Federal immigration authorities have made 109 requests to the NYPD to detain people since Jan. 1 and the city hasn’t helped out on any of them.
Larry Byrne, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner on legal matters, revealed the figure Monday.
“We’ve honored zero of them so far, none,” he said.
Byrne added that only three of the requests qualified for assistance under the city law providing sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
Part of the law allows the NYPD to hold someone for 48 hours while Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents obtain a warrant.
“In all three of those instances, the person was transferred to the custody of the Department of Corrections before the 48-hour time elapsed,” Byrne said. “So we honored zero detainers.”
President Trump has vowed to withhold federal funding to sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with his efforts to deport more undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) said the city should be more transparent about how it handles detainer requests.
“The public should really be given the details of why these folks were arrested and allowed to make their own judgement calls,” he said. “These could be burglars, gang members and violent criminals. City Hall should own this entire policy and be held accountable if any of these particular people become repeat offenders.”
Mayor de Blasio described the city law as “just and balanced.”
“It was never legally challenged by anyone,” he said. “It’s a third way in this whole national discussion because it protects the safety of people here without demonizing all immigrants.”
