A database containing the identity of undocumented immigrants living in New York City would not be opened up to a Trump Administration without a "real fight," the City's Mayor said on Thursday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference the day after President-Elect Donald Trump's stunning Electoral victory, also left open the possibility that the database, which holds personal information from the more than 850,000 New Yorkers who have a City Municipal Identification Card (IDNYC), could be scrubbed.

The IDNYC was introduced in 2015 as a free and official Proof of Identification that could be obtained with limited documentation, making it accessible to the nearly half million City residents without Legal Immigration status.

The personal information of cardholders, including addresses and dates of birth, is stored on encrypted databases and servers, according to the City. It cannot be disclosed to Federal Law Enforcement or Immigration Authorities without permission from the City's Human Resources Administration. Applicants do not have to disclose their immigration status to receive a card.

Trump has not inquired into the City's database publicly, but his statements throughout the Campaign have made many fearful that he will act on his words. Early in his Campaign, in 2015, Trump announced that he would deport all of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. by creating a "deportation task force" within Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He later altered his plan and said he would be "focused on identifying and quickly removing the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens in America." He said he would boost the ranks of agents to enforce existing laws. Trump has said he is against any amnesty for the undocumented.

"[Trump] can change some federal laws but the Constitution protects a lot of the rights and powers of localities," de Blasio said.

New York is a Sanctuary City. So on something like the database, because it touches that button directly of whether people's personal privacy is going to be respected, I think that's one where there would be a real fight.

"A provision of the ID law that allows the personal information retained in the database to be "destroyed" by the end of the year, a deadline included intentionally in case a "Tea Party Republican" won the White House, according to one of the law's sponsors, could also be enacted." de Blasio said. "As you know there's been an ongoing plan regardless of any electoral activity how long records are kept. Given this new reality we're certainly going to assess how we should handle it," he said.

New York's status as a so-called Sanctuary City, which allows it in some cases to shield undocumented immigrants who have broken the law from deportation requests, could also be affected if Trump follows through on his Campaign promise to block funding for Cities with the policy.

Asked about the possibility, de Blasio said "We're not going to tear families apart. So we will do everything we know how to do to resist that."

Speaking at City Hall on Thursday, de Blasio extended a conciliatory note to the President-Elect. He said he had reached out on a Staff-to-Staff level. He would "happily invite him to dinner to have a conversation," and would "work with him and do everything we can to help him" to achieve goals of mutual interest, including infrastructure investment and tax code reform, de Blasio said.

"I take his platform and his vision very seriously and I think it's in many ways very dangerous. That being said, one has the distinct impression that some of that was just for show. So we're going to find out," he said.











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