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- [00:02]
A
Hi, I'm Ben Max from Gotham Gazette.
- [00:03]
B
And I'm Jarrett Murphy from City Limits. And as part of our ongoing series on big issues in the 2021 campaign, today we're talking about immigration.
- [00:12]
A
And this is obviously an issue, a topic essential to New York City's identity has been really forever, of course, with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis island and so much more. Of course, there were Native Americans here in the city, especially the island of Manhattan, long before settlers came from Dutch settlers came even back early on in the late 17th century. There were hundreds of people and, you know, a dozen plus languages spoken. It's obviously key to, you know, New York City's growth, health over centuries. There are 3 million plus immigrants in New York City, more than a third of the population. The undocumented population is well over half a million, which obviously would be on its own, one of the biggest cities in the country. There are about roughly 1 million New Yorkers who lived in mixed status households. Immigrants are said to own roughly 50%, even more of New York City's businesses. Obviously, that includes many, many small businesses that make so many neighborhoods vibrant and thrive. And it's estimated that immigrants and immigrant businesses are responsible for about 22% of the city's total GDP. Now, immigration is obviously key to the city's future as well as its past and its present. And there have been some concerns about the slowing pace of immigration to the city. Immigration has been one of these constants that's helped the city continue to grow in its population and continue to thrive. In many ways. There's been a pretty serious drop in immigration to the city. That was really during the Trump presidency, which was obviously a presidency very unfriendly towards immigrants in many, many ways. And there's been real challenges around what the population of the city and its growth looks like due to a drop in immigration as well as drops in birth rates. The last few years have obviously also shown the real vulnerability of immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, during the Trump presidency. But also as COVID 19 struck as a vulnerable population. Like other vulnerable populations in the city, undocumented immigrants and immigrants more generally feel every crisis or challenge more acutely. And that was certainly the case with the health and social and economic and educational impacts of COVID 19.
- [02:45]
B
And this is an issue, Ben, where when you think about the landscape, so many times, we talk about the fact that, you know, New York City is a creation of the state. Obviously it's subservient to the federal government. But this is an issue where the city really has Very little direct authority over the most important policies. Immigration is fundamentally a federal issue. It's even an issue where the President, the executive branch has a lot more authority on a day to day basis and a lot less oversight from courts or from Congress and than any other area of policy or many other areas of policy. And also obviously it's something that is affected by forces and events all around the world. Natural disasters, strife, famines. Other problems and issues around the world affect who's coming and under what circumstances to New York City. So New York City is very much kind of playing in a field of bigger players on immigration. Another thing to keep in mind, obviously immigrants. We. There's an image that might come to mind of a particular type of person, but it's a very diverse population. Some folks have been here for decades. People who got here last week, some of them are university professors. You have people with extraordinary educational credentials, probably not working in jobs that are up to that level of expertise. I know we have some bodegas here in the Bronx run by people who are physicists and doctors. Guy who was a major journalists running a fruit stand. I know in the city you also have people who've come here and they are not literate in the language they speak because they grew up in a rural area, didn't have the benefit of education. People who are indigenous residents of their home country, people from countries we think of as Spanish speaking who may not speak Spanish. Different statuses, some of them are, as you mentioned, undocumented. Others are already citizens or have permanent residents. Some of them have come as refugees or asylees. There are real social tensions around this. New York City obviously thinks of itself as a melting pot or a tossed salad. And often that is the case. But it doesn't always work out in kind of a Shangri La sort of way. You've had tensions on Staten island between Mexicans and others. You've had issues in the Bronx between Native Americans, or I should say African Americans and new African immigrants. And recently we've had a spate of attacks apparently motivated by bias on Asian Americans. So that is part of the picture. Obviously not just immigrants affected by that. Anyone who matches those descriptions can be victimized, but certainly part of the picture of tension between groups who are established here and groups who are newcomers. And I think because of the importance of the issue and its complexity, this is an area where really almost all recent mayors have tried to craft, at least extensively, an immigrant friendly image. Mayor Giuliani, not a friend to many liberal social causes when he was Mayor, certainly afterward was established himself as being pro immigrant, disputing the 1996 anti immigration laws in Congress. Mayor Bloomberg often took pro immigration stances, and that was part not only of his run for president, but earlier his run for or his time as mayor of New York City. And obviously, it's been a focus of Mayor de Blasio.
