Stringer: Trump’s sanctuary city cuts would eliminate $7 billion in funding to NYC

Would Have ‘Devastating Impact,’ Comptroller Says

November 23, 2016 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Comptroller

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With President-elect Donald Trump threatening to cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities, city Comptroller Scott Stringer on Wednesday released an initial analysis of what this would mean to New York City.

Cutting off all federal funds would have a “devastating impact” on the city’s budget, Stringer warned.

Sanctuary cities decline to detain law-abiding undocumented immigrants. Besides New York, sanctuary cities include Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Federal aid to New York City accounts for almost one out of every 10 operational dollars that the city spends, and many of those dollars go directly to the most vulnerable residents, Stringer said in his report.

Some city agencies would be more vulnerable to cuts. Eleven out of more than 40 mayoral agencies account for 59 percent of all city spending but receive 92 percent of all federal grant aid, according to Stringer’s analysis. Those agencies include the Department of Homeless Services, the Administration for Children’s Services and the NYPD budget for intelligence and counter-terrorism.

“We have a record homelessness crisis that will be made much more challenging with any decrease in funding,” Stringer said in a release accompanying his report.

He added, “We are a city that welcomes immigrants — we don’t turn people away based on where they’re from or what language they speak, and that must not change.”

Under the threatened cuts, Stringer’s analysis indicates: