Blas’ plan on immig mea$ure

Mayor de Blasio doesn’t plan to veto a controversial immigration measure sneaked into the $85.2 billion budget by the City Council, according to an inside operative — even as a group of Albany lawmakers urges him to do so.

On Tuesday, the City Council said it would allow illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes to benefit from $26 million in defense funds earmarked for those in deportation proceedings.

De Blasio plans to deal with the issue by putting restrictions into legal-counsel contracts that would bar dangerous offenders from getting the money.

“Mayor de Blasio must veto this shortsighted provision immediately and prevent the City Council from ever enacting it into law,” the group of Republican-caucusing Legislature members, led by Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-LI), said in a statement Wednesday.

“This is an egregious misuse of taxpayer funds that has to be stopped.”

But referring to a likely council override, one City Hall operative said of the veto option, “[De Blasio] was told by his top people, ‘You either lose now or lose later.’ ”

On Wednesday, a City Hall spokeswoman reiterated that the administration expects the matter “to be resolved during the [budget-]contracting process.”

The legal-defense program has been operating for at least three years without restrictions on which defendants are eligible for the public funds.