Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Pro Immigrant Mayor?

The NY Post is reporting on Mayor Bloomberg's push for more immigrants to come into the United States-and seems to be basing this advocacy on the entrepreneurial impulses of the proposed newcomers: "Ratcheting up his controversial proposal for revitalizing America’s cities, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested that the federal government “deliberately force” large municipalities to take in immigrants as the only hope for salvaging their battered economies."

This is pretty droll. We have just seen how the mayor wanted to evict hundreds of immigrant businesses from Willets Point in order to create the next "green" neighborhood-not to mention the thousands of hard working immigrant workers who would thrown out to make way for some big developer to make a score.

Of course we have seen the same policy myopia at work with the mayor's regulatory efforts against neighborhood businesses-many of whom are those kinds of entrepreneurs he wants to force into Detroit in order to lift that city's economic decline: "Ratcheting up his controversial proposal for revitalizing America’s cities, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested that the federal government “deliberately force” large municipalities to take in immigrants as the only hope for salvaging their battered economies."

What Mike Bloomberg does is to declaim in the most stentorian tones how immigrants are the saviors of American inner city economies-no argument from us-while at the same time enacting what could only be described as a virulently anti-immigration public policy right here in NYC-if not be conscious design, then simply by its effect. NYC immigrant business folks would feel a lot better if he was more pro-immigrant right in his own backyard.