- [06:04]
A
Yes, indeed. And that's where we see the candidates for mayor this year, looking at the de Blasio legacy of the last seven plus years and talking about what they would do differently, what they would expand on, et cetera. De Blasio came in with his focus on equity and did a lot on immigration, but a lot of that was also pushed by then City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, who really made immigrants and immigrant rights a major focus of her four years as City Council speaker. She worked closely with City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca on a lot of those issues. And de Blasio was very receptive in almost every case. As far as I know, they did a lot together. One of their biggest priorities was trying to make New York City a sanctuary city. Obviously, there was a lot of controversy over whether the city really had the power to do that and to what extent it could. We saw there were obviously gaps in that because as you noted, so much does come back to federal policy. There's no way that the city can fully guarantee that it's a sanctuary to undocumented immigrants. And de Blasio also, he was a little bit cagey about this, but he didn't want to make it a 100% sanctuary city. There were certain crimes that people committed that he wanted to keep on a list of cooperating with immigration enforcement officials. And that became something of a source of controversy as de Blasio, Mark Viverito and the council developed a very significant legal defense fund, the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. And that was a major accomplishment for them. Also some debate among them. Then there was the ID NYC program that launched the Municipal Identification Card that was meant for all New Yorkers, but also to help give a form of ID to people that didn't have it, often immigrants, often undocumented immigrants. And that was there. But there was also some questions and controversy around there, document retention and so forth. And then, of course, the ongoing questions, as I mentioned, around cooperation with ice, the courts, the police Department, the Department of Correction, there's questions around how policing in general impacts immigrants and the question of people having criminal records and potentially then being deported. The ongoing issue of providing counsel in immigration court as well as translation services there and so many other places. And then also in the de Blasio years, he tried to expand city health coverage to immigrants, including undocumented immigrants. And questions around whether people would have primary care physicians and whether people were going to be able to seek proactive and preventative care, which again, we saw come into so much focus as COVID 19 wreaked havoc on so many people who've not been getting that type of care. And then a couple other issues in their Blasio years that remain points of contention, points of debate in the current race to replace him and other races in the city this year. And that's questions over street vendors and street vendor licensing. And also we just saw this excluded workers fund come through in the state budget. Billions of dollars that undocumented immigrants will be able to apply for if they've lost income and wages due to the virus and its many impacts on people.
- [09:28]
B
I think that sets the stage perfectly for what the candidates in 2021 for mayor and other offices are talking about. The recovery from COVID And Covid's impacts are obviously job one, getting people vaccinated, getting people back to some level of economic stability. I think from that flow deeper questions about how the city is serving its immigrants, about health care access, as you mentioned, especially community health centers, and frankly about the social safety net. The state fund for excluded workers is a wonderful thing, but it's a one shot deal. It doesn't address the fact that you have this vulnerability in a population that cannot qualify for a lot of federal benefits. Obviously is in a position where it may not want to make itself known for any city benefits that might be out there or nonprofit charitable resources. That's a real problem. The city faces a vulnerability going forward if there's another economic emergency anywhere akin to COVID 19. Policing and corrections will continue to be, as you mentioned, an issue in terms of cooperation with ICE and federal immigration services, whether it's in the jails or policing, and in different ways, too. One of the big issues in New York City is can we assure undocumented people that they can approach the police to report a crime, to make themselves available as a witness without worrying about their status being reported? That's something the city has tried to assure with executive orders. That's a constant battle in terms of. Of perception and reality in the city's conduct of its policing. Wage theft, exploitation is a big issue in the city, always has been, often affects undocumented immigrants. Violence against immigrants we mentioned is a major issue now, especially regarding the Asian American community, but many others as well have been victimized by that in the past. And the question of language access is a really interesting one as the city's pool of immigrants changes. You know, obviously many things in New York City are in Spanish. There are several official languages the city translates much material into, but not everything is translated perfectly around time. And obviously there are language groups coming in from new areas that aren't served by those. So that's a major, major issue. But I think, Ben, one of the most interesting ones that people have talked about a little bit on the campaign trail and affects politics directly is civic participation by undocumented immigrants and the question of whether some local right to vote should be extended.
