New York City Bar Association implores de Blasio to expand low-level citation offenses to protect immigrants (New York Daily News)
New York Daily News, May 18, 2017
New York City Bar Association implores de Blasio to expand low-level citation offenses to protect immigrants
“The city Bar Association wants Mayor de Blasio to expand on the list of low level offenses that let cops hand out summonses rather than make arrests. In a letter, the influential lawyers group urges the mayor to protect immigrant New Yorkers by ordering the NYPD to issue civil citations for nonviolent, low-level offenses when there is no immediate threat to public safety instead of making arrests. Under the Criminal Justice Reform Act, cops issue summonses rather than arrest people for violations like littering, urinating in public, loud noise, visiting a park after hours and holding an open container of alcohol. The Bar Association says police should broaden that to other low-level offenses because people can be deported for any crime under the catch-all ‘moral turpitude’ clause in federal immigration law. That means that in theory someone could be deported for jumping a turnstile or shoplifting.”
