O’Reilly: The New York City commune
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, second from left, holds a news conference at City Hall to announce four appointments to his administration on Tuesday, April 8, 2014. Credit: Charles Eckert
Welcome to the Republic of New York City. It’s a nice place to visit, and you’ll definitely want to live there — if you’re in the United States illegally.
The founding fathers of the Republic, if you will, are Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. They are the visionaries creating a five-borough paradise for the undocumented. And based on the mess the federal government has created for municipalities, you almost can’t blame them.
The cornerstone of de Blasio’s and Mark-Viverito’s republic is the municipal identification card that was just proposed in the City Council, which is widely expected to approve it. The ID card will be available to any New Yorker, but it’s really being created for undocumented city residents who can’t otherwise get official government ID.
The aim of the identification card is twofold: to make life easier for city residents living in the country illegally by allowing them to open bank accounts, sign contracts, enter government buildings, etc. And, ironically, to allow holders to vote in municipal elections, i.e., mayoral, city council, borough president, city comptroller and school board races. I say ironically, because progressives tend to howl whenever voter-ID laws are proposed.
Noncitizen voting in New York City is being championed by an organization called iVote (ivotenyc.org), which is comprised of a couple dozen leftist and immigrant groups, plus SEIU, one of the best funded unions in the country. iVote claims to have more than enough votes in the City Council to pass noncitizen voting, and two of its longtime champions are de Blasio and Mark-Viverito.
The group has noncitizen voting dreams well beyond New York, incidentally, which iVote says on its website should serve as a “model” for the rest of the country.
Once noncitizen voting is passed in New York — and there’s no reason to believe it won’t be — the power of the citizen New Yorker will immediately be diluted by 20 percent, if iVote’s claim is accurate that “1 in 5 adult New Yorkers are denied the right to vote in city elections because of their citizenship status.” As more undocumented Americans come to New York to enjoy this new largesse — I would if I weren’t documented — citizen voting power will be commensurately reduced.
This new New York is right around the corner.
It’s amazing how badly Washington has screwed up our immigration system.
William F. B. O’Reilly is a Republican consultant who is working on the Rob Astorino.
