Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration.
UPDATE:
Some advocates have expressed dissatisfaction with the level of drama involved in the coalition’s start: An early fight over the authorship of a high-profile legal brief left immigration leaders frustrated by what they viewed as a heavy-handed approach by officials in New York. At least one major advocacy organization, the National Immigration Forum, quietly withdrew from the coalition this year.
“The coalition is incredibly important, but the model wasn’t really working for us as an organization,” Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum, wrote in an email to immigration officials in multiple cities in February.
Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has appeared to turn the focus of his own national advocacy elsewhere, starting another project, the Progressive Agenda, in May to highlight income inequality in the 2016 campaign. There is an immigration plank in his liberal platform, but Mr. de Blasio has scarcely mentioned the issue in national speeches.
Cities United has rallied cities in select spots to tackle immigration-related concerns. So far, its main activity has been litigation: The group filed two amicus briefs in support of Mr. Obama’s contested executive actions, which would grant new protections to undocumented immigrants.
(snip)
The spat, however, raised lingering doubts: In an email shortly afterward, Mr. Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum, asked a top Los Angeles city official for her assessment of a Cities United proposal, “given the incredible amount of drama they kicked up on the amicus.”
“Not worth it!” replied Linda Lopez, the chief of immigrant affairs for Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, a Democrat.
Mr. Noorani, who described his group in a November email as “the behind-the-scenes coordinator” for Cities United, informed officials in February that the forum had halted its collaboration with Mr. de Blasio’s group.
Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration.