Claw-enforcement to the rescue!

NYPD officers saved 20 cats from a freezing van parked on the Upper East Side early Saturday, as temperatures dropped into the 30s, cops said.

Members of the Emergency Service Unit were called to First Avenue and East 63rd Street around 5 a.m. after a passerby noticed the furry felines in a parked, gray Chrysler Pacifica van with Vermont plates.

Police popped open a locked van door — triggering a car alarm — and began pulling out the kitties.

“It appeared as if someone was living in the van,” a police spokesman said. “The cats were in crates and shopping bags. There were no dead animals.”

Photos from the scene show a police officer shining a light in the van’s frosty front windshield to get a look as the curious felines peered out.

Two cats were lounging in the front seats, while a third was lying on the dashboard.

An opened bag of cat food was spotted on the floor.

“We’re not veterinarians but they appear to be in good condition,” the police spokesman said.  

Temperatures dropped down below freezing overnight in the city.

“That’s animal cruelty,” nearby worker Kristen Garcia, 27, said. “Oh my God. That’s heart-breaking. It’s too cold for that.”

Two cops in a marked police car remained at the scene about three hours after the cats were rescued waiting for the owner to return to claim the van.

“I want them to be caught,” Garcia said of the van’s owner. “It’s just like you don’t do that to babies either.”

A man, who identified himself as R.D., was walking his dog in the neighborhood when he heard about the near cat-astrophe.

“I think they should get like a fine or something like that, maybe even community service,” he said. “Let them work at an animal shelter and see what winds up happening to the animals after something like this happens.”

Hours after the cats and cops were gone, a mother and daughter walked up to the car and said they were angry that the cats were gone.

“Where are my cats?” the younger woman, who declined to provide her name, said. “Where are my cats? They took my cats, they took my cats!”

When a reporter told her the police took the cats, she said, “I’m calling the police!”

She claimed she had been going back and forth from home to the car.

“This is crazy,” she said. “I just went upstairs this morning and then I came back. I was going back-and-forth loading my car, so why would they actually take my cats? I don’t understand that.”

The mother and daughter sat in the vehicle for about 10 minutes before driving off.

The cats were taken to an Animal Care Center for evaluation.

But the city’s animal shelters have been struggling to keep up with demand for space for abandoned pets.

The Animal Care Centers shut down “cat intakes” at its three branches over the summer — as cash-strapped New Yorkers surrendered their pets in droves.

A call to ACC wasn’t immediately returned.