(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

This is still a city of immigrants � 3.07 million of them, or 37 percent of the city (the same proportion as 1900, at the height of Ellis Island). And the other 63 percent are happy to welcome more, particularly those in crisis. Asked about the number of languages used on subway postings, the MTA responded �too many to remember.� Our immigration courts are the most accommodating in the country (not even liberal San Francisco comes close). In 2014, the City Council established the first public-defender program in the country for immigrants facing deportation. According to the most recent data, there are more than 380,000 Dominican immigrants in New York, 350,000 from China, 186,000 from Mexico, 169,000 from Jamaica, and 140,000 from Guyana (followed by Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad, India, and Russia). Half of our physicians and surgeons are immigrants, as are 72 percent of our nurses and aides, and more than one in five elementary- and middle-school teachers. And they are fantastic neighbors: The areas densest with immigrants outperform the city as a whole for economic growth, and for every one percent increase in immigrant population for a police precinct, 966 fewer crimes are reported each year.