Another day, another contentious move on immigration — all because of Washington’s Âinaction.
New York’s City Council voted to create municipal identity cards that allow every resident — including those here illegally — to obtain a card that will be recognized by every city agency. The council hopes it will also be accepted at places such as at banks.
The move was backed by Mayor de Blasio, who campaigned for such an ID card during his run for mayor.
The council also voted to expand a pilot program designed to give people facing deportation free legal counsel. Together, these two measures make it easier for the city’s undocumented residents to establish homes and fight efforts to detain or deport them.
The moves are not without grumbles on both sides. On the anti-immigration right, the complaint is that the measures reward people for their illegality at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, some on the left worry that the municipal IDs will give the government a massive list of people who could become targets for deportation.
All this speaks to the fundamental problem: The national system of immigration has broken down, and these efforts — whether it’s an Arizona law requiring aliens to carry immigration documents with them at all times, or a New York law that will give them IDs — are different local responses to a challenge that demands a national answer.
President Obama bears his share of the blame for this. In 2008 he said an immigration bill would be a priority for him, but it’s now 2014 and not only are we still without a bill, his threats of policy by executive order and the crisis his neglect has invited at our southern border makes bipartisan reform even less likely.
But Republicans in Congress who oppose immigration reform need to face up to this reality: Doing nothing on immigration doesn’t stop people from coming in or get people here illegally to leave. All it does is uphold and encourage the lawless status quo they claim to object to.