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By Seth Barron. Media: Nypost
Even while the progressive agenda is foundering nationwide, New York City Democrats are holding course, steering their ship of folly directly toward the rocky shoals of incompetence, waste, and municipal misgovernance.
The latest exhibit of Progressive absurdity was on display in Manhattan Criminal Court, where Venezuelan illegal alien Nolveiro Vera Ordonez was arraigned on a host of theft-related charges.
Under state bail reform laws, of course, Ordonez was slated for immediate release, but knowing that federal ICE agents were waiting to take him into custody, he asked the judge to send him to jail on a small bond.
Judge Rachel Pauley agreed, assigned Ordonez $100 bail, and sparing him — so he thought — from the clutches of the federal officers seeking his arrest.
Ordonez’ plan — cooked up by his city-funded activist defense counsel — was that he could post bail whenever he feels like it and exit Rikers at will.
New York’s sanctuary city laws would prevent the NYPD from notifying ICE of his release, and he could be free to return to the streets, continue his career of theft and criminal mischief, and decide later on if it suits him to return to court, or not.
As it turned out, Ordonez already had a federal criminal warrant, so he’s not going anywhere soon.
But not for lack of trying!
Judge Pauley may not have crossed the line of probity the way Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan did when she escorted an illegal alien out the back door of her courthouse to avoid ICE detention, but the effect is the same.
Progressive judges and other elected officials are convinced that laws that target crime or criminals — at least the right kind of criminals — are essentially unjust.
It’s their job to sort out workarounds to mitigate the “immigration consequences” of criminality.
Wednesday night’s Democrat mayoral debate was loaded with these concerns.
When asked about how to deal with the scourge of e-bikes speeding, riding on sidewalks, and running lights, state senator Jessica Ramos opened by saying, “We have to end the criminalization of our delivery workers and bicycle riders . . . that is leaving breadcrumbs for ICE and many of our community members vulnerable.”
Former assemblyman Michael Blake said that “we cannot have an increase in people getting tickets.”
Why?
Because “it will absolutely lead to the harassment of more communities of color, and immigrants in particular.”
We understand that e-bike food deliverymen are riding dangerously and too fast so they can get bigger tips and fulfill more deliveries per hour.
Maybe that’s good for them and for their customers who want their to-go orders of noodles piping hot, but it’s not clear why the city has to twist itself in knots to facilitate an industry that is basically a luxury.
Just because illegal immigrants have found a way to make money by shuttling restaurant food around doesn’t mean that we have to protect them from the consequences of their actions, at the expense of public safety.
The same dynamic is at work regarding illegal street vendors, who take up sidewalk space in congested thoroughfares to peddle homemade food and tchotchkes.
These folks, also often illegal aliens, compete purposefully with brick-and-mortar establishments which collect sales tax, employ workers, and pay to have their garbage hauled instead of pouring their cooking oil down the nearest sewer drain.
But to listen to their advocates in city government, street vendors are the backbone of the entire local economy.
Bronx councilmember Pierina Sanchez is promoting a bill to expand dramatically the number of vending permits because this is a “time when immigrants and workers are targeted by executive orders at both the city and federal levels.”
We must, says Sanchez, “make our city safer and more welcoming for immigrant New Yorkers,” by legalizing a profound nuisance that will crowd sidewalks, hurt local businesses, and make streets dirtier.
The Progressive vision of New York City assumes that every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints, to quote a legendary poet of the twentieth century.
Their perpetual solution to crime is to legalize it, because then the crime rate will drop to zero.
But the problems that the crime rate reflects will remain.
That’s the problem with reality — you can’t wish it away.
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