last week that he supported the bill, giving it new momentum.

"Even after originally stating opposition to the bill . . . [the mayor] engaged in very ongoing and aggressive negotiations," Quinn said.

Critics have called the bill a public safetyrik risk. Quinn says that isn't the case - corrections officers would first check to see if immigrants show up on the terrorist watch list or have past convictions, outstanding warrants or a deportation order.

"If we are deporting people needlessly who are not a threat to public safety, how do these acts help keep New Yorkers safe? They simply do not," Quinn said.

New York ICE spokesman Lou Martinez declined to comment, saying the agency doesn't discuss pending legislation.

The City Council would be the first legislative body in the country to pass this type of bill. Quinn said she hopes to have it signed into law by the end of the year.

"We will keep families united," said City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-East Harlem). "We are a city that values the contributions that immigrants make every day."

Advocates say ICE's presence on Rikers has made some immigrants afraid to go to the police.

"People are scared. They don't want to leave their homes," said Rafael Samanez, director of community group Vamos Unidos. "We've seen the havoc it wreaks."

http://tinyurl.com/6ygda5k

How would this not violate federal law? Who will be held responsible for releasing violent criminal aliens who have purchased/stolen "clean" IDs because they now have this protection?

I can see a Willie Horton in Bloomberg's future, a whole lot of them. Absolutely shameful on their his and council's part.

Originally Posted by miguelina

How would this not violate federal law? Who will be held responsible for releasing violent criminal aliens who have purchased/stolen "clean" IDs because they now have this protection?

I can see a Willie Horton in Bloomberg's future, a whole lot of them. Absolutely shameful on their his and council's part.

This stinks to high heaven. I guess forged or stolen documents, lying to employers, falsifying federal documents, etc, etc. isn't a crime anymore??!

You can thank the Elitist Politicians for their Sanctuary City Policy. Drugs furnished by the ILLEGALS, Drug Wars by the ILLEGALS, United States Citizens murdered by the ILLEGALS but not to worry the Sanctuary State will continue to furnish Cheap ILLEGAL Labor for the Elitist Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups of course they feel safe in their Gated Communities. If you venture out and you are murdered by an ILLEGAL Drunk Driver or you are a Police Officer murdered by an ILLEGAL during the commission of a crime or a traffic stop or a United States Citizen is in the "wrong" place (any Sanctuary City or State) and caught in the cross fire just remember Our Elitist Politicians and their Elitist Political Contributors consider those murdered as a SMALL SACRIFICE for THEIR CHEAP ILLEGAL LABOR/potential votes.

The Obama Administration Should Not Be Impeded By the City and State From Implementing Its Program to Deport Criminal Illegal and Legal Aliens

huffingtonpost.com
by Ed Koch
Former Mayor, New York City
Posted: 10/3/11 05:52 PM ET

Saturday morning, while lying in bed reading the New York Times of October 1, I read an article that caused me great concern. The article began:

In a significant reversal, the Bloomberg administration said Friday that it would support a City Council bill that would hamper federal authorities' ability to detain, and eventually deport, foreign-born inmates on Rikers Island who are about to be released. The decision is an important victory for the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, the sponsor of the bill, which is now almost certain to become law, and for immigrant advocates, who have long assailed the city's cooperation with immigration agents based at the prison. Corrections Department officials routinely share lists of foreign-born inmates with immigration authorities, who then take custody of, detain and deport thousands of people who had been charged with misdemeanors and felonies. The arrangement is common across the country.

There is a federal program known as "Secure Communities" which was described by the Times of September 30 as follows:

Under Secure Communities, the fingerprints of anyone booked into jail by the state and local police are sent through the F.B.I. to the Department of Homeland Security, which tracks immigration violations. Immigration agents then decide whether to deport immigrants flagged by such checks.

I thought to myself, this is ridiculous. The City of New York should not be frustrating the effort of the Obama administration to consider removing from the U.S. both legal and illegal immigrants who have been charged with misdemeanors or felonies. Removal is not automatic. As the Times pointed out, "Immigration agents [after receiving the information] then decide whether to deport immigrants flagged by such checks."

