New York City Officials Condemn Supreme Court Immigration Ruling

Top image courtesy of Matt Wade/Flickr

NEW YORK CITY, NY — Top New York City officials and advocates said Thursday that the Supreme Court had just made life harder for hundreds of thousands of the city's immigrants.

What did the Supreme Court do, and what does its decision mean?

On Thursday, the Court split 4-4 on the legitimacy of a legal challenge to two executive orders issued by President Obama in November 2014.

The first order would have extended the scope of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), in place since 2012. DACA (which was not impacted by Thursday's ruling) allows immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children to apply for protection from deportation and for work authorization. The extension, often referred to as DACA+, would have made more people eligible for such protections.

The second executive order, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA, would have allowed some parents currently here illegally, but who have children that are legally in the U.S., to apply for protection from deportation and for work authorization.

According to the city, about 145,000 people living in New York City could have applied for a new legal status under the orders, while another 75,000 could have seen a longer renewal of their existing status.

But the programs were quickly challenged by numerous states, and have yet to be implemented. By deadlocking on Thursday, the eight-member Court allowed one of those challenges to stand. In other words, the Court did not rule on whether DACA+ and DAPA are constitutional. Instead, its decision means the orders will remain in a holding pattern, pending the results of other lawsuits.

The reaction in New York City

The Court's ruling was criticized by multiple top city officials, as well as leading local immigration reform groups.

"The highest court may be divided today, but our hearts and hope across the country continue to be united around one simple truth: our immigration law system is broken and we are going to need more than executive orders," said Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who chairs the City Council's immigration committee. "Let us turn our organizing efforts to comprehensive immigration reform."

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said Brooklyn's massive immigrant population "stands as a shining example of how immigration and diversity have made us a safer and stronger place to live, work, and experience the American dream. Rather than lay down in defeat, we must rise up with determination to more forcefully advocate for a fix to our broken immigration policies."

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was "extraordinarily disappointed" in the ruling. "Today’s decision only underscores the urgent need to enact federal immigration reform. Immigrants help make New York the best city in the world. We stand with our immigrant neighbors, co-workers, friends, and loved ones.”

Nisha Agarwal, who leads the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, said the 220,000 New Yorkers whom the orders applied to could, if allowed to work here legally, generate $35 million annually in tax revenue in the city, and $82 million in the state.

In a statement, Steven Choi, who directs the New York Immigration Coalition, a non-profit which advocates for immigrant needs and rights, said the decision "has failed our communities" while "leaving millions at risk of deportation and being torn apart from their families."

And Javier H. Valdés, the co-director of Make the Road New York, another advocacy organization pushing for immigrant rights, described the decision as "a step backwards for the rights of immigrants in this country."

"Today we are deeply disappointed, but we renew our commitment to fighting for respect and dignity for all 11 million undocumented people in this country," Valdés said.