De Blasio: Puerto Ricans who come to NY must have family here

From CBS 2:

Life after Hurricane Maria for thousands of Puerto Ricans could mean a new life in New York City.

As CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, Mayor Bill de Blasio said there will be health and educational support. But he said finding a place to stay is up to those who arrive.

It was only a few weeks ago that Mayor de Blasio walked to a Brooklyn firehouse to donate diapers to people in Puerto Rico who were devastated by Hurricane Maria. And while the city certainly intends to help the displaced, there is a limit – they will have to stay with family members because the city will not provide housing.

Kramer asked de Blasio what if they are to do if they come to New York and do not have family – and whether they will have to stay in hotels or whether affordable housing might be allotted. She asked if the city has any money available if Puerto Ricans coming to New York need any financial assistance.

“Marcia, we do not have that plan, and I don’t want to encourage people to come here if they don’t have some family to turn to,” de Blasio said. “I think we have to be really clear about that.”

Council speaker rides float with terrorist

From the NY Post:

Controversial onetime convicted terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera may have declined the Puerto Rican Day Parade’s “National Freedom Award,” but he was still at the head of the event Sunday — with the City Council speaker right by his side.

Lopez Rivera — who did 35 years behind bars for his ties to the Puerto Rican terror group FALN — was on the first float out of the gate at the Manhattan parade, and speaker pal Melissa Mark-Viverito hopped on to join him at 62nd Street.

BDB now claims he really didn't want OLR honored at parade

From CBS 2:

The mayor, who is running for reelection, was asked repeatedly if he would join Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Goya Foods, the New York Yankees, AT&T, Coca-Cola, and many others in refusing to participate. Each time, he said he would march.

“I’m going to do everything I would normally do with the parade,” de Blasio said on May 19.

But on Monday, de Blasio said he was just being “diplomatic.”

The mayor claimed he had privately voiced concerns to parade organizers about López Rivera – whose sentence for sedition, armed robbery, and conspiracy to transport explosives was commuted after 36 years by President Barack Obama.

The mayor said to get the parade committee to sever ties with López Rivera, he privately threatened not to march.

“I made it clear to them that I was uncomfortable with the situation and I wanted them to resolve it,” de Blasio said, “but if it wasn’t resolved, I wasn’t going to be comfortable being a part of it.”

The mayor said he didn’t make his efforts public because “sometimes to get something done, you hold your tongue in public.”

Lopez-Rivera no longer the honoree at PRD parade

From NY1:

Trying to put an end to a controversy, Mayor Bill de Blasio says Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera will no longer be officially honored at the Puerto Rican Day parade.

The Thursday night announcement comes after Rivera wrote a column published in the Daily News, saying, "I will be on Fifth Avenue not as your honoree but as a humble Puerto Rican."

City Hall on Thursday night said Rivera won’t be honored. They released a statement that reads, in part, "Oscar Lopez Rivera agreeing to step aside from any formal role in the parade is a critical step forward in refocusing our city's attention on the more important issues facing Puerto Rico."

Too late.

BDB, MMV trying to duck OLR controversy

From CBS:

On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed that he will still march in the parade, but will not march alongside Lopez Rivera – whom some call a political prisoner, others a practitioner of terrorism.

De Blasio has joyously marched in the parade in past years. But after weeks of controversy over his own decision to participate in parade honoring Lopez Rivera, he spoke about the issue.

“I’m not marching with this individual,” de Blasio said. “I was never going to march with him.”

The mayor said in years past, he walked down Fifth Avenue with other elected officials. When Kramer asked whom de Blasio would be marching with this year, de Blasio said he didn’t know.

Meanwhile, Lopez Rivera’s top champion in New York, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, is now refusing to say if she will march with him. Mark-Viverito is “still finalizing logistics,” according to her spokeswoman.

Council members think terrorists are heroes

From the Queens Chronicle:

On Monday, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan, Bronx), a native of Puerto Rico, released a letter to the parade’s board commending the organization “for recognizing that Oscar Lopez Rivera represents the voice, tenacity and resolve of Puerto Rico and its people.”

The letter, signed by 30 members of the City Council including seven who represent Queens, concludes by saying, “We stand in solidarity with Oscar and express our full support for the board’s decision to recognize and uplift the legacy of Oscar Lopez Rivera.”

The Queens Council members who signed on include Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria); Danny Dromm (D-Jackson Heights); Julissa Ferreras Copeland (D-East Elmhurst); Peter Koo (D-Flushing); Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans); Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn, Queens) and Donovan Richards (D-Laurelton).

The Chronicle contacted the offices of all Queens Council members to ask about either their reasons for signing the letter or whether they intend to march. A handful responded via email.

“Oscar Lopez Rivera was pardoned by President Obama because he was never convicted of a violent crime,” Councilman Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) wrote. “He is one of a number of people being honored at the parade for his work highlighting the struggles of his people. The parade is an event that gives all of us an opportunity to celebrate the Puerto Rican people and I proudly support their efforts.

“Additionally, I am curious as to why some people are so unwilling to give Oscar a second chance but glowingly highlight a visit from Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to dedicate Easter Rising Way in Maspeth [last November] an effort that I also supported.”

Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Glendale) said she was not attending the parade but that her reasons had nothing to do with Lopez Rivera.

She also took issue with any implied criticism tying Adams, a leader in Northern Ireland Sinn Fein political movement, to terrorism. While he had been imprisoned by the British as a young man, he has continuously denied involvement with the Irish Republican Army, a violent revolutionary group long tied to Sinn Fein.

“Adams was central to bringing peace to a long, bloody conflict in Northern Ireland,” Crowley wrote. “I’m pleased that while he was visiting New York City, he could make time to celebrate a historic moment in Maspeth at the co-naming of Easter Rising Way.”

Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) will attend.

Do you ever feel like you're living in a bizarre nightmare by staying in NYC?

De Blasio makes up reasons to support terrorist

From the Daily News:

A group representing Hispanic police officers will boycott next month's Puerto Rican Day Parade to protest a decision by organizers to honor a controversial nationalist jailed for his connection to a string of deadly bombings.

While Oscar López Rivera is seen as a hero in some circles, he is still regarded as a terrorist by others, including many cops who hold him and his Puerto Rican independence group responsible for the 1975 bombing at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan that killed four people.

Also from the Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio said he will march in the Puerto Rican Day Parade as usual this year, when the event honors Oscar López Rivera — who spent decades in prison for his work with a group that set off deadly bombs in New York City.

“It’s a complicated situation for several reasons. The organization he was affiliated with did things I don’t agree with obviously and that were illegal. He has, however, renounced terrorism,” de Blasio said. “He was pardoned by two United States Presidents. I think that speaks volumes. He also was a Vietnam veteran. He is someone who served this country even though he had real political differences over how Puerto Rico was being treated.”

“I don’t agree with the way he did it. But he did serve his time. He was pardoned appropriately,” de Blasio said. “He has renounced violence. So I’m going to do everything I would normally do with the parade.”

Fact check:

• Lopez-Rivera actually was offered an early release in 1999 by Bill Clinton if he would renounce terrorism. He refused. When Obama commuted his sentence, he did not ask that of Lopez-Rivera. Lopez-Rivera has never renounced terrorism.
  
• Lopez-Rivera was never pardoned by any president. He was offered clemency.

Manhattan councilmember supports terrorist

From the Daily News:

A City Councilman Wednesday accused a colleague of pandering to a terrorist in a blistering email that evoked 9/11.

The flare-up started when Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-East Harlem) asked colleagues to support the upcoming parole hearing of Puerto Rican radical Oscar Lopez Rivera, a leader of the violent FALN.

Many of Rivera's fans consider him a political prisoner by supporters.

"Mr. Lopez was arrested in 1981 and is serving a sentence of 70 years for seditious conspiracy, for his commitment to the independence of Puerto Rico," Mark-Viverito wrote in an email to Council members Tuesday night.

Lopez Rivera's 29 years in prison is enough, Mark-Viverito wrote, adding: "He was not accused of causing harm or taking a life."

Queens Republican Dan Halloran went ballistic.

He said his "jaw hit the ground" when he read the note.

"I couldn't believe that somebody could seriously say that FALN was a non-violent organization," he said, noting its ties to a series of bombings in New York and Chicago.

He dashed off a skewering response that he copied to every member of the 51-person Council.

"This terrorist, like all terrorists, should rot in jail forever," he wrote. "It is only a shame the death penalty was not imposed to prevent him from becoming a threat in the future."

He added: "I guess the 9-11 bombers could make the same argument. They were merely responding to the 'evils' of the U.S. Will you be asking for them to be pardoned too?"

Congressmembers pushing statehood for Puerto Rico

From the Daily News:

The House on Thursday approved a bill that could move Puerto Rico to statehood - exposing a rare and bitter rift between New York members from the island territory.

Bronx Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano backed the measure, calling it a vital step to ending colonial rule, even as his usual ally, Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) blasted it as a "disgrace," "shameful" and "appalling."

The measure offers Puerto Rico - a U.S. territory for 112 years - a two-step vote.

The first would ask whether Puerto Ricans - including those living in the States - like the current territorial commonwealth status or if they want change.

If the vote is for change, a second vote would ask what change they want.
Velazquez and Harlem Rep. Charlie Rangel, whose father was Puerto Rican, said the measure was a backdoor move to a statehood vote on the island that has failed three times in the past.

"It is baffling that the statehood option, which lost in 1967, in 1993 and again in 1998, is now allowed to scheme its way to victory," Velazquez said.

Before the debate, the bill had offered three options for change: statehood, independence or an independent "free association" like three other former U.S. territories.

Velazquez argued that if keeping the current status was no longer on the ballot, statehood - always the second choice in the past - would win by default.

She favors a Puerto Rican constitutional convention.

Velazquez managed to win an amendment to add keeping the status quo to the choices.

Wow, was this one of the most pressing issues that Americans faced when choosing their leaders last November? No.

But it would bring in more electoral votes for Democrats. Notice how there are 2 referendums on this planned for the island but none for Americans.

Tweeding on the national level.

New York's Puerto Ricans must get new birth certificates

From NY1:

Identity thieves interested in buying someone else's birth certificate may not have to look very hard, as Puerto Ricans in New York say a certificate from Puerto Rico is easy to find.

The government of Puerto Rico says hundreds of thousands of copies of birth certificates from the island are floating around unprotected and can sell for as much as $10,000.

"Puerto Ricans are selling the birth [certificates]," said one Bronx resident. "They got so many in here pretending to be Puerto Rican, but they are not."

An old law required Puerto Rican residents to leave original copies of their birth certificates in various public and private offices as they filled out paperwork, which opened the door to massive identity theft.

Puerto Rican-Born New Yorkers Have To Get New Birth Certificates
"If you physically look Latino or physically look Puerto Rican, and you show up with a Puerto Rican birth certificate, no questions are asked," said Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano. "Because Puerto Ricans, as you know, are born American citizens and can just leave Puerto Rico and travel to the United States."

Now, a new law that takes effect on July 1 will force anyone born in Puerto Rico to get a new birth certificate.

"The objective of this law is it will invalidate the old birth certificates so that they will lose their value on the black market," said Luis Balzac of the office of Puerto Rico's governor.