Border states such as Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, Texas and California are wrestling with local legislation enacted to make the efforts directed at illegal immigrants even stronger than federal efforts. The two states with the harshest anti-illegal-alien legislation seeking to apprehend and make life lawfully more difficult for illegals are Arizona and Alabama. Alabama's law, which withholds a host of rights from illegal aliens, was overwhelmingly upheld by a federal district court as constitutional and not violative of any preemption right of the federal government. The Alabama law includes a prison penalty for landlords who knowingly rent to an illegal alien.

My own view is Alabama's approach is much too harsh, bordering on the sadistic. Where does the state of Alabama want illegal aliens to sleep prior to their being placed in pre-deportation detention? On the streets? New York's City Council bill, on the other hand, is too lenient. To effectively eliminate by local law the right of the federal government to make appealable deportation decisions would turn New York City into a sanctuary city, which was the goal of a number of cities during the Vietnam War. Wrong then and wrong now.

The Obama administration, which supports efforts to legalize the status of illegal aliens by providing amnesty and a path to citizenship, is also seeking to return to their countries of origin illegal and legal aliens who have engaged in criminal activity. The Times of September 29 reported the following:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced on Wednesday that it had arrested 2,901 immigrants who have criminal records, highlighting the Obama administration's policy of focusing on such people while putting less emphasis on departing illegal immigrants who pose no demonstrated threat to public safety. Officials from the agency portrayed the seven-day sweep, called Operation Cross Check, as the largest enforcement and removal operation in its history. It involved arrests in all 50 states of criminal offenders of 115 nationalities, including people convicted of manslaughter, armed robbery, aggravated assault and sex crimes. 'These are not people who are making a positive contribution to their communities,' said the agency's director, John Morton. 'They are not the kind of people we want walking our streets.' More than 1,600 of those arrested had been convicted of a felony. The remainder had a misdemeanor conviction for matters like theft, forgery and driving while intoxicated, the agency said. Those arrested included illegal immigrants and lawful resident noncitizens who had been convicted of crimes that made them eligible to be deported.

There are many Americans who believe in amnesty for illegal immigrants. I am not one of them. I believe immigrants are essential to our growth, our future and our need to keep our population young. I believe we should increase our legal immigration which now approximates annually one million, of which about 150,000 are asylees. There is no country in the world that has open borders, except by treaty and through reciprocity, e.g., members of the European Union. If Mexico, Canada and the U.S. -- NAFTA -- want to come to a similar agreement, I would support it. Mexico, with its 5.4 percent unemployment rate, significantly lower than America's 9.1 percent unemployment rate, would likely not want Americans to run to Mexico to compete for jobs. I doubt that Canada, with its fear of being culturally dominated by the U.S., would welcome open borders. Radical ideas should be considered on the merits. I recall when I was a member of Congress in the mid-seventies, I proposed, after going to Canada to talk with American draft resisters who had fled there, that because of the feeling of the American public that our participation in the Vietnam War was immoral, the U.S. Congress should extend to all American draft resisters (many had gone to Canada) and all American deserters (many had gone to Sweden), amnesty. I was running for reelection to Congress at the time. My father came up from Florida to help campaign in my reelection. He was asked by a reporter, "Mr. Koch, what do you think of your son's calling for amnesty for American deserters in Vietnam?" He replied in my defense, "Everybody is entitled to make a mistake." I won, and more important, about six months later, President Carter provided by executive order amnesty to both draft resisters and deserters. Amnesty was perceived by Americans as appropriate in the immoral Vietnam War. I do not believe amnesty for those crossing our borders illegally is similarly considered appropriate by the American public. It is surprising and I believe wrong that three states, including New York, have announced they will no longer participate in the security program. The New York Times of September 30 reported:

Mr. Patrick, a Democrat, announced in June that Massachusetts would not participate in Secure Communities, citing concerns that it casts too wide a net and leads to the deportation of immigrants with no criminal histories. Two other Democratic governors, Pat Quinn of Illinois and Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, have also rejected the program, though the Obama administration has announced plans to expand it nationwide, with or without states' support, by the end of 2013.

