The most comprehensive strengthening of the city’s human rights law in 14 years was passed overwhelmingly on September 15, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- who opposed the bill in public hearings -- is not saying whether he will sign it or not.
“This bill broadens the scope of the city’s human rights law, and adds protections for people who may currently be slipping through the cracks: couples who have entered into domestic partnerships and people who have experienced retaliation for reporting violations of the human rights law,” said Councilmember Gale Brewer, the chief sponsor of the legislation, The Local Civil Rights Restoration Act, Intro 22-A. “Perhaps more importantly, it clearly acknowledges that the city’s law often provides more protection than state and federal law." The bill would require the application of the stricter standards of city law when someone is discriminated against illegally in New York City.
"Intro 22-A sets the city human rights law free from being treated as nothing more than a carbon copy of its ever-narrowing state and federal counterparts," said Craig Gurian, a former staff member of the city's Human Rights Commission who is now executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York.
The vacancies on the United States Supreme Court were much on the mind of the bill’s sponsors. "Years of Republican administrations have taken their toll on state and federal laws designed to protect people from discrimination," said Councilmember Bill DeBlasio. "We have every reason to believe that the assault on civil rights will continue as President Bush continues to appoint conservatives to the federal bench.”
Almost a month ago, Avery Mehlman, the Human Rights Commission’s Deputy Commissioner for Law Enforcement, said they were “reviewing the latest form” of the legislation to see if it is acceptable to the Bloomberg administration. When the bill passed, he referred comment to the mayor’s press office where Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for Bloomberg, said, “We’re still reviewing it.” The mayor had 30 days to review after the bill's passage.
The timing is such that this legislation could become an issue in the mayoral campaign. Fernando Ferrer “strongly supports it,” according to his press office. "The Civil Rights Restoration Act is an important step towards ensuring that the civil rights of New Yorkers are construed by courts in the broadest possible terms," Ferrer said in a statement. "Equally important, we must ensure that we both strengthen the protections against retaliation for those who bring discrimination suits and increase the potential penalties on those who violate the law. Finally, I believe that it is simply the right thing to do to make clear that discrimination against domestic partners will not be tolerated in this city."
Ali Davis, legislative director for Brewer, said that the revised bill “came out of negotiations with the mayor’s office.” If Bloomberg does decide to reject the bill, she said, “the Council is willing to pass it over his veto."
Human Rights Commissioner Patricia Gatling testified against many of the key provisions of the legislation in April. When I wrote extensively about the bill in June, the administration was outright opposing it, though the administration does support a clause forbidding discrimination on the basis of “partnership status,” a compromise provision.
“This legislation poses a simple choice for the mayor," says Craig Gurian. "Align himself with progressive legislation supported by more than three dozen civil rights organizations, or facilitate the anti-civil rights agenda of the Bush and Pataki administrations. We hope the mayor abandons his opposition to the bill.”
Intro 22-A was backed by a coalition of more than 40 organizations, including the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Disabled in Action, Habitat for Humanity (New York chapter), Lambda Legal Defense, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
One year after the protests and mass arrests at the Republican National Convention here in New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union issued a 64-page report (in pdf format) critiquing police practices that week and calling for the creation of an “independent City agency to oversee the planning and management of large demonstrations.”
“The historical account provided by â€Rights and Wrongs at the RNC’ is particularly important since the NYPD has defended all of its actions during the convention and has insisted it made no mistakes,” said Donna Liberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The performance of the police was a decidedly mixed one. While hundreds of thousands of people were able to make their voices heard, the right to protest was severely undermined by the mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators and bystanders, the pervasive surveillance of lawful demonstrators, and the illegal fingerprinting and prolonged detention of nearly 1,500 people charged with mostly minor offenses. This compromised the Constitutional right to protest.”
More than 1,800 protesters and bystanders were arrested by the police during convention week. More than 87 percent of them were “found not guilty or had their cases dismissed or adjourned in contemplation of dismissal,” the New York Times reported. Some of those who believe they were falsely arrested are pursuing lawsuits against the city.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Times that police conduct during the convention was “a model of expert planning, professionalism and restraint.” He did not respond to the call for a new agency to deal with demonstrations, but did call the complaints catalogued in the report “a collection of old, untrue assertions and uncorroborated, self-serving statements by individuals who were arrested.”
Chris Dunn, associate legal director at Civil Liberties, told Newsday, “Protests are not a criminal event. They should not be treated as a law enforcement problem.”
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There is no question that New York, with its nearly three million foreign-born residents representing 200 ethnicities and speaking 175 languages, is a city of immigrants, as it always has been.
It should not be surprising that both the incumbent mayor and three of his four major Democratic opponents have said they support amnesty for undocumented immigrants – that the federal government grant legal status to those who have been in the United States for a certain period of time. (Only Anthony Weiner answered “no, not to all” at a mayoral forum.)
