City Council Speaker Christine Quinn pushed through legislation on Thursday, November 3, 2011 designed to protect illegal immigrants currently being held in Rikers Island from deportation by our federal government’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE).

As Ms. Quinn states, “it would needlessly split apart immigrant families!” Hint to Ms. Quinn, the fact that these illegal aliens are in jail means they have already split apart their own families; we had nothing to do with it! Why do you care about the personal collateral damage of their illegal acts?

If that isn’t bad enough our elected officials, Council Member Elizabeth Crowley CD30th and Council Member Karen Koslowitz 29th CD co-sponsored the bill along with other misguided council members who want to protect illegal aliens from Immigration and Customs Enforcement doing their job that we the taxpayer pay them to do!

The real question becomes – just who are these elected officials representing? How out of touch are they with the taxpayers who elected them to do their job in the NYC council? Council Members Elizabeth Crowley and Karen Koslowitz are playing to phantom constituents for political reasons and they are hell bent on protecting people who are in this country illegally! Do they really think the taxpayers in the 29th or 30th Council Districts want them to protect illegal aliens in Rikers Island? Come next election time they will hear the answer to that question loud and clear.

These are the questions they should be answering, why don't you spend your time doing what the legal taxpayers elected you to do which is protecting them and making sure their families are safe on our streets? Stop grandstanding for illegal aliens who work cheap, send their money to their homeland and pay nothing to maintain the social services they drain from our economy so disgracefully. That's the reality of illegal immigrants, and your refusal to recognize their drain on our tax dollars only magnifies how out of touch you are with your constituents.

The legal taxpayers in your districts elected you to enforce the law and not make it hard for the federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents to do their job.

It has been reported that originally Mayor Bloomberg was against the bill and then after much negotiation and arm twisting changed his mind, which you may have noticed, he does quite regularly as he sleepwalks through his third term.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg continuously insist on doing happy talk about illegal aliens and the great contribution they make to our country! Are they kidding? Do they realize how much each illegal alien in Rikers Island costs the taxpayer? Do they care?

Keep in mind that Council Speaker Christine Quinn has aspirations to be the next Mayor of NYC. Remember this grandstanding legislation she's involved with to protect illegal aliens from deportation come that Election Day!

The Juniper Park Civic Association is sounding the alarm about Council Members Elizabeth Crowley and Karen Koslowitz who voted for this bill, you were elected to do the people’s work, the constituents in this country legally who pay their taxes to support the system, including your salary. Stop supporting legislation designed to tie the hands of our federal enforcement authority, Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). You are wasting our precious tax dollars trying to make illegal aliens look sympathetic because they're in jail for their crimes. These criminals deserve to be deported quickly to their homeland prisons.

We invite you to come to the Juniper Park Civic Association Town Meetings and explain your misguided support of illegal aliens in Rikers Island. Good luck on that one!

And, another thing, we should stop characterizing American taxpayers who do not support illegal immigration as racist. Prejudice has nothing to do with it. Upholding the laws we live by should always be our main goal. You will have to excuse us if we learned that lesson too well. After all many of us were educated in our very own NYC public school system which taught us to obey the law! Lesson learned!

Statement by Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr.
Re: Proposed Legislation to Prevent Federal Authorities from Obtaining Information on Illegal Immigrants at Rikers Island

“The City Council is ignoring federal law and claiming that people illegally in this country who are arrested for a crime are somehow required to already have been convicted of yet another crime before we even cooperate with federal authorities. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that many dangerous criminals who have recently snuck into our country have no criminal record. This policy will only succeed in making our streets more dangerous.”

Council Member Vallone pointed to two men living in Queens illegally as recent examples of how this legislation will make our streets less safe – Mylan Rysa, recently arrested for killing his dog by throwing it out of his apartment window, and Carlos Salazar Cruz, convicted last year of raping and killing a young woman in Flushing. Rysa has two prior assault arrests, which resulted in convictions for violations (which are not considered crimes), while Cruz had no previous record. Under this legislation the city would not have shared arrest information with Immigration officials, and therefore, had Cruz’s case not resulted in a conviction (Rysa’s case is still pending) he would be free to roam our streets.

Here's a list of the council members who voted on the legislation on Thursday, November 3, 2011. Their vote appears after their name.
Note that Elizabeth Crowley (Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale, Ridgewood, Woodhaven) co-sponsored the legislation and voted to approve the bill.

Int 0656-2011 Version: A
Type: Introduction

Result: Pass

Action: Approved by Council
Action text: A motion was made that this Introduction be Approved by Council approved by Roll Call.
Votes (43:5)

51 recordsGroupExport
Person Name Vote
Christine C. Quinn Affirmative
Maria Del Carmen Arroyo Affirmative
Charles Barron Affirmative
Gale A. Brewer Affirmative
Fernando Cabrera Excused
Margaret S. Chin Affirmative
Leroy G. Comrie, Jr. Affirmative
Elizabeth S. Crowley Affirmative
Inez E. Dickens Affirmative
Erik Martin Dilan Affirmative
Daniel Dromm Affirmative
Mathieu Eugene Affirmative
Julissa Ferreras Excused
Lewis A. Fidler Abstain
Helen D. Foster Affirmative
Daniel R. Garodnick Affirmative
James F. Gennaro Affirmative
Vincent J. Gentile Negative
Sara M. Gonzalez Affirmative
David G. Greenfield Affirmative
Daniel J. Halloran III Affirmative
Vincent M. Ignizio Negative
Robert Jackson Affirmative
Letitia James Affirmative
Peter A. Koo Affirmative
G. Oliver Koppell Affirmative
Karen Koslowitz Affirmative
Brad S. Lander Affirmative
Jessica S. Lappin Affirmative
Stephen T. Levin Affirmative
Melissa Mark-Viverito Affirmative
Darlene Mealy Affirmative
Rosie Mendez Affirmative
Michael C. Nelson Affirmative
James S. Oddo Negative
Annabel Palma Affirmative
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr. Affirmative
Diana Reyna Affirmative
Joel Rivera Affirmative
Ydanis A. Rodriguez Affirmative
Deborah L. Rose Affirmative
James Sanders, Jr. Affirmative
Larry B. Seabrook Affirmative
Eric A. Ulrich Negative
James Vacca Affirmative
Peter F. Vallone, Jr. Negative
James G. Van Bramer Affirmative
Albert Vann Affirmative
Mark S. Weprin Affirmative
Jumaane D. Williams Affirmative
Ruben Wills Affirmative