Two years ago Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York issued Executive Order 41.  This order was issued…

to ensure that immigrants, and other New Yorkers, can access City services that they need and are entitled to receive. The policy protects areas of confidentiality, such as immigration status, sexual orientation, status as a victim of domestic violence, status as a crime witness, receipt of public assistance, and information in income tax records.

The New York Times reports on how that order, which “essentially codified a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for city workers,” (obviously including those of South Asian heritage) is now being tested:

Waheed Saleh says he was smoking a cigarette outside a doughnut shop at the rough edge of Riverdale in the Bronx when a police officer handed him a summons for disorderly conduct. He protested, he says, and the officer yelled at him to go back to his own country.

Mr. Saleh, a Palestinian, worked as a gypsy-cab driver illegally seeking fares and was used to tickets for infractions like double parking, making U-turns and picking up passengers. But he believed that this officer, Kishon Hickman, was harassing him. So he complained to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which examines complaints against police officers.

Before he heard back from the board, however, he heard from federal immigration authorities. About a year later, outside the same doughnut shop on the night of Dec. 20, 2004, he was confronted by a federal immigration agent and local police officers. The police took him into custody on administrative immigration violations, sending him into deportation proceedings. Mr. Saleh believes it was retaliation for his civilian review board complaint.

What complicates this case is that there is a possible loophole:

There are exceptions written into Executive Order 41: Illegal immigrants suspected of criminal activity or terrorism are not protected. Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said that Mr. Saleh’s host of summonses amounted to illegal activity, just as a single parking ticket would.

In an interview at a diner near the same doughnut shop, Mr. Saleh said he left his hometown of Jenin, on the West Bank, after his wife died of brain cancer, to find a better way to support his two young children, who stayed behind with his parents.

He arrived in November 2000 on a visitor’s visa, got a valid driver’s license and stayed on illegally to work at gas stations in Rockland County and as a landscaper in Yonkers. But after 9/11, he said, it became much harder to get work without a Social Security card, and he joined other Arabic men driving gypsy cabs.

Mr. Saleh’s case has been taken up by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and is being represented by attorney Tushar Sheth:

According to Tushar J. Sheth, Mr. Saleh’s lawyer, it was still under investigation in the fall of 2004 - a typical amount of time for such a investigation - when Officer Hickman asked a friend of Mr. Saleh’s to relay a message to him: If he did not withdraw the complaint, the officer would “give him a hard time.”

About two weeks later, the federal immigration agent showed up, with a lieutenant, Kevin Nicholson.

So why does all this matter?  What is the big picture?  If the government really wants informants to come forward with information about sleeper terrorist cells for example, they can’t pull stuff like this.  Instead of bringing a community into the fold, they are teaching them by example that it is better to keep one’s mouth shut and not get involved with the authorities for fear or reprisal or deportation.

[disclaimer: Tushar Sheth is a good friend and my chief counsel if I ever get in trouble.]