De Blasio Defends Expanding NYC's Cooperation With ICE

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday defended his administration's move to expand New York City's cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Under laws passed in 2014, city law-enforcement officials have only worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in cases when an immigrant has been convicted of one of 170 serious or violent crimes within the last five years. There's also an exception for people who could be a match on the terrorist watch list.

The city is adding to its list of crimes seven offenses that have been enshrined in state law since the local policy was adopted, such as sex trafficking of a child or patronizing a child prostitute, de Blasio said. He said the move is consistent with the city's current approach to immigration enforcement.

"We do not believe for minor offenses that anyone should be torn away from their family," the Democratic mayor said Friday on WNYC. "But if someone has committed one of these serious and violent crimes and has gone through the full legal process and is convicted, that’s when we all decided together ... that that would be grounds for cooperation with ICE."

The change has drawn pointed criticism from immigrant-rights advocates who argue the city should not be broadening its cooperation with ICE, an agency that they say stokes fear in immigrant communities.

"ICE terrorizes my communities, we need NYC to draw the brightest possible line between law enforcement and immigration enforcement," Yatziri Tovar of Make the Road New York said on Twitter.

ICE has greatly ramped up its activity in New York City under President Donald Trump, a Republican whose administration has taken a hard line against illegal immigration.

The number of people deported by ICE officers in the city increased 150 percent from the last year under President Barack Obama to nearly 2,600 in the 2018 fiscal year, according to a February report from City Comptroller Scott Stringer. Some 1,144 people were deported without criminal convictions, a 265.5 percent spike, the report said.

City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, the chair of the Council's Immigration Committee, argued de Blasio's proposed expansion of local cooperation with ICE contradicts the city's commitment to protecting immigrants.

"The proclaimed public safety benefits of this proposal do not outweigh its harms — namely the erosion of trust between our immigrant communities and government," Menchaca, a Brooklyn Democrat, said in a statement Thursday.

But de Blasio disputed that claim, saying the city has made it clear to immigrants that their government has their back. He pointed to the city's municipal identification program, IDNYC, and its funding of legal support for immigrants facing deportation.

"The vast, vast majority of undocumented people in this city know that their city government is protecting them, respecting them, supporting them," de Blasio said.