Mayor Bill de Blasio. | Drew Angerer/Getty De Blasio: City could refuse federal aid with 'strings attached'

New York City won’t accept federal aid from Donald Trump's administration if it comes with conditions that could imperil city residents, including undocumented immigrants, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.

“I think if we get into a situation where the Trump administration threatens to cut funding, for example, because we refuse to turn our police officers into immigration enforcers ... we will fight that fight at the point of contact,” de Blasio said, during his regular weekly appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show.


“And there’s some times that we say based on the needs of the people of New York City, we will not accept federal aid if it comes with strings attached that undermine our values and hurt our people,” de Blasio said.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. That may be a choice we have to make,” he said, adding that he thought it might be unlikely Trump would choose to follow through on some of his plans, like deporting immigrants, because of potential political opposition.

New York City is one of dozens of “sanctuary cities” where police departments don’t actively enforce some federal immigration policies, a practice that has been in place for decades.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to unilaterally cut federal aid to sanctuary cities within his first 100 days in office, and has also promised to deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants.

New York City plans to receive $7.7 billion in various forms of federal aid this year, but de Blasio tried to reassure listeners that Trump could not unilaterally decide to cut a city’s federal aid.

“I think the first thing is to recognize that from what I know so far, because of a decision by the Supreme Court, no president is in a position to cut off funding across the board,” de Blasio said. (A spokesman for the city's Law Department later said the mayor was referring to the case South Dakota v. Dole, which allows the federal government to withhold money from the states, but only if it demonstrates a clear connection between the conditions places on the funding.)

“It has to be very specific to the matter at hand. If we disagree in one particular policy area, you know there may be opportunities for the federal government to say well we’re not going to fund you in that policy area. But not across the board,” he said.