Mayor de Blasio to Trump & Sessions: Don't tell NYC police how to do their job. Running safe cities and meeting the needs of our people is what we do. Cities that keep residents’ trust are safer.

Bill de Blasio | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption NYPD to equip officers with body cameras by end of year New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that by end of the year all city cops and detectives will be wearing a body camera. Veuer's Natasha Abellard (@NatashaAbellard) has the story.

New York is the safest big city in America with crime at historic lows and almost 40% of our residents were born outside of the United States. We embrace them. We respect them. We understand just how much they add to our city and how much safer every New Yorker is when every New Yorker is comfortable reporting crimes and helping our police to solve them.

That’s worth keeping in mind these days, when we have a president and an attorney general spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric and threatening to take away federal funding, including public safety funding from New York City if we continue to embrace our immigrant communities.

Rather than working to make us all less safe, the president and attorney general should listen to the story of police officer Edward Byrne.

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Edward Byrne was sitting in his patrol car in front of a house in South Jamaica, Queens on an early February morning in 1988. Officer Byrne was there for one reason: to protect an immigrant from Guyana named Arjune, who had reported gang activity in the neighborhood and paid for it. Arjune had already been threatened and his house had been firebombed twice.

Both the police officer and immigrant were brave, good men. They were people who cared for their city and were willing to risk their lives for it. They were heroes.

A car rolled up. Two men got out. One knocked on the passenger side window. The other walked up to the driver’s side and shot Officer Byrne in the head five times, killing him. In the wake of his death, Officer Byrne became the namesake of a federal grant that provides local law enforcement with the tools they need to help keep us safe.

Inexplicably, President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are targeting this very grant, and city policies designed to make all New Yorkers feel safe working with law enforcement and using city services. Policies that have proven effective by helping make this the safest big city in the country with a growing economy, thanks in no small part to the contributions of immigrant communities.

What an incredibly unpatriotic and counterproductive thing to do. In the name of a false definition of safety, they are threatening to make us less safe. In the cause of targeting immigrants, they are threatening to remove funding named for a hero cop, who died protecting a hero immigrant. It makes no sense.

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For decades mayors of New York from both parties and their police commissioners have concluded that working with all residents is the only way to keep our people safe.

People today, who like Arjune feel confident they won’t be betrayed, come forward to report crimes and seek protection. Residents need to know their local officials care about their safety, not where they come from, what religion they practice, or what language they speak.

Cities aren’t just responsible for maintaining public safety. They are also responsible for safeguarding the basic quality of life of all residents. This includes providing public health, education, and emergency services, including domestic violence shelters, vaccines for newborns, and emergency food for families and making sure everyone feels comfortable using those services.

New York City will not stand for punitive attempts to take away our funds and jeopardize our public. Further, we are certain the threat isn’t even legal.

So, I have something to say to Trump and Sessions: Running safe cities and meeting the needs of our people is our job. Don’t tell the New York City Police Department how to keep our city safe.

I also have something I want to say to our police officers and their families. We thank you and we stand with you. You protect us and we fight every day to make sure you have the resources you need to do your jobs.

To anyone who thinks they know better than the NYPD how to keep a city of immigrants safe I ask that you look no further than police officer Edward Byrne. Our values, our security, our health, and our prosperity depend on all New Yorkers working together.

The New Yorker in the White House should know that by now.

Bill de Blasio is the mayor of New York City.