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How the current info-sharing arrangement with ICE is flawed - and why Stu Bykofsky doesn't know what he's talking about.
Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky is more wrong than usual this week.
How the current info-sharing arrangement with ICE is flawed — and why Stu Bykofsky doesn't know what he's talking about.
On Monday, Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky attacked Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez for her opposition to the partnership sanctioned by city officials last year between the Philadelphia police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A year ago, the mayor, D.A. and police commissioner signed on to a plan that allows ICE to access the police's real-time arrest-reporting database, PARS, to check people arrested against immigration status data. It's part of the federal Secure Communities program, which is aimed at deporting illegal immigrants who pose a public safety threat — hence the access to arrest data.
That deal technically expires today. The administration is expected to decide on the terms of a new deal soon.
Among the various things Bykofsky gets wrong in his column, he states that:
Quinones-Sanchez's insane notion would shield guilty non-citizens and let them prey on innocent citizens. Why? So that Quinones-Sanchez and her allies can feel good about how simpatico they are?
... Quinones-Sanchez wants sanctuary for all undocumented — the good ones and the bad ones, too. She would protect criminals.
His weird, repeated use of Spanish phrases when he writes about the city's only Latina Councilwoman aside (you miiiiight want to stop doing that, Stu, as it kiiiiind of looks like you're making fun of the Councilwoman for being Latina), Bykofsky leaves out key parts of the Councilwoman's letter to the mayor, which calls for an end to the program or to "radically restructure" it — a little detail which Bykofsky omits.
Quinones-Sanchez has, in fact, offered an alternative that keeps the sharing of criminal data with ICE alive — but restricts ICE's access to court records, instead of police, allowing for a little something known commonly as "due process" and the "rule of law."
While the mayor, D.A. and police commissioner signed off on the current program, they did so only in the case that victims and witnesses were protected from ICE scrutiny.
The problem with the current system, Quinones-Sanchez has explained (and Bykofsky has ignored) is that whether a suspect picked up by police is either a "victim" or "witness" is decided, and then entered into the PARS system, by the officer at the scene. Should the police or a court decide later that a suspect was, in fact, a victim or a witness — it's too late.
That loophole runs in the face of the desire of those city officials who signed on to the plan last year — and whom Bykofsky does not criticize in his piece. Quinones-Sanchez is proposing that we let the rule of law (you know, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and all) decide who's a victim, witness and perpetrator.
If Bykofsky wants to retreat to his "illegal immigration is illegal" argument, fine. But then he can't pretend city officials are on his side, as he suggests they are in his coiumn this week.
Bykofsky also, by the way, botches an attempted critique of a report by the American Immigration Lawyers Association on questionable deportations. Writes Stu:
The AILA report says there were 400,000 deportations in the last year for which we have numbers. After the AILA asked its 11,000 members to report questionable (not illegal) deportations, it came up with 127 cases. That's 127 out of 400,000.
Of the 127, nine were in "Pennsylvania." How many in Philadelphia? I asked. AILA could confirm only one. So, for one possibly bad case out of 400,000, Quinones-Sanchez wants the city to stop cooperating with ICE, putting 1.5 million Philadelphians at risk.
Despite his boast that "I have no faith that Quinones-Sanchez read the AILA report. I did," Bykofsky appears to have misplaced his bifocals.
The report clearly states that the 127 cases are not a proportion but a sample of anecdotal evidence, collected by survey. They are a case study and the report makes no claim at all that they represent the results of a thorough survey of all 400,000 cases.
Not only is Bykofsky playing with numbers here — but he's doing an even sloppier job of it than usual.
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