NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
November 12, 2016
If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on one of his central campaign pledges — and, given his unpredictability, that’s a big “if” — Washington will soon be engaged in a game of federalist chicken with New York City, as well as with other localities that harbor undocumented immigrant populations.
Mayor de Blasio, to his credit, is hunkering down, telling the feds that this so-called sanctuary city, where some 500,000 people without papers live, intends to continue to protect all its people.
To the extent Trumpism is rooted in policy, the signature pledges are to build a wall on the southern U.S. border and start systematically cracking down on those who entered the country illegally, or stayed beyond the terms of their visas.
At first, Trump spoke of a “deportation force” that would systematically uproot people from their communities. Later in his campaign, he seemed to blur the stance, but still left no doubt that the Obama era, which saw deportations soar to record highs, was but a prelude for four years of ramped-up removals targeting not only violent criminals but ordinary, contributing members of society.
These are brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers — often with American citizen children.
Central to accomplishing that is Trump’s still-present threat to withhold federal funds from cities that don’t cooperate with new executive-branch efforts to find and eject undocumented people.
Thursday, de Blasio said the only responsible thing a New York City mayor can say: No can do.
“We are not going to sacrifice a half-million people who live among us, who are part of our community,” he said. “We are not going to tear families apart.”
Translation: Even in the face of a federal ultimatum, City Hall will safeguard, or if necessary destroy, the database of people who’ve got its new immigrant-friendly ID card, which could present would-be deporters with an easy-does-it roadmap for house-to-house removals.
Despite de Blasio’s bleeding-heart frame, this is a fight about much more than common decency. A city where one in 16 people lacks immigration papers has no responsible option but to signal to those people that they are sheltered, not hunted.
So that the estimated 350,000 children of illegal immigrants in city public schools, many of whom are American citizens themselves, continue to get educated.
So that whether or not people have papers, they get vaccinated against disease, and seek out medical treatment when they’re sick. Fail to make that clear, and public health will be imperiled.
So that everyone — citizen, legal immigrant or otherwise — continues to report crimes to the police. Signaling that interactions with law-enforcement could produce a one-way ticket to a detention center, even for those wanted for misdemeanors or no crimes at all, is a recipe for increased violence.
It’s not only de Blasio who warns of the risks of forcing undocumented immigrants ever deeper underground. Take it from Trump super-surrogate and all-but-certain future administration official Rudy Giuliani.
In 1996, Mr. Law and Order signed an executive order protecting undocumented immigrants in the five boroughs from being reported “while they are using city services that are crucial for their health and safety, and critical for the health and safety of the entire city.
Giuliani acknowledged the order “offends some people,” adding: “They ask, ‘Why should we pay to provide services for illegal immigrants?’
“The answer is, ‘It’s not only to protect them, but to protect the rest of society, as well.’ ”
Mr. President-elect: Don’t wage this war.
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