New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities when executive order 124 was issued in 1989 by Mayor Edward Koch. It is this twenty-year ruling, supported totally by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, that has a very real significance in the closing of St. John’s Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens and the School Construction Authority’s rampant use of eminent domain to build schools on every corner, choking the life out of our neighborhoods.

Yes, 1989 – that was when the insanity of NYC being a “sanctuary city” began, and Americans, most of whom are from legal immigrant origins, have been paying the bill ever since. The term “Sanctuary City” means that the immigration status of an illegal alien can never be questioned by the authorities. That also means that New York City gives safe haven to criminals, pedophiles and terrorists included, arriving at our shores illegally because it would be illegal to ask them to show documentation on their status in the United States.

To add to the lunacy of “sanctuary cities,” it should be stated that even after the vicious attack of 9/11 on the Twin Towers, Mayor Bloomberg, undeterred, stated, “People who are undocumented do not have to worry about city government reporting their illegal status to the federal government.” You have to love the euphemism “undocumented,” which has become the politically correct identification for the “illegal” alien. You have to wonder what planet Bloomberg is living on when he thinks we could sustain the drain on our tax dollars by illegal aliens who usually do not pay taxes into the system.

Well that drain on our tax dollars has claimed two hospitals here in Queens. The closing of St. John’s Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital will have occurred by the time this article is published, because these hospitals, by law, have to treat everyone who comes to their emergency room door and that includes the thousands of illegal aliens and their families who live in Queens who pay nothing towards their care because they usually don’t have any health insurance or pay income taxes. As we all know, income taxes, federal, state and local, are the engines that keep America moving and, illegal aliens usually are paid off the books. Also, to further illustrate the drain on our tax dollars because of the illegal alien population, the School Construction Authority is planning to build a new high school, with a conservatively stated enrollment of at least 1,100 students, at the site of the closed Restaurant Depot on 74th Street in Maspeth. The SCA will acquire the property through the process of eminent domain. This site is just one very short block from PS 58, The School of Heroes, with an enrollment of about 1,000 students and a couple of blocks from I.S. 73 in Maspeth with an enrollment of about 2,000 students.That makes a total of roughly 4,000 students, plus faculty, inundating that area of Maspeth with additional people and cars.

This proposed school will be built in a residential neighborhood with no adequate transportation facilities and, very importantly, will not offer priority enrollment to students in the neighborhood. How can this development
have anything but a negative impact on the quality of life for the residents in Maspeth and nearby Middle Village?
Do the math – statistically 73 percent of Middle Village households do not even have children in the schools and the stat for Maspeth is about 70 percent. Combined, the three schools will have enrollment of about 4,000 students, the vast majority of whom will be from other neighborhoods. There will be no parking accommodation for the faculty, hundreds of school buses will prowl the neighborhood throughout the day with no bus drop-off lane for the students and, there would be no parking consideration for the vehicles of older students who use their cars for transportation.

Bloomberg’s sanctuary city policy is literally killing us, with the closing of two hospitals and is ruining our residential neighborhoods because of the shoot-from-the-hip approach of the School Construction Authority and its lunacy of dumping schools on every corner in Maspeth and Middle Village, using the eminent domain process.

Eminent domain is the power of the federal or state government to take private property for a public purpose, even if the property owner objects.

As Americans we have to think long and hard about the consequences of our generosity and our desire to save the world. In that endeavor we are all suffering and many of us will die because more hospitals will close, choked by thousands of illegal aliens who, as stated, usually work off the books.

Understand also the real reason for Sanctuary Cities. Politicians love the votes they get from the different ethnic groups that they protect through the sanctuary city process, and, just as importantly, the cheap labor the illegals provide because, sadly, they themselves are victimized by unscrupulous employment practices in the marketplace.

This article is not a hit on legal immigration, those who come to this great, generous country legally. These Americans have worked hard and, most importantly, paid their income taxes. They have done the right thing, the legal thing, which is the real American way.

The saddest part about the “sanctuary city” policy is that Americans have become frightened to even talk about illegal immigration because of the risk of being politically incorrect and labeled to be “prejudiced.” It should be noted that the words “sanctuary city” or “illegal alien” do not trump the most meaningful words of all, “free speech,” which is guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights.

We have the duty to stand up and state our concerns at the direction our country is taking when we have leaders like Mayor Michael Bloomberg who choose to protect illegal aliens by creating a “sanctuary city,” risking the safety of all New Yorkers and ignoring federal law. Keep in mind, despite NYC term limit legislation prohibiting a third term in office, Bloomberg, through political manipulation of the process, cleared the way for him to seek that third term in November 2009.