Bill: City no sanctuary for crime

THE CITY fired the latest volley in its war with the Trump administration over sanctuary cities, insisting in a letter to the Justice Department that its immigrant-friendly policies comply with federal law.

The feud flared up last month when Mayor de Blasio and dozens of other mayors pulled out of a scheduled meeting with President Trump at the White House, after the Department of Justice wrote to New York and other cities to demand documents and threatening subpoenas if they weren’t produced.

De Blasio called that letter, the latest in a months-long back and forth, a “racist attack.”

In a letter sent Friday and released Sunday, city Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter sent along reams of documents, including copies of the city’s laws and executive orders on immigration enforcement.

“The city’s laws, policies and practices comply with and operate within the constitutional bounds of” federal law, Carter wrote. “These policies have helped New York City become the safest big city in the country by building civic trust and encouraging public interactions with local government, especially local law enforcement.”

New York generally prohibits its cops and other officials from participating in the enforcement of immigration law. The city only honors detainer requests in which an immigrant has been convicted of one of 170 serious crimes, and the feds have a warrant. In 2017, the NYPD got 1,526 detainer requests — up from just 80 the year before — and rejected all of them.

The Trump administration is threatening to yank law enforcement grant money from New York and 22 other cities, states and counties. At stake for the city is a relatively modest $4.3 million received in 2016, which the feds could take back. New York also applied for the grant for 2017, but has not received a response yet.