If you wanted to test the law enforcement concepts of stop and frisk, sanctuary cities and even a wall along the Mexican border, New York City is the perfect place to start.
New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio has continued a policy that began under Mayor Ed Koch of police not asking about the immigration status of people taken into custody, based on the belief that undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report crimes and fires and seek medical attention for fear of being deported.
For this, the city has qualified as a card-carrying “sanctuary city.”
DeBlasio was also severely criticized in the run-up to the 2013 election for his opposition to a stop-and-frisk policy that in 2011 set a record of 686,000 stops, with the vast majority involving African-American or Hispanic men.
A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the widespread practice was unconstitutional and under DeBlasio the number dropped to 12,000 in 2016.
And as of 2013, more than 37 percent of New York City’s residents — 3.07 million — were born in another country, more than any other city in the world.
An estimated 374,000 of New York City’s foreign born are undocumented — the kind of people President Donald Trump is trying to prevent from getting into this country.
Last week, he requested $18 billion for the initial phase of a Mexico border wall — 316 miles of new fencing and another 407 miles where barriers are already in place. The total border is 2,000 miles.
So, how’s the city doing?
Crime statistics released by the city last week showed the lowest number of homicides since the end of World War II — 290— and the fewest shootings in recorded history. This in a city of more than eight million.
And the 2017 crime statistics are no anomaly. Crime has consistently declined in New York City since 1990, a year that saw 2,245 homicides.
There are many lessons for Nassau County to learn here, beginning with a skepticism of overblown claims that border on fear-mongering by politicians.
During his campaign for county executive, former state Sen. Jack Martins dismissed building trust with minority groups as a way to combat gang activity and repeatedly implied that his opponent, Laura Curran, supported making Nassau County a sanctuary county.
Martins ended his campaign defending a postcard from the Republican State Committee with a photo that showed three shirtless Latino men covered in tattoos. The headline said “Meet Your New Neighbors.”
The text beneath the headline said Laura Curran “will roll out the welcome mat for violent gangs like MS-13,” adding that “Laura Curran: She’s MS-13s choice for County Executive.”
There were two problems with the mailer — it was racist and it was untrue. Curran said she did not support making Nassau a sanctuary county. She instead said she would continue the county’s policy toward immigrants.
The county’s current policy is to encourage good relations with minority communities.
Given New York City’s success, Curran ought to consider taking the next step and moving toward a sanctuary county status.
Nassau will want to look at every way it can to work smarter in the future based on the increased cost faced by county taxpayers as a result of the GOP tax plan.
In August 2016, the editorial board of the New York Daily News, which for years had been very critical of DeBlasio’s stop-and-frisk policy, admitted it had been wrong about the consequences of reducing these stops. Perhaps Nassau will find it was wrong on being a sanctuary county.
Nassau County has already followed New York City in the use of high-tech practices that target high crime areas with impressive results.
But the Trump administration is moving in the opposite direction.
A month after the Daily News admitted being wrong, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed reinstating stop and frisk as a solution to violence in black communities. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have also repeatedly threatened to withhold federal money from so-called sanctuary cities, an effort repeatedly thwarted by federal judges.
And then there is that wall.
Trump has threatened to permit a government shutdown unless Democrats agree to fund his wall plan — his earlier claims that Mexico would pay for the wall notwithstanding.
We hope Long Island’s congressional delegation — both Republicans and Democrats — can convince him to find better uses for the $18 billion down payment.
Like softening the blow of the tax plan.
