In the Bronx, prosecutors have written instructions for handling a non-citizen charged with a crime against a child, such as sexual abuse of a minor, child endangerment, or prostitution involving a child.

The rule is to "offer something that does not have the child's age as an element of the crime."

That way, when federal immigration officials check the conviction later, they won't see a child victim on the record, and the defendant won't be deported.

The instructions come from Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark's office. They're one of the findings in a report House Judiciary Committee Republicans released last week, titled "New York City: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies." The report covers all five of New York City's district attorneys, all Democrats. Each office has its own way of keeping criminal illegal immigrants from facing deportation.

The Bronx rules extend past child cases. Some gun crimes can get a non-citizen deported, so prosecutors are told to "keep the firearm out of the record of conviction" and to "offer something that does not specify a firearm." In domestic violence cases, they're told to "keep the domestic relationship out of the record of conviction." In stalking cases, they're told to offer a charge that leaves out the repeated contact and the intent to frighten the victim.

When there's no real charge that works, Clark's office teaches prosecutors to use a fake one. Its training materials describe pleas to "crimes that cannot be factually accomplished — legal fictions." One example is "attempted reckless assault." Nobody can try to be reckless, so the crime can't legally exist. A defendant can still plead guilty to it, though, and because it carries no immigration consequences, he stays in the country.

In Queens, District Attorney Melinda Katz made it a job. Her office employs an "Immigration Specialist" who, according to the office's own description, "helps Assistant District Attorneys navigate through plea options and assist in framing dispositions that will prevent unwanted immigration consequences." Katz's office tells prosecutors to "exercise extreme caution" with non-citizen defendants, to "not get caught up in the label of felonies, misdemeanors and violations," and to call the specialist.

The results are measurable. In 2020, the Queens specialist helped get convictions reduced or thrown out entirely in 21 cases. In six more, the DA's office asked the governor to pardon the defendants so they could avoid deportation. In 2021, Katz personally approved 27 requests to redo guilty pleas on convictions with "significant immigration consequences."

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez hired immigration lawyers to advise his prosecutors and has bragged about plea deals that "allowed them to avoid deportation." On Staten Island, District Attorney Michael McMahon set up a unit that contacts ICE to ask for deportations to be postponed. Manhattan's Alvin Bragg wrote in 2022 that his office would "seek dispositions that avoid immigration consequences for all misdemeanors" and many felonies. His office now calls that memo "outdated."

The police side works the same way. From July 2018 through June 2026, the NYPD received 20,255 requests from ICE to hold people already in custody, and it honored none of them. Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an order this year keeping ICE out of city schools, shelters and hospitals without a judge's warrant. In May, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which bans local police from working with ICE. She and Attorney General Letitia James also created a state Office of Immigrant Trust to make sure local sheriffs comply.

Last week, a reporter caught Katz, Gonzalez and James at a gun-safety press conference and asked whether any of them had ordered prosecutors to downgrade gun charges to keep illegal immigrants in the country. None of them answered. Katz threw up her hands and shrugged.

Staten Island's office called the report "flagrantly false and patently political." But the quotes in it come from the offices' own training materials, annual reports and press releases.

The outcome is a two-tier system. An American charged with abusing a child in the Bronx gets charged with abusing a child. An illegal immigrant charged with the same crime can get a plea written so the child's age never appears on the record.

Yesterday, voters gave Democrats control of the House, and in January the Judiciary Committee that wrote this report gets new leadership. The five district attorneys are unlikely to face any more questions about it.