New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that the city will be at risk of terror attacks if Attorney General Jeff Sessions cuts federal law enforcement funding to sanctuary cities, the Daily Caller reported.
“President Trump’s latest threat changes nothing. We will remain a city welcoming of immigrants, who have helped make our city the safest big city in the nation,” de Blasio said. “Any attempt to cut NYPD funding for the nation’s top terror target will be aggressively fought in court. We won’t back down from protecting New Yorkers from terror – or from an overzealous administration fixated on xenophobia and needless division.”
De Blasio made his statement in response to Sessions’ latest crackdown on sanctuary cities, in which the attorney general said Monday that the Department of Justice would prevent billions of dollars in law enforcement grants from going to sanctuary jurisdictions.
Sessions argued that the policies of sanctuary cities make America less safe.
“Countless Americans would be alive today … if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended,” Sessions said, who added that he used a tactic that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch employed.
The attorney general also pointed to a report from the Department of Homeland Security that highlighted more than 200 cases of law enforcement agencies that refused to turn over criminal aliens to federal immigration officers.
De Blasio also criticized President Trump’s plan to cut funding for sanctuary cities in January but said that his threat would amount to nothing more than a “charade.”