NYC Spent Millions on Deportation Defense for Migrants — Who Were Crippling the City

By Selwyn Duke

 

Is “Put America Last” the immigrationists’ slogan? It’s not enough that Joe Biden said in 2020 that many illegal aliens are “more American than most Americans are.” It’s not enough that New York City has spent literally billions of dollars on hotel rooms for illegals. It’s not enough that the Big Apple shelled out more than $50 million on prepaid credit cards for migrants. It’s not enough that NY has offered illegals driver’s licenses. Because there’s a kicker, too.

All the while the city was also spending millions on a program providing lawyers who defend the interlopers against deportation.

What’s more, a New York jurisdiction that dared cooperate with federal authorities’ deportation efforts has been fined $60 million.

It’s the immigrationist conception of virtue: Open the borders and invite illegals in — then treat them better than citizens.

Citizenship, a Quaint Notion

The Daily Caller reported on the story yesterday:

Hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants have flocked to the Big Apple in the past several years, spurring officials to pour billions on food, shelter, travel and various other government-funded accommodations. The wave of illegal migration into New York City — an attractive jurisdiction for many undocumented individuals due to its liberal sanctuary city laws — eventually forced the city to not only tighten restrictions on shelter stays, but also prompted Mayor Eric Adams in September 2023 to announce sweeping 5% budget cuts to every agency.

But while residents continued to face a worsening migration crisis at their doorstep, the city maintained a near-steady flow of funding for one particular service through the years: free attorneys for migrants facing deportation orders. Taxpayers shelled out $17,350,000 in fiscal year 2022, $16,600,000 in fiscal year 2023, and another $16,600,000 in fiscal year 2024 for the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), according to city budget data.

NYIFUP is an initiative made up of attorneys that provide free counsel to foreign nationals in immigration proceedings. While the city directs taxpayer funding to a litany of other non-profit groups that provide various migrant services, NYIFUP attorneys specialize in providing representation to foreign nationals who’ve been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

This program is effective, too. As activist website The Bronx Defenders relates:

Studies have found that 97% of detained immigrants without legal representation are unsuccessful in challenging their deportation. Access to counsel, on the other hand, can improve the chance of winning a deportation case by as much as 1000%.

Do the Right Thing, Get Punished

And woe betide those New Yorkers who do help defend the Republic’s borders. As the New York Post reported yesterday:

It was a federal judge who ordered Suffolk County taxpayers to fork over $60 million for the county sheriff’s “violation” of detaining illegal migrants at the request of ICE or Homeland Security, but it’s the madness of New York law (or New York politicians) that led him to do it.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine this week bewailed the madness of federal Judge William Kuntz’s ruling, which he must appeal — since it’s based on a questionable reading of both federal and local law.

Kuntz found that the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office “was acting without the federal statutory authority” in honoring requests to detain people here illegally because the relevant federal “statute itself only contemplates such assistance where it is ‘consistent with state and local law.’”

The Post disputes the claim that Suffolk’s actions were inconsistent with state law. But the deeper issue is, as the paper points out, the anti-American, immigrationist mentality prevailing in New York. For if the county’s enforcement were contrary to state law, that would only mean state law is, in spirit, lawless. And then it needs to be changed.

Note here that illegal migration has been a serious problem on Long Island. (Suffolk County comprises the island’s eastern half.) For one thing, the vicious Salvadoran gang MS-13 has been operating in the area, committing murders and other heinous crimes.

Whose Country Is It, Anyway?

Needless to say, these immigrationist policies don’t play well in Peoria. Just consider the most highly rated MSN comment related to the Post article. User Ronald Hanson writes:

It’s really sad when foreigners, who are here illegally, repeatedly get more benefits and protections, possibly even more consideration, than citizens…. Don’t they realize this saps (negates?) their credibility when prosecuting citizens[?] Why should a citizen be prosecuted for any crime when foreigners who have flouted our laws and are here illegally are not prosecuted[?] Selective enforcement against citizens!?! It’s utterly ridiculous, disrespectful and such a slap in the face to “we the people” who employ these public servants and are not gang members.

But is the problem, at bottom, really the politicians (aka, “public servants”), as the Post and Hanson say? After all, “we the people” elect them.

Oh, most of the electorate doesn’t want the radical immigrationist policies in question. But under representative government, you don’t get what you want.

You get what you vote for.

People support immigrationist politicians based on other concerns, such as abortion, gun control, etc. But they often don’t realize that it’s a package deal. To use a twist on a Nancy Pelosi line, leftists will do what they do. Electing a Governor Kathy Hochul means many things, pro-illegal-alien priorities among them.

As already mentioned, too, the problem is mentality. Immigration long ago became an institution, and this institution needs to be reconsidered. Is the United States underpopulated? Are our roads not congested enough and our schools not sufficiently crowded? Are our services not adequately strained? And most of all:

Are we not balkanized enough?

Maybe it’s time to transition from an immigration norm to a stability norm. After all, it’s hard maintaining nations while accepting the internationalist obsession with shifting national populations around like chess pieces, ever and always, as if it’s as natural as breathing itself.

                    This article was originally published at The New American.