After attacking New Haven’s mayor for considering a plan to offer i.d. cards to undocumented immigrants, Guilty Party mayoral candidate Leslie Harper Blatteau (shown here with the mayor at last week’s debate) has switched gears. She now endorses the plan.
Democratic Mayor John DeStefano came under fire nationally this month over his announcement that the city’s considering a plan to issue the i.d.s as part of a larger plan to make immigrants feel more welcomed in New Haven. Advocates for the immigrant community have pushed the idea in order to help people open bank accounts, among other things. (DeStefano’s administration then claimed it wasn’t considering the plan and criticized a Register reporter for [accurately] quoting officials otherwise. Then the administration reversed course again and said yes, it is considering the plan.)
At a mayoral debate sponsored by the NAACP last week, the Guilty Party’s Blatteau blasted the i.d. plan as “another example of John DeStefano being in power a long time and thinking he could do whatever he wants.” That’s all she said.
After the debate, she said she didn’t oppose the concept, but rather questioned whether federal law would allow it.
Then she read a report issued by Junta for Progressive Action and Yale Law School researchers making both the legal and moral case for the plan. (Click here to read that report. Click here to read an excerpt if your computer doesn’t have Adobe Acrobat.)
“Thank you to Junta and the Yale Law Clinic for clarifying the legality of city issued i.d. cards for non-documented city residents. With this clarification, I hope New Haven city officals re-examine the idea,” Blatteau wrote in a comment posted on this website. “As a candidate for mayor concerned with quality of life issues, I believe the i.d. cards could offer non-documented residents an opportunity to particapte more fully and safely in necessary aspects of urban living.”