City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s latest “project”, Intro 656, continues to draw outrage among community residents from Maspeth to Howard Beach. The bill is the subject of much heated debate at local civics, coffee shops, park benches, senior centers and anywhere else where the community pulse can be felt.
The controversy over the bill centers on its provisions, which seek to protect illegal aliens from being detained for deportation.
Currently, prisoners guarded by the Department of Corrections (DOC) on Riker’s Island can be detained at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for up to 48 hours after their release. In most instances, a request for detention means ICE is on the way to pick up the individual for deportation.
But Intro 656 seeks to stop all that and end what Speaker Quinn refers to as needless splits in immigrant families. But we feel the speaker’s quest to paint a poignant portrait of family suffrage is a dangerous road to pursue.
The relationship between DOC and ICE was one fostered in the post- 9/11 climate and brought about by the need for heightened communications between all agencies involved in homeland security and law enforcement. We feel any effort, whether legislative or otherwise, which seeks to lessen the exchange of information is a risk not worth taking.
Quinn’s worried about splitting families apart—families who by the way are here illegally—but we are a little more worried about the provisions of a bill which not only prevents the deportation of illegals but also shuts down the exchange of information about criminal activity.
But never mind what we have to say. It has been said by those far wiser than we could hope to be, that “the numbers don’t lie,” so let’s take a look at some numbers associated with illegal immigration:
$113,000,000,000 – This year’s cost of US illegal immigration. Approximately 75% of that cost is absorbed by the states.
$1117 – The average amount you and your family paid in taxes this year to support illegals.
$52,000,000,000 – The cost of educating the children of illegals. This is by far the single largest cost to the American taxpayer.
$2,700 – The average dollar amount a single illegal household costs the US federal government.
1,400,000- The number of illegal immigrant households that use at least one major welfare program. (food stamps, WIC, school lunch, Medicaid, TANF, SSI, and public/rent-subsidized housing)
If Christine Quinn wants to feel bad about something, why doesn’t she feel bad about the money being spent by New York taxpayers who are footing the bills for all the illegal aliens on Riker’s Island and American taxpayers shelling out money across the country for illegals. And really who needs her to feel bad for anything. What we need her, and the rest of the City Council to do, is listen to what their constituents would say about Intro 656. We need to start sending the problems associated with illegal aliens where they belong. Back to their own countries.
