Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on CNN's New Day

January 26, 2017

Alisyn Camerota: So, mayors of so-called sanctuary cities across the country are fighting back. They vow to defy President Trump's executive orders aimed at punishing the local governments that do not comply with federal authorities on immigration. New York City is a sanctuary city, and Mayor Bill de Blasio joins us now. Mayor, thanks so much for being here.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: You're welcome, Alisyn.

Camerota: What do you think of President Trump's proposed crackdown on sanctuary cities?

Mayor: Well it's going to make cities less safe. This is the bottom line.

Camerota: How so?

Mayor: It's very important to understand this because I think in the terminology sanctuary cities and all of that – we've lost the underlying meaning. And if you want to know what it means, ask a police chief or a police commissioner. Our Commissioner Jimmy O'Neill stood with me yesterday and said look, NYPD has spent decades building a relationship with communities, including immigrant communities. This is the kind of thing that will destroy that progress and make it impossible for the police to keep cities safe. Why?

New York City has half a million undocumented people. We want them to come forward and work with the police. If they see a crime, if they are a victim of a crime. If they believe by talking to a police officer they will get deported and be torn apart from their family, they're not going to work with police. And by the way that policy in New York City of respecting that confidentiality goes back to the administration of Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch.

Camerota: That makes perfect sense for the law abiding, undocumented immigrants. But, there are some sanctuary cities and maybe New York City is one of them, that says that they will not work with ICE agents, even for people in their jails. Even for people suspected of being undocumented immigrants in their jails. Why not hand over the people who have committed these crimes to ICE agents?

Mayor: Another misunderstanding about the so-called sanctuary cities. Here's a list right here of 170 offenses that if someone is undocumented, they commit this offense, we will work with ICE and they will be deported.

Camerota: Are those low level offenses or high level offenses?

Mayor: No these are serious crimes. These are serious crimes, violent crimes, even possession of a weapon, for example, of any kind. One hundred and seventy offenses – that if an undocumented person commits that triggers by New York City law cooperation with ICE for deportation.

Camerota: How about theft?

Mayor: Well here's an example – any theft involving a weapon, for example?

Camerota: Not violent – just a regular low level crime.

Mayor: There are very low level crimes. For example, small amounts of marijuana possession, going through a stoplight that doesn't cause any damage to anyone – those are areas where we will not work to see someone deported. Why? Because these are members of a family in our community – say it's the breadwinner in that family. So you deport the breadwinner and the rest of the family, including the children, are left without anyone. You tear a family apart. That's not good government. That's not, in my view, moral.

This is where the whole thing gets so confused, Alisyn. This is about human beings, families that came here. I believe people should follow the law. I don't think people should violate our borders, but let's face it. This has been for hundreds of years a challenge for this country, right?

You've got people here now. And what are we going to do with 11 or 12 million people in our midst? If someone's truly a violent criminal – absolutely they should be deported. If they're a law abiding person or they've done the very minor things that even people we know might have done, we can't see them deported and families torn apart.

Camerota: Correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like New York City gets $8.8 billion in federal funds and that there is something like $156 million at stake here if President Trump decides to pull federal funds from New York City. What would that do to you and New York City?

Mayor: Well, here's the amazing thing about the executive order. First of all, we think it's very susceptible to legal challenge. There are some real contradictions and vagueness –

Camerota: They can't pull that money from –

Mayor: Again, if they make an attempt to pull that money, it would be from the NYPD. It would be from security funding for the NYPD to fight terrorism and to protect foreign leaders who come to New York City to go to the UN. If an attempt is made to do that, we will go to the court immediately for an injunction to stop it. And we believe the executive order is vague and in some ways contradictory. By the way, it's quite clear. The Supreme Court under Justice Roberts in 2012 came up with the decision that said, it is inappropriate for the federal government to attempt to take funding, broad-brush away from a state or city because of broad policy matters. Justice Roberts, our current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the decision and said it has to be very narrowly drawn. In this case, according to the executive order, it would be homeland security and the justice department. And what do they fund in New York City? The NYPD.

Camerota: So, the fact that the seemingly future Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, says that he is willing to sue sanctuary cities like New York City, how much cause of concern does that give you?

