Immigration, Justice

De Blasio Reminds Landlords That Snitches Get Stitches

Sanctuary cities, explained in one case.

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Man who fooled me, again. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

In New York City, in our evolved, cosmopolitan, rat-infested, expensive, brutal, heroic city, we’re not going to let Donald Trump turn us against the most vulnerable. Y’all best keep your anti-immigrant xenophobia west of the Hudson. In this city, we’re going to fight for our new neighbors. 9/11 didn’t turn us into Kansas (except for like a couple of months that people are totally embarrassed about now), and Donald Trump sure as hell ain’t gonna make us an unwelcoming Gestapo arrayed against new friends (unless you go to Staten Island, but, like why would you do that?).

So says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Yes, the much maligned “progressive” mayor actually did something progressive. A Queens landlord was accused of a violation by the city Commission on Human Rights. He denied the charges and copied ICE on his documents, which included all of the personal information of his tenant. De Blasio was having none of it. From the New York Daily News:

“Our message is loud and clear: we will hold landlords accountable for discrimination in our city,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement. “We stand with tenants, regardless of their origin, in Queens and across the five boroughs.”…

“Everyone in New York City deserves the right to live free from discrimination and harassment and should not fear for their safety when reporting violations of the Law,” [Sapna V. Raj, an assistant commissioner at the commission] said in a statement.

I know Trump and Jeff Sessions have gotten flyover country all riled up about “Sanctuary Cities.” I understand how, intellectually, it can seem odd to some Americans that there are places that are unwilling to report violations of law to the federal authorities.

But this is why cities, real working cities, need sanctuary protections. You have to be able to report mistreatment without fear of reprisal. You have to be able to report crimes without fear of reprisal. People seem to think immigrants are criminals, but they’re not disproportionately represented in terms of committing crimes, they’re disproportionately the victims of crimes. So-called sanctuary cities give VICTIMS the ability to report violations committed against them, without fear of being deported for the crime of being a victim.

What kind of person do you have to be to be against that? How can you possibly be so xenophobic that you want to make it harder, even impossible, for victims of crime to simply report that they’ve been victimized?

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Look at what happened here. The landlord was not interested in reporting illegal status because the woman had violated a law. He was not interested in making America great again. He was interested in running a slum, somebody called him on it, and he tried to intimidate his victim by snitching to ICE.

You can’t run a city like that. You can’t run a city based on vendetta and retaliation.

We’re not going to run this city like that. Out here on these streets, snitches (to ICE) get stitches (err… fines). That’s how we do things, over here in a decent civilization.

City hits ICE-snitching Queens landlord with charge for sharing tenant info [New York Daily News]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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