The New York Daily News reports that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg weighed in on the immigration debate last night at a citizenship event held at CUNY:
“This is not good for the country. I don’t agree with it,” he said. “We love immigrants here.”
Bloomberg said that because federal lawmakers have failed to tackle the thorny issue, lawmakers in states like Arizona have taken matters into their own hands.
“This country is committing national suicide,” Bloomberg said.
“We have to get real about the 12 million undocumented here,” the mayor said. “We’re not going to deport them. Give them permanent status. Don’t make them citizens unless they can qualify, but give them permanent status and let’s get on with this.
This is coming from a guy who’s done nothing to change the drug laws in his city. Incidentally, drug-law enforcement is fueling the border violence that Arizonans are so (rightfully) terrified of:
The surge of gunbattles, beheadings and kidnappings that has accompanied Mexico’s war on drug cartels is an entirely predictable escalation in violence based on decades of scientific literature, a new study contends.
A systematic review published Tuesday of more than 300 international studies dating back 20 years found that when police crack down on drug users and dealers, the result is almost always an increase in violence, say researchers at the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, a nonprofit group based in Britain and Canada.
When communities get tough on drug crime, that drives up the black market profits, prompting fierce battles to control the lucrative trade, their study says. And when powerful and successful drug bosses are taken out, it’s all too common for more brutal and less sophisticated criminals to step in.
“Law enforcement is the biggest single expenditure on drugs, yet has rarely been evaluated. This work indicates an urgent need to shift resources from counterproductive law enforcement to a health-based public health approach,” said Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association which is hosting a conference this week in Liverpool, England, where the study was released.
As happened with Mexico’s all-out drug crackdown launched when President Felipe Calderon took office a little over three years ago, murders shot up during the U.S. prohibition on liquor in the 1920s and during Colombia’s crackdown on its drug gangs in the 1990s.