So, about this flap involving the local judge, ICE, and the hilarious inquiry into Manhattan as a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants.
As you probably know, a federal prosecutor sent a letter to city officials calling out judge Sarah Barr for her handling of the appearance of immigration agents at a DUI case.
Exactly what she said to them is not entirely clear, but the federal prosecutor is acting like she made it uncomfortable for them — and he’s saying that such a move is against the current policies of the federal government.
As a result, he says he’s going to have to investigate whether Manhattan is a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants.
I have a suggestion: Read the paper.
We’re not.
There’s been no official or unofficial effort to block federal immigration enforcement. We’ve been keeping a sharp journalistic eye on this place since about 1884, and if you want to tell one of your interns to comb through our searchable archives for an afternoon, you can call it good and move on to something more substantive, like, say, prosecuting criminals.
Look, this is a college town and an Army town; we have no interest, never have had any interest, and likely never will have any interest conflicting with the federal government.
What’s the diciest things? Well, we bring in a lot of foreign students, with student visas, and we brought in a handful of Afghanis after the last war, starting with a guy who worked as a translator for the United States Army. We’re basically talking about a war hero.
Are there illegal immigrants here? Almost certainly. There are 11 to 14 million illegal immigrants in the country, experts say, and so it’s hard to fathom that there aren’t some here.
We’re a welcoming town, and so it’s not like we’re going to send the Gestapo knocking on doors, asking for papers. But that’s not what we’re talking about.
The cops and the prosecutors for many years have cooperated with immigration officials so that if an illegal immigrant gets picked up on, say, a domestic, there’s an alert in the system requiring that the feds get notified.
Nothing new there, nothing different. Standard law enforcement.
So … what now?
Probably the prosecutor got what he wanted, which is to generate a couple headlines and demonstrate fealty to the higher-ups, and that’ll be that. Or there could be a blizzard of paperwork dumped on City Hall, for no particularly productive purpose, and then nothing will come of that, either.
Or we could get into a true judicial standoff, if people are in the mood to escalate and catastrophize.
Given that it’s not yet October — full-on campaign season — I’d put my bet on the former. Headlines, fealty, done.
But I’m not a gambler, and you should probably not ever bet against more silliness.
About the author: Ned Seaton is publisher of the Manhattan Mercury