Mayor: I believe that we are on very strong ground. Why? Because for decades in this city through Republican, Democratic, and independent administrations locally, we have had a policy that said we're going to be careful with our immigrant populations not to create an environment where they can't work with police. That's the number one core of what we've been doing. Right? So, we've done that effectively. We're the safest big city in America. It's part of what made us safe. If the attorney general is going to act on policy that will make cities less safe and police chiefs all over the country are saying, "Don't do that – don't do that, it's actually going to hurt us," and he says, "No, I'm going to do it but I'm going to take away your money." Well the money he's going to take away – it's a double jeopardy for our police departments. The money he will take away will actually be from police departments trying to stop terror and trying to stop crime.

Camerota: Speaking of you being the safest big city in America, you know the President has been talking a lot about Chicago. He said that there is carnage in the streets there, he's called it a war zone. Their crime rate has gone up. What should Mayor Rahm Emanuel be saying in response to this? If President Trump would be talking about New York City in those terms, what would the response be?

Mayor: The situation in Chicago is tragic, and I feel for the people of Chicago. Some other cities, New York among them, have had the opposite reality. Crime has continued to go down in New York City, and the relationship between police and community is getting closer. That is the way forward. It is about binding police and community together, it's about neighborhood policing –

Camerota: Are they not doing that in Chicago?

Mayor: I'm not familiar enough with the details in Chicago, but I can say this much – what President Trump has said, for example, is that we should reinstitute the policy of stop-and-frisk, which is one of the things that divided police and community here in New York City. We reduced stop-and-frisk steadily and crime has continued to go down steadily. I think the bottom line for Chicago and everywhere is we need to continue to heal the wounds of the past, show communities that police are on their side, and show police that communities can be on their side as partners. It takes real hard work. It means more police. We just added 2,000 more police officers here in New York City over the last two years so we could do neighborhood policing. I think if President Trump wants to help the people of Chicago, then provide Mayor Emanuel with the support to add police officers and implement neighborhood policing. Don't go back to a broken policy of stop-and-frisk.

Camerota: I want to ask you about what President Trump has said about the so-called DREAMers, the children – the undocumented children who were brought here through no choice of their own. Let me play for you what he just said las night.

President Donald Trump: They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody. We're going to have a very strong border. We're going to have a very solid border. Where you have great people who are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried. We'll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.

David Muir: But Mr. President, will they be allowed to stay?

President Trump: I'm going to tell you over the next four weeks.

Camerota: They shouldn't be worried. What does that say to you?

Mayor: Well, I think we've learned with the President to be careful about his choice of words because he changes his mind, he changes his words quite a bit. It's a good sign of what he's saying is that the DREAMers – the young people who came here through no choice of their own and really have grown up as Americans, if he's going to take a more positive view towards them, and that's millions of people, that's a good sign. When I met with him shortly after the election, this is one of the things we talked about. I said, you have to understand in this city of New York and cities all over the country, these people are contributing to our economy. They are talented young people who have a lot that they can give to America, and they've known no other country. He did seem to acknowledge that reality. But I think we have to be careful here. This is a man who told us just a few days ago that millions of illegal aliens, in his view, undocumented people, had voted in the election. There is no proof whatsoever. I think we should be very careful about his words, wait to see action. But I would urge him to acknowledge what I think most Americans understand – if a young person came here as a child, no choice of their own, and grew up as an American, only knows America, it would be immoral to send them to a country they really have no connection to at this point.

Camerota: Last, the First Lady is staying here in New York obviously, even though President Trump is in the White House. And she's staying here for Barron, their son, to finish school. What's that like for the police? What's the protection like for the First Lady and the son living here, which has never happened before?

Mayor: It's never happened before, it's unprecedented. It's put a huge strain on the NYPD to protect not only the First Family and the staff that's been working there at Trump Tower but Trump Tower itself, which is a very centrally located and very vulnerable building. We've pulled out the stops to make sure they are protected and to make sure the building is protected. It's now a symbol of the national administration, so it has to be well protected. It's costing us about half-a-million dollars a day to secure a building that is exposed on three sides and has a public atrium. We're going to keep doing that, it's the right thing to do. But we do expect the Congress to reimburse the people of New York City and the NYPD so we can continue to do the work of safety all over this city.

Camerota: Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for coming in to New Day.

Mayor: Thank you, always a pleasure.