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On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an Inwood resident while dressed as New York Police Department officers. Mayor Bill de Blasio responded Saturday with a letter to ICE asking it to stop pretending to be police officers as it would stop immigrants from cooperating with police for other matters. This tactic has an official name: a “ruse,” and Documented covered it in 2018. ICE generally claims to be “police,” not specifically the NYPD, so the city has no official way of preventing the practice. However, specifically impersonating a police officer – by wearing a NYPD jacket, for example – is a class E felony, but no local law enforcement bodies have moved to prosecute the issue yet. City and State
In other local immigration news…
Iranians Hurt the Most by Trump’s Travel Ban
📍 Documented Original
The travel ban — also called the Muslim ban by its detractors — decreased the number of visas issued to the affected countries between 2016 and 2019. Ultimately, it decreased the number of immigration visas issued to citizens of the listed countries by 60 percent from 31,748 visas in 2016 to 11,873 visas in 2019, according to data released by the State Department. The ban changed the lives of Muslims from 13 countries, leaving panic-stricken families divided, their immigration status in limbo, and some stuck in third countries as they tried to reunite with relatives in the U.S. State Department data show the impact was overwhelmingly focused on countries where nearly all residents are Muslims. Read more at Documented.
Judge Chides Trump Administration Over Trusted Traveler Program Challenge
A federal judge scorched the Trump administration Tuesday about its attempts to ban New Yorkers from the Global Entry trusted traveler program. “By making a decision that may well have been pretextual, and was certainly arbitrary and capricious, defendants undermined the ‘core constitutional and democratic values’ underlying the APA,” U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman wrote, abbreviating the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how the federal government issues regulations. The Trump administration’s lawyers also “repeat[ed] their misleading, if not false, representations,” when trying to explain why the ban was instated, he added. Even though the Trump administration rescinded the exclusion, New York state was entitled to a summary judgement. Courthouse News
MS-13 Crackdown On the Ballot on Long Island
When Donald Trump decided to make MS-13 a target of many rants and his immigration crackdown, law enforcement became focused on Long Island in a way it hadn’t been before. Since Trump took office, federal arrests of suspected gang members have gone up, as have deportations. Trump won 54 percent of the vote in Suffolk County, which has been the site of gang violence. Now, residents are arguing who deserves credit. Some say it’s the federal government. Others say it was tighter border restrictions and local law enforcement. When residents hit the polls in November, it will be a referendum on whether Trump’s crackdown on MS-13 repelled Long Island residents or drew them in. Gothamist
