Mayor Bloomberg was in high dudg eon this week over the US Census’ official count in New York City: The feds claim the population is a shade under 8.2 million; the city asserts it’s more like 8.4 million.
The difference — about 210,000, or 2.5 percent — isn’t academic, as the level of federal aid the city and state get for programs like Medicaid is heavily influenced by population.
Slamming the feds’ numbers, Bloomberg said Thursday, “It just doesn’t make any sense at all. When three boroughs go up dramatically and the two most populous boroughs don’t, something’s wrong.”
Officials assert that the Census missed many new, likely illegal, immigrants.
Which makes sense.
After all, the city is an illegal-alien magnet — by design.
With the possible exception of San Francisco and Cambridge, Mass., it would be hard to find a more illegal-friendly city in America than New York. In 2003, Bloomberg expanded a decades-long policy that prohibits city agencies from inquiring into or disclosing the immigration status of any individual they encounter.
As the mayor explained to Congress in 2006: “Our general policy in this area protects the confidentiality of law-abiding immigrants, regardless of their status, when they report a crime or visit a hospital or send their children to school.”
“Law-abiding”?
Sort of, as the mayor added: “Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders, our city’s economy . . . would collapse if they were deported.”
So when the mayor declares that the economy of the country’s most famous city needs illegals, expect them to listen.
Yet, as illegals know only too well, while the city welcome mat is out, things can be different at the federal level. No surprise, then, that they don’t readily open their doors to US Census takers.
Given all that, the feds probably did about as well as could be expected.
As well, say, as Administration for Children’s Services Commissioner John Mattingly, under whose care a child still all too often dies a gruesome death.
And certainly better than City Hall did during the recent Christmas blizzard.
Good enough for government work, no?