If the city and state want to assist those illegal and legal immigrants subject to deportation proceedings, they should create and fund a public defender's office to represent these immigrants in those proceedings, and allow the courts to determine which of those who are charged with criminality should be exempted from return to their own country.

Follow Ed Koch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mayoredkoch

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-koch/t ... 92708.html

I thought to myself, this is ridiculous. The City of New York should not be frustrating the effort of...

This is the same Mayor of NYC who in 1988 declared SANCTUARY here from the 86 IRCA.

Hey dummies, you can't do that. Ask San Francisco what happens, when a city harbors illegal aliens.

http://www.alipac.us/article4612.html

Dixie

New York City's population is 40% foreign born. Is that not amazing? That a city the size of New York is only 11% away from not even being a city of citizens of the United States?

And where do you think they work? They aren't picking fruit in New York City. They aren't milking cows. They aren't even mowing lawns in New York City. No, they work in our major corporations to move our businesses out of the country and leave our citizens unemployed and destitute; they form 501 C 3 "not for profit" charities to build Mosques, run drugs and funnel money to terrorists; they teach in our universities to indoctrinate our youth to believe in Globalism, Open Borders and One World Government; and they work on Wall Street to develop money schemes to move our money supply out of the country and then hold the rest of us financially liable for it when their wicked schemes bankrupt their industry and in turn bankrupt our nation.

New York used to be a dream town to live in or visit for most Americans. But no longer. They want to import the very people who tried to destroy it, stuck us with the tab for it, and still have their hands out over it.

New York is no longer a city that any American dreams to be part of; it's a city that most Americans stuck there want to get out of which is why Bloomberg and Buffoons cater to non-Americans, because it's the only customer base they have left.

What a tragedy for America, to lose New York so silently so swiftly.

I will never again watch the sad irony of their ball fall on New Year's Eve.

Here are some interesting facts about the New York City population:

With a 2010 population of 8,175,133 New York is the most populous city in the United States, more than twice the size of the second largest city, Los Angeles.

About 1 in every 36 people living in the United States resides in New York City.

New York has the highest population density of any major city in the United States, with over 27,000 people per square mile.

Over 3 million of New York City’s residents are foreign-born; over one-quarter arrived in 2000 or later.

Nearly 2 million New Yorkers are under the age of 18.

New York City has more people than 39 of the 50 U.S. states.

New York City comprises over two-fifths of New York State’s entire population.

New York City has grown by over 1 million people since 1990.

The 2000 median age in New York City was 34.2 years, about a year lower than the national median.

Nearly one-third of the population 25 and over in New York City has a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 28 percent nationally.

There are approximately 375,000 more women than men in New York.

There is a birth in New York City every 4.4 minutes.

There is a death in New York City every 9.1 minutes.

Although New York City still receives a substantial number of in-migrants, there is a net loss of one migrant every 26.5 minutes.

The borough of Brooklyn on its own would be the 4th largest city in the United States. Queens would also rank 4th nationally.

Approximately two-thirds of dwellings in New York are renter-occupied, over twice the national average.

The average commute for New Yorkers is just under 40 minutes, about 15 minutes longer than the national average.

New York City has the largest Chinese population of any city outside of Asia.

More persons of West Indian ancestry live in New York City than any city outside of the West Indies.

New York has the largest Puerto Rican population of any city in the world.

More Dominicans live in New York than any other city in the world barring Santo Domingo.

Over 2.34 million Hispanics reside in New York City, more than any other city in the United States. Were New York Hispanics a city unto themselves, they would rank 4th nationwide.

The Black nonhispanic population of New York City numbered 1.86 million in 2010, more than double the count in any other U.S. city. Were this group a city in its own right it would rank 5th nationally.

Almost half of all New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home.

An estimated 200 languages are spoken in New York City.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/pop_facts.shtml