New York City is introducing new rules to stop people being slapped with criminal charges for drinking alcohol or urinating in public.
City officials hope the effort will keep tens of thousands of people out of the city's criminal courts each year, treating the offences in most cases as civil matters punishable by a fines or community service.
The effort is also intended to prevent some immigrants from being targeted by federal agents for deportation, officials said.
US President Donald Trump signed an order in January expanding the focus of immigration agents to include the removal of immigrants charged with a crime, even before any conviction.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has been critical of Trump's immigration policies, and the city has often refused to co-operate with federal deportation efforts by not turning over suspects, a policy that predated Trump's presidency.
Before Tuesday, people caught urinating in public could end up having a criminal misdemeanour on their records and their fingerprints shared automatically with federal law enforcement agencies, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Some 18,000 people were detained or issued criminal summons for public urination last year. For drinking alcohol in public, that number was 90,000. The city does not record how many of those people were immigrants.