- [11:50]
A
Right. There's been a bit of a split in the Democratic primary field over this question, and most of it revolves around, you know, permanent residency status, not necessarily extending the municipal vote to all undocumented immigrants, but really this is about documented immigrants. In most cases, the conversations revolving around and extending the franchise to people who have been living in New York City and continue to live in New York City, but haven't necessarily become full citizens, at least by paperwork and questions around whether they should be allowed to vote in municipal elections. That's seemingly the only thing the city would have power over is the local elections. But that's become an interesting question as we're talking here. It's also striking me that, of course, when we talk about any demographic group we're talking about, there are always some issues that impact them more than others. But of course, for immigrants, the issues run the gamut. And things like housing, schools, you name it, are always issues for virtually every demographic group in the city. And then there are some issues that hit certain groups more acutely than others here, of course. Immigration enforcement, deportation policy, citizenship policy. Are some of those the sectors of the economy where immigrants are more overrepresented? Like we said with street vendors, those are things that of course, become more a focal point. Not just street vendors, but also delivery workers. We've seen so much discussion around the use of E bikes and those being legalized on the state level, and then what the city policies are around those, how delivery workers are treated and matters of economic policy around those, nypd, enforcement of the E bikes and so much more. And then another sector is the taxi sector, and we've seen this taxi medallion crisis that there's still questions for this mayor, this city Council, and very likely the next mayor, next city council, around what to do to try to help those taxi medallion owners who are not any type of big conglomerate who own one medallion and are really struggling under that debt. There's questions around how to. To help those folks.
- [14:11]
B
And it's interesting. This is an issue that obviously is fascinating and really important, but it's one that some candidates for mayor, just to take that race as perhaps the most important one, have focused on specifically, candidates like Andrew Yang and Diane Morales, Sean Donovan and Scott Stringer have set up specific sets of policies to address immigration questions. And they vary in what they say and how comprehensive they are. And several other candidates have not addressed it directly, at least as a separate issue, but they certainly refer to it in their other plans that deal with other aspects of city government. But given that that's the case, some of the questions that I think we might have for candidates, and they've probably answered some of these at many of the forums that have occurred, but big questions for voters to keep in mind are if you are going to, for instance, expand the franchise to permanent residents and others perhaps who are not citizens, how do you really make sure they're part of that process and take it beyond merely creating a franchise to engagement, voter education, all those things to make this a truly valuable exercise in expanding democracy? I think that's one question I have. Another is, again, in terms of the social safety net we've seen with COVID 19, the problems that creates for people who do not have full status here as citizens, what are we going to do about that? Is there something the city can do to make sure that in an emergency, we have a nimble and rigorous system for providing help where it's needed to everyone, regardless of what their immigration status is?
- [15:45]
A
Yeah. And I'll just hit on a couple of things I think are key questions for the mayoral candidates and candidates for other offices, too. Two key areas I think that we haven't talked a lot about here, but one is education and questions around what is your education policy to help both adult immigrants, people you know, and again, not every immigrant needs help learning English, but adult literacy classes are often a key issue among immigrants. Do you have a plan to help older immigrants and then younger immigrants and bilingual schooling and so much more around language access and what you just got at around the franchise? There's also questions around requirements around translations at poll sites and all sorts of other things. But even before you get to a poll site, you know, what are the policies around politics and civics and translation and everything from community board meetings to so much more. And then housing is such a key issue. The question of affordability, the question of legalizing accessory dwelling units. These are, you know, how does the city build more housing and more affordable housing, create more legal units? These are huge questions for the next mayor that are being debated. And then lastly, I'll say as we started here, clearly the city must work with federal partners. So much of this will be decided on the federal level. If there's any changes at all, what happens under a Biden presidency and a Democratic Congress, a very narrow Democratic Congress around immigration reform? Will anything actually get done? New pathways to citizenship and so forth, refugee policy. And so much of that impacts New York City as a city of immigrants. And so local leaders have to be ready and thoughtful about both what they're trying to influence in the federal policy and then how they would implement it and work with federal and state partners on those.
- [17:35]
B
So many questions and so little time. I hope we get some answers on that between now and the primary. If you want answers or questions on other policy issues, please check out our previous eight videos at CityLimits.org or GothamGazette.com check GothamGazette.com or CityLimits.org every day for campaign news, background and investigations. Listen to the show Ben and I do on WBAI, the Maxim Murphy show, every Wednesday at 5pm on 99.5 FM. Go to Vote NYC to learn about your registration, your voting place and voting times. And remember, early voting begins June 12 and primary day is June 22.