But in this city that more or less invented ethnic politics, advocates say they are hearing very little in this year’s local campaigns that directly addresses the local problems facing New York’s new immigrant population.
“There is a lot at stake this year for immigrants,” said Chung-Wha Hong, deputy director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella organization consisted of more than 170 immigrant advocacy groups in New York. “But I haven’t seen any comprehensive plan in any of the candidates’ platforms.”
Almost by definition, immigration issues, it is true, are federal issues. But there are many immigrant issues that do not necessarily involve the federal government directly -- such as language barriers, immigrant students’ specific educational needs, employment obstacles and the difficulties of obtaining legal and social services.
And nothing that New York does in this area can be considered completely local. “Historically and politically, whatever New York’s locally-elected officials do,” Hong said, “has significant influence in the national debate in immigration policies.”
New York City has the largest public school system in the United States, with more than a million school children from K-12. About one in seven are identified as English Language Learners, or ELL students (they used to be called Limited English Proficiency, LEP students), students who need extra help in English. Over the past four years, fewer of them are being taught in their native languages and more are being placed in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
According to a 2002 report by the Manhattan Institute, less than ten percent of ELL students in elementary schools, and less than five percent in middle schools, achieved acceptable math test scores in the year 2000, much lower than the general city-wide average.
“Everybody wants to be the â€education mayor’,” said Hong, whose organization counts immigrant education as a priority. “But they did not address one of the most serious problems: The LEP [Limited English Proficiency] students’ dropout rate is over 50 percent. It is a major crisis.”
However, C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president and one of the four Democratic candidates for mayor, promises on her campaign Web site to “develop small schools and programs focused solely on the instruction of high school-aged English Language Learners. I will also ensure that vocational education programs are capable of accommodating students with limited English proficiency.”
And former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer’s education plan, as outlined on his campaign Web site, does focus on addressing “the dropout crisis” in general, and also promises to dedicate $850 million a year “to expanding early childhood education programs and to strengthening special education and English language acquisition programs.”
Hong also stressed the importance of providing translations and translators to the non English-speaking parents of school children, in order to have them be involved in their children’s education. Under the Bloomberg’s new “Immigrant Opportunities Initiative”, the New York Immigration Coalition was able to get $9.1 million from City Hall to provide ESL classes, as well as legal and employment services to immigrants, up from $2.8 million last year. But the amount, she said, is “not at all sufficient.”
Another must, Hong believes, is professional training for schoolteachers in learning how to get through to children from varying cultural backgrounds.
With post-911 heightened security and the introduction of the Patriot Act, many immigrants in New York City, particularly those without documentation, are fearful of deportation and police harassment. Under pressure from immigration groups and the City Council to protect the privacy of immigrants, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued Executive Order 41 in September 2003 to forbid city agencies from reporting illegal immigrants to federal agencies.
“It gives assurance to all law-biding New Yorkers -whether you are an immigrant, a victim of domestic violence, or any taxpayer- that the confidential information you give to the city will stay with the city,” Bloomberg said at the time.
However, this “don’t tell” policy is limited and unclear. Immigrants who are arrested by the police are not protected by it, no matter how minor the offense. All New York City police officers are equipped with a NCIC (National Crime Information Center) mobile device, which hooks into the FBI criminal justice information system, which shows outstanding deportation proceedings. Once arrested, one’s immigration record will be revealed and those without documentation will be reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Thomas Doepfner, an assistant deputy police commissioner, said in a hearing held by the City Council Committee of Immigration in April that anyone whose driver’s license is checked by the police, even in a random traffic stop, will have his or her name and birth date run through the NCIC database. If someone is listed there as an immigration violator, ICE will be contacted. And if authorized by immigration officials to detain the person, the NYPD can hold the person for 48 hours for pickup by federal officers.
“It is not a good idea for the NYPD or any law enforcement agency to be involved with immigration,” said Tushar Sheth, of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which provides free legal services to immigrants. “You want to be able to trust the police so you can cooperate with them. It doesn’t help if the cop will ask you about your immigration status every time you talk to them. It makes it easier for immigrants to come forward in any investigation if they know their city leaders are behind them.”
Hong also denounces the practice as a “back-door” way to disregard Executive 41, which exempt from confidential immigration information about a person suspected of criminal activities by the police. “But illegal immigration is a civil violation. We need to adopt additional mechanism to protect the rights of immigrants. There are many loopholes to cover.”
A national ID has been in the political debate for many years. It went back to the top of the agenda after 911 as the government tries to tighten the nation’s alarm system and prevent possible terrorists from traveling. The “Real ID Act”, a bill that requires all states to issue federally approved driver's licenses or identification cards to those who live and work in the United States, was passed by the Congress and will go into effect starting in May 2008.
Under the act, a Real ID will be required under federal law to verify a customer’s identity if one wants to drive, visit a federal government building, collect Social Security, access a federal government service or use the services of a private company. In a word, it will be almost impossible to live without such an ID.
