#EndBrokenWindows & Step Up Efforts to Protect Immigrant Communities

As the Trump administration steps up its callous disregard for the well being of our immigrant friends and neighbors, we must step up our efforts to protect these vulnerable communities. Trumps latest unjust policy, set to speed up deportations and ensnare people for minor infractions, underscores the need to end broken windows policing. New York can not be a true sanctuary city with continued broken windows policing. I reject turning the NYPD into a deportation force and call upon all our local leaders, across government, to protect New York immigrant communities. No one should be deported for selling churros on the subway.

The horrible broken windows policy led police to put Rosan Miller, a seven-months pregnant woman, initially approached for grilling outside her home, into the same banned chokehold that had led to Eric Garner’s death. We must work together with the state to Raise the Age and with the City to end broken windows policing. The vast majority of youth arrests are for minor crimes (74 percent are misdemeanors) including not paying fare for a subway or bus. Over 90% of fare evasion (turnstile jumping) arrests in 2016 involved people of color. The continued criminalization of New Yorkers of color is fundamentally incompatible with being a sanctuary city.