Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney is taking a cautious centrist approach in addressing the uproar over national immigration policy.

While he lambasts the ban on immigration that President Trump and others are pushing as “fearmongering,” he also is refusing to embrace activists’ calls to declare Richmond a “sanctuary city.”

His solution: Promote Richmond as a “welcoming city, inclusive and diverse,” while maintaining the policies that Richmond followed under his predecessors. Those policies seek to embrace immigrants and also hold them accountable if they break the law.

Already his solution has drawn sharp criticism from conservatives who say his approach is opening the door to “terrorists” and liberals who say he is not doing enough to support immigrants.

Mayor Stoney spelled out his approach Monday in a policy directive he signed that essentially tells Chief Administrative Officer Selena Cuffee-Glenn to ensure all city departments, including the Richmond Police Department, continue to do what they have been doing.

That includes:

• Protecting and promoting “policies of inclusion for all residents, regardless of national origin, immigration or refugee status, race, color, creed, age, gender, sexual orientation or identity;

• Continuing to have the Richmond Police Department avoid signing or participating in agreements with federal Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would make city officers immigration agents and maintaining the department practice of not inquiring about the place of birth or immigration status of individuals with whom its officers come in contract; and

• Ensuring that “all city employees focus on the needs and safety of our residents, not on their legal status, and advocate for and promote their well-being.”

He also reminded residents about the Office of Multicultural Affairs and that “it is tasked to work with anyone in the community who may have concerns about their treatment,” even though its main role has been to work with Spanish-speaking residents.

He said these policies reflect the understanding that “America is a nation of immigrants, unless you are Native American” and that the country is stronger for its diversity.

Mayor Stoney said Richmond’s policies do not prevent authorities from arresting and convicting those who commit crimes — citizen or not — although Richmond Police years ago found that their ability to solve crimes improved when they did not make the immigration status of the people they talked with an issue and limited such questions to those who are arrested and in custody.

Nor did the mayor call on Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. to change his policy of notifying ICE, as state law requires, about the immigration status of people who are jailed or giving ICE five days notice before their scheduled release to give ICE agents time to pick them up.

City figures show that ICE issued detention orders on about 40 Richmond prisoners last year, but only picked up 10, with the rest returned to the community.

However, Mayor Stoney does oppose the action of President Trump to bar mostly Muslim immigrants from seven nations, as well as other anti-immigrant policies Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly are promoting in legislation.

“They peddle fear. They are ill-informed and their misguided efforts to protect us arguably make us less safe. Some of the proposals are unconstitutional, and others are just un-American,” he said. “That is not the country we are, and it is not the city we will be.”

However, Trump supporter Bishop Leon Benjamin of New Life Harvest Church led a group of like-minded pastors in criticizing Mayor Stoney’s approach, saying that the policy of keeping police from inquiring about the immigration status of people they approach makes Richmond a “sanctuary city” even if the label is rejected.

The minister said that kind of policy makes “Richmond less safe.”

The mayor has said he would not support any change that puts city police officers in the position of doubling as immigration officers.

Meanwhile, a group of pro-immigration activists who have labeled themselves ICE Out of Richmond are pressing the mayor to take a more defiant approach.

Along with holding rallies, they also have posted an online petition urging people to “tell Mayor Levar Stoney to defy Trump, Defend Richmond and Expand Sanctuary.”

The petition requests that the mayor and Richmond City Council approve “policies to stop targeting us for imprisonment, risk of removal and state violence at the hands of police and aggressive immigration agents.”

For them, Mayor Stoney’s directive is symbolic and “does not actually create change or ensure sanctuary for those who might be affected by policies” advanced by President Trump or others who agree with him.

Jim Nolan, Mayor Stoney’s press secretary, said the administration “welcomes community input and looks forward to working” with those on both sides of the issue “to find ways in which we can make Richmond a safer and more welcoming place.”

However, Mr. Nolan said the city has no plans to adopt the “sanctuary city” label because immigration opponents often derisively use that term to undermine community policing policies.

“In fact, community policing policies are about providing public safety services to the community,” he said. “We will do everything we can within the law to protect all of our residents and keep our city safe.”