Two Boston city councilors are moving to establish a task force aimed at mitigating federal funding cuts that have been threatened in light of the mayor’s refusal to comply with a Trump administration order to strip sanctuary protections.

Councilors Enrique Pepén and Benjamin Weber plan to introduce an order for a hearing at Wednesday’s City Council meeting that would “review federal funds received by the City of Boston and discuss the establishment of a task force to prevent or mitigate funding cuts.”

“The administration’s current focus on Boston and the continued resolve of our residents to push back against the injustices of the presidential administration make it clear that the back and forth between the City of Boston has only just begun,” the councilors’ hearing order states.

“It is imperative that the City Council is fully aware of the dollars at stake so we can take steps to ensure that the City of Boston can sustain itself during these trying times,” Pepén and Weber wrote.

The councilors mentioned that the city receives “hundreds of millions of dollars” from the federal government each year, but the Trump administration has made “several threats to withhold federal funding from states and cities that do not participate in the administration’s agenda of mass deportation.”

Pepén and Weber also referenced past threats from President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who, per the order, “has personally called for ‘hell’ to be brought to Boston and threatened to prosecute and/or arrest critics and challengers of the administration’s actions which have contested legality.”

Their requested hearing would include testimony from experts on city finances, Wu administration officials and community members, and comes amid the latest battle between the Trump administration and sanctuary cities like Boston.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter two weeks ago ordering Boston’s mayor and other leaders of cities and states identified by the Department of Justice as sanctuary jurisdictions to “eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal law enforcement.”

In Boston, the law on the books enshrining its sanctuary status since 2014 is the Trust Act, which prohibits local police and other city departments from cooperating with federal immigration authorities when it comes to detaining illegal immigrants on civil warrants.

City officials say the law still allows for cooperation with the feds on certain criminal matters like drug, weapons and human trafficking.

Mayor Michelle Wu responded to Bondi’s letter last Tuesday, the AG’s stated deadline, but made it clear at a rally-like press conference that the city had no intention of complying with the federal order, despite Bondi’s threats to cut federal funding from Boston and prosecute non-compliant city officials.

“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” Wu said at last week’s press conference. “Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are or what we stand for. We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest city in the country.”

Wu also sent a formal response letter to Bondi last Tuesday, saying that the Trump administration’s “false and continuous attacks” on Boston and other cities, including efforts to slash federal funding and deploy military personnel to city streets were “unprecedented” and unlawful.

City Councilors Julia Mejia and Liz Breadon plan to introduce a resolution at Wednesday’s meeting in support of Wu’s letter to Bondi.

“We must continue to reaffirm that the City of Boston follows all federal, state and city laws and we stand with Mayor Michelle Wu in telling Attorney Bondi that Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom and a home for everyone,” Mejia and Breadon’s resolution states.

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deny funding to cities with sanctuary policies, by extending a preliminary injunction to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties.

The Trump administration has appealed the first ruling.

Wu welcomed the ruling in remarks made to reporters on Sunday. She said last week that the city relies on $300 million in federal funding each year.

The mayor said this past spring that she took steps to limit this year’s $4.8 billion city budget to 4.4% growth in light of threatened federal cuts, some of which her administration has already challenged in court.

Bondi’s letter, however, characterizes Boston’s sanctuary policies as a threat to national security, by limiting local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts through the city’s Trust Act.

“For too long, so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies have undermined this necessary cooperation and obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires,” Bondi wrote.

“You are hereby notified that your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States. This ends now.”

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said federal immigration authorities plan to “flood” Boston in response to Wu’s refusal to dismantle the city’s sanctuary protections, as ordered by the Trump administration.

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