“Having a driver’s license is part of many people’s livelihood,” said Sheth. “In a city with a significant immigrant population, I’d like to see our candidates to have that kind of New York sensibility to tell the federal government that it’s not good for New York. We can not comply with that on the local level.”
For the first 150 years after the founding of the nation, non-citizens voted and held public office: alderman, coroner, school board member. Yet the policy fell casualty to the anti-immigrant backlash of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
While many European countries have been allowing legal immigrants to vote for public offices for many decades, only a few municipalities in Maryland and Massachusetts allow non-citizens to vote for local affairs. Non-citizens in Chicago vote in school board election. New York had the same practice from the 1970s until 2002 when the school boards were disbanded.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program on WABC-AM in April of 2004 that he opposed giving legal immigrants who are not United States citizens the right to vote in New York City elections.
The mayor said that while he sympathized with the plight of immigrants, particularly those who pay taxes, he still believed that "the essence of citizenship is the right to vote, and you should go about becoming a citizen before you get the right to vote."
Gifford Miller and Anthony Weiner have said they agree. Fernando Ferrer and Virginia Fields say they disagree, that non-citizens should be able to vote in local elections. A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Larry Tung is a frequent contributor to the Citizen. Â
IMMIGRANTS
- Non-Citizen Voting?
- Drivers License Requirements?
-Amnesty
-School Translators?
There is currently a bill in the New York City Council that would give non-citizen immigrants (who have residency in the city for more than six months) the right to vote in all municipal elections. Advocates of the proposal argue that the estimated 1.3 million immigrants living in New York City, close to 20 percent of the population, deserve to be represented locally in government if they are expected to pay taxes and live with the decisions of elected officials. In New York City, non-citizen residents were allowed to vote in school board elections before the boards were disbanded.
Since January 2004, the Department of Motor Vehicles has been sending letters to thousands of drivers informing them that there is a problem with the Social Security Number in their files. Drivers who cannot provide a valid Social Security number will eventually have their drivers’ licenses suspended and lose the ability to drive legally in New York State. The crackdown has resulted in the suspension of the licenses of 7,000 immigrants, but advocates said the number of immigrants affected could reach 300,000. Immigrant rights groups say the Department of Motor Vehicles should drop proof of immigration status as a requirement for applicants.
Immigrants rights groups have proposed granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for a period of time.
The New York City Council has proposed a bill called the Education Equity Act, which would require translation and interpretation services be provided to parents of children in the New York City public schools. It would also provide translation of report cards and interpretation at parent-teacher conferences.
Fernando Ferrer supports giving non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections. When asked about the bill, Ferrer responded in a written statement: “Non-citizen immigrants pay taxes, contribute to our economy, and are subject to our laws, but are not represented in our government. That is not right. Democracy thrives on allowing everyone access to their government.”
Ferrer’s position on what kind of information should be required for driver’s licenses has not been located.
Ferrer said if he had the power he would give amnesty to undocumented immigrants.
Ferrer said he would support translation services for parents of public school children.
C. Virginia Fields supports giving non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.
Fields’ position on what kind of information should be required for driver’s licenses has not been located.
Fields said if she had the power she would give amnesty to undocumented immigrants.
Fields said he would support translation services for parents of public school children.
Gifford Miller does not support giving non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.
When asked about the bill, Miller responded in a written statement: “I am opposed to non-citizen voting. I support citizenship and expanding citizenship, and have been a consistent supporter of increasing and protecting rights of immigrants by leading the council in such efforts as lobbying the mayor to revise his immigration policy and expand protections for immigrants. As mayor, I will continue to work for increasing immigration rights and protections.”
Miller’s position on what kind of information should be required for driver’s licenses has not been located.
Miller said if he had the power he would give amnesty to undocumented immigrants.
Miller said he supports translation services for parents of public school children and plans on passing the bill in the City Council.
Anthony Weiner does not support giving non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.
Weiner’s position on what kind of information should be required for driver’s licenses has not been located.
At a recent forum, Weiner was asked: Would you give amnesty to undocumented immigrants? Weiner answered "No, not to all."
Weiner said he would support translation services for parents of public school children.
Michael Bloomberg does not support giving non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.
When asked about the bill, Bloomberg responded in a written statement: “Without question, our country’s current immigration system is broken and in dire need of an overhaul. However, I believe that the right to vote is at the very heart of what it means to be a citizen, and therefore I support government efforts to speed the process by which non-citizen residents can become citizens if they choose, so that they can become fully integrated in our country’s economic, social and democratic culture.”
Bloomberg’s position on what kind of information should be required for driver’s licenses has not been located.
At a recent gathering of New York's Caribbean and African leaders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that undocumented immigrants should be able to stay in the country without having to worry about being caught and deported to their homelands.
The Bloomberg administration testified against the Education Equity Act, arguing that it would add burden and costs for the Department of Education.
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