Friday, October 30, 2009

NYC No Longer a Sanctuary City

This week The Huffington Post reported:

Last year about 360,000 people were deported from the United States, nearly 100,000 deportations resulting from past criminal convictions, mostly for low-level non-violent convictions. It's a mockery of justice that someone can be punished twice for the same crime.


New York City, which claims to be a "sanctuary city," is supposed to encourage its residents to report crimes and seek social services without fear of deportation.
As the Huff Post put it,

Allowing ICE into its jails is a violation of this policy. Schiro must urgently implement the demands of Immigration Out of Rikers, a city wide coalition pushing to kick ICE out of the facility. A key first step would be to refuse ICE access to the two-thirds of Rikers detainees who are pre-trial. Letting immigration agents into city jails means that many families end up being needlessly ripped apart.


The inadequacy of our immigration system and the perpetual violence against immigrants in our country feels overwhelming to me. I'm excited to see the emergence of a coalition that seems to be asserting itself effectively! I couldn't find a website for them but I found this awesome article on Make the Road's website.

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