Mayor Adams Wants to Deport Migrants Accused of Serious Crimes

Mayor Adams Wants to Deport Migrants Accused of Serious Crimes

By: Ilana Siyance

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio had proudly designated New York City as a sanctuary city, so called for its limited cooperation with federal immigration officials.  As reported by the NY Times,  on Tuesday  Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced his will to change that designation and increase local law enforcements cooperation with immigration authorities to allow for easier deportation of migrants accused of serious crimes.  “There’s some people that feel that they should be able to remain here, keep doing their actions until they are eventually convicted,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to that theory.”

Mr. Adams’s announcement came after a series of crimes committed in NYC by migrants, including a recent shooting of a tourist during a robbery inside a Times Square clothing store. Over the past year, about 180,000 migrants entered the five boroughs. Based on a legal settlement, NYC has been on the hook to provide shelter to all who need it, and is currently struggling to shelter and feed about 65,000 new migrants who crossed over from the Southern borders.

Responding to a reporter who asked about due process in first proving a migrant’s guilt, the Mayor shot back, “They didn’t give due process to the person that they shot or punched or killed,” said Hizzoner, a former Police captain . “There’s just a philosophical disagreement here.”  In order for the Big Apple to change its status as a sanctuary city, however, the city council would need to be on board.  Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker, has already made it apparent that they have “no plans to revisit these laws,” her spokesman said.

Hizzoner has stressed that deportation would only be for the very rare instances of repeated or violent crimes.  Still, many left-leaning Democrats and advocates are opposed.  “We’re not in a country where just because someone suspects you of having thrown a bottle at a police officer, that should automatically lead to your deportation,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “That is just not rule of law.”  Rolling back the law would spread “terror” among immigrants and put “countless New Yorkers in danger of being separated from their families and deported without due process,” the Legal Aid Society and other public defender organizations said in a joint statement.   “The scapegoating happens when you don’t have solutions and you’re always looking for the easy way out,” said Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former Council speaker who led the effort to enact the 2014 sanctuary laws.

Per the NY Times, in a bid to defend his request, Mayor Adams asked his chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, to clarify NYC’s history of sanctuary laws.  Ms. Zornberg explained that it was only in 2014 and again in 2017 that the City Council under Mayor de Blasio had passed laws limiting NYC from honoring federal detainer requests for immigrants suspected of criminal activity.  Even since then, she noted there were numerous exceptions made for serious offenses.  Before that, former Mayor Edward Koch, had been the first one to take up the policy in 1989.  Per CNN, Koch had enacted an executive order agreeing that immigration status is private, but allowing for sharing of information about immigrants when it involved a criminal matter. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg had followed suit with a similar set of executive orders allowing cooperation when crime was a factor.

“I don’t believe people who are violent in our city and commit repeated crimes should have the privilege of being in our city,” Adams told reporters Tuesday at a press conference at City Hall. “You don’t have the right to be in our city and tarnish the overwhelming number who are here following the rules.”