NYC DAs shielding illegal-immigrant thugs only puts innocent lives at risk

Think a prosecutor’s top job is to lock up criminals? Ha! In New York City, district attorneys think it’s to make sure illegal-immigrant criminals don’t get deported.No joke: A new report from the House Judiciary Committee warns that Gotham DAs are downgrading charges for illegal-immigrant criminals in order to help them avoid deportation.It’s utter madness.And a sure way to undermine public safety.DAs in every borough, the report explains, instruct staff to undertake some form of “immigration-conscious” prosecutions, reducing charges to “non-deportable” offenses or effectively scrapping them altogether.In The Bronx, DA Darcel Clark tells staff to “pursue alternative charges” to avoid making perps eligible to be removed.Queens DA Melinda Katz has told her prosecutors “not to get caught up” in the misdemeanor vs.

felony labels, when it comes to illegal-immigrant defendants.She’s also used an “immigration specialist” to help frame “dispositions that will prevent unwanted immigration consequences.”Even Staten Island DA Michael McMahon has an Immigrant Affairs and Collateral Consequences Unit.These rules actually instruct ADAs to hide key details of serious offenses — like domestic abuse or firearm use — to shield the thugs.Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

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In all, it not only keeps foreign criminals in America, it guarantees they’ll walk free to commit new crimes.More, it privileges them: Perps here illegally face lesser charges than one are who are US citizens, or legal immigrants.Where is the justice in that?In fact, this madness has already produced horrible injustices, such as the 2020 murder of Maria Fuertes, 92, by Guyanese migrant Reeaz Khan, whom the city freed despite a federal detainer issued after his earlier busts.“Unfortunately,...