The Trump administration threatens to withhold as much as $260 million in federal funding for the City of St. Paul if local law enforcement doesn’t help federal immigration agents round up undocumented residents.

Mayor Melvin Carter says he will not allow the federal government to “deputize” the city’s police officers.

“Our police officers work very hard and we want to make clear to everyone one of their jobs is not enforcing federal immigration policy,” Carter said in an interview recorded for “At Issue with Tom Hauser.” “It’s not what the St. Paul Police Department does. That’s not what they’ve ever done..”

Carter and the city signed onto a lawsuit filed by the City of San Francisco fighting the same executive order from President Trump. The president says “sick politicians” are allowing “killers” and “rapists roaming our streets.”

Carter says if someone commits murder or rape in St. Paul, they will be arrested regardless of immigration status.

“This isn’t really even just an immigration conversation,” Carter says. “The president of the United States is saying that the people who chip in billions of dollars into the funding of our federal government are wholly ineligible to receive the benefit. That’s just not something we’re going to accept.”

You can see this entire interview on “At Issue” Sunday at 10 a.m.