Nutter Not So Much On The Papers, Please
Like many of us who were watching yesterday as The Supreme Court issued a decision on Arizona v. United States, Mayor Nutter saw good news and bad news in yesterday’s decision. And in a week that’s already seen him holding court with Eric Holder, The Dude was moved to issue the following statement yesterday afternoon:
“Today’s Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. United States provides yet another reason why Congress should quickly pass comprehensive immigration reform. It demonstrates that we cannot fix our broken immigration system on a state-by-state basis.
“The U.S. Conference of Mayors is pleased that the Court struck down three troubling provisions in the Arizona law. We are concerned, however, that the Supreme Court upheld the so-called “papers please” provision, which will have far-reaching consequences for cities. It will compromise the ability of our local police departments to maintain public safety and jeopardize the relationship which they have carefully built with immigrant communities. It will require police officers to spend more time and resources investigating immigration status, leaving them less time and fewer resources to investigate serious crimes. The challenge for mayors and their police departments is to minimize harm and assure immigrant communities that they will not engage in racial or ethnic profiling.
“In its decision, the Court opened the door on a future challenge to this provision after it takes effect, and we hope that will occur with all due speed.”
While we agree with his sentiments, we also can’t help but wonder two things: 1.) Isn’t this kind of ironic coming from the guy who rode in on Stop And Frisk? 2.) Just what is the increasingly statement-happy Nutter planning for when his term runs out. Because so many of the The Dude’s statements these days seem so transparent in the way they are hedging future campaign bets; for while Present-Day Nutter is saying the above, we can already see Future Nutter saying, “Well, you know, my positions on _________ are already well-known.”
