New York’s liberal mayor, Bill de Blasio, told Donald Trump on
Wednesday he will do all he can to prevent the large-scale deportation
of immigrants, saying many in the city are “fearful” of his presidency.
After
visiting Manhattan’s Trump Tower — where the billionaire
president-elect is holed up assembling his cabinet — De Blasio said he
told the Republican he would push back against his signature pledge to
deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and defend the American
tradition of welcoming foreigners.
“I reiterated to him that this
city and so many cities around the country will do all we can to protect
our residents and to make sure that families are not torn apart,” the
Democrat told reporters.
De Blasio — along with the mayors of Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and the US capital
Washington — has declared his city a “sanctuary” for immigrants, vowing
to protect the undocumented from deportation and extend public services
regardless of their legal status.
Trump has vowed to deport or
incarcerate up to three million undocumented immigrants with criminal
records after he takes office on January 20.
He has also pledged
to end a program backed by President Barack Obama that shields from
deportation people who arrived in the country as children.
De
Blasio, a left-leaning Democrat who backed Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton
for the White House, said his stance “flew in the face of all that was
great about New York City, the ultimate city of immigrants.”
“The
place that has succeeded because it was open for everyone, the place
built of generation after generation of immigrants,” he said.
Following
Trump’s election, de Blasio said the city would delete from its
database the names of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants
who have received a city ID card, to stop the incoming administration
from identifying or deporting them.
It was the latest in a string of confrontations between the two politicians.
Mayors ‘welcome the fight’ –
During the
campaign de Blasio described the Republican candidate as “dangerous” and
unqualified to lead the country. Trump, in turn, has called de Blasio
“the worst mayor” in the United States.
However, de Blasio on
Wednesday said their talk was “candid” and “respectful” and that he had
stressed “that I would be open-minded as we continue substantive
discussions but also vigilant.”
After promising during his
campaign to deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented
immigrants living in the United States, Trump said in an interview
Sunday that he would instead focus on “the people that are criminal and
have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers… out of our country”
and work to “secure our border.”
He also reaffirmed his promise to
build a wall stretching across the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer)
border with Mexico — while accepting it may include some fencing.
Mirroring
de Blasio’s stance, Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel said
following Trump’s interview that his city “is and will remain a
sanctuary city,” telling undocumented migrants that “you are safe, you
are secure and you are supported in the city of Chicago.”
Los
Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, also a Democrat, promised Trump that “if
the first day, as president, we see something that is hostile to our
people, hostile to our city, bad for our economy, bad for our security,
we will speak up, speak out, act up and act out.”
Trump has threatened to cut federal funds to such cities.
However,
Jonathan Blazer, of the American Immigration Council, which advocates
immigrants’ rights, says municipal authorities aren’t intimidated and
even “welcome the fight.”
“Politically they disagree” with Trump’s
agenda, he said. “But it’s more than that, they believe they can win
the fight politically and legally.”
