New York City officials continue their crusade against their own citizens by incentivizing organized crime rings made of illegal immigrants.
The New York Police Department announced on Monday that it had busted a handful of illegal immigrants who collectively committed grand larceny 62 times by riding around the streets of the city, driving by unsuspecting bystanders, snatching their phones and other valuable items, sometimes violently, and speeding off.
New York Mayor Eric Adams stood proudly with the officers who did the dirty work as if he and his constituents were not part of the problem in this case and countless others like it. As is his catch-and-release policy, four of the seven crooks were arrested last year and released without bail, including the leader, who is still on the run.
These are not just regular repeat offenders or fledgling individual petty thieves. These are seven illegal Venezuelan immigrants who had taxpayer-funded housing and amenities, invaded through the open southern border, and formed an organized crime ring committed to selling off stolen goods. Democrats have been supporting these sorts of operations for years.
Democratic politicians make sure to provide illegal immigrants with a comfortable stay from which they can perform their operations with ease. They are housed by the hundreds in giant generator-run tents in and around NYC neighborhoods and given beds, food, phones, and jobs free of charge … if you exclude the fact that they are all paid for with the tax dollars of local law-abiding citizens.
Rather than shipping these criminals back to wherever they came from, Adams decided to inconvenience and threaten the livelihoods of his constituents by sending military-age foreigners to dozens of churches, and he had the audacity last June to imply that local families and homeowners should do the same.
Adams further hurt his communities by shutting down high schools, such as James Madison High School, and forcing students into their homes for online lessons while their halls and classrooms were repurposed to house tons of illegal immigrants despite the protests of their parents.
The mayor has not been alone in his efforts. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has encouraged the immigrant crisis and incentivized more illegal immigration into the state by proposing a $233 million budget to pay for the housing, work permits, and medical and legal bills of illegal immigrants.
If any observer of the rampant crime committed by illegal immigrants in NYC for the past few years wishes to understand how Leftist politicians can treat things so carelessly, look no further than what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had to say in 2020.
“Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent, and so they go out and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money so … they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
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Rather than deal accordingly with dangerous illegal immigrants by deporting them and removing incentives for them to keep invading the area, Adams and his cohorts instead are willing to fuel the formation of the new gangs of New York if it means keeping them in power in the long run.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.