Despite the feigned helplessness of city, state and federal authorities, they have levers to pull. They’re not using them for political reasons.
Eduardo Porter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin America, US economic policy and immigration. He is author of "American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise.”
Back to the future.
Photographer: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Seemingly distraught about the multi-billion-dollar cost of hosting tens of thousands of asylum seekers shipped north by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul might usefully take a page from New York’s past.
It was only in 2005 that New York City removed a regulation put in place during the mayoralty of Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s to clear out Jewish and other “ethnic” vendors from the streets of the Lower East Side by requiring them to prove their citizenship. Bending to pleas from immigrants clamoring for a path to make a living, the City Council amended the administrative code to bar city officials from even asking: “Information about an applicant’s immigration or citizenship status shall not affect the consideration of the application for a food vendor’s license or renewal thereof,” it decided.
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