Democratic mayors, testifying Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, consistently minimized the problems associated with their “sanctuary city” policies, which limit local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with federal border enforcement—and urged Republicans not to carry out deportations.
Their assertions were met with considerable pushback by border security hawks, however.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, for example, went all in on supporting his “welcoming city” policy of not pursuing deportations.
“Put simply, any actions that amplify fears of deportations make Chicago more dangerous. Those fears cause witnesses and victims to avoid cooperating with the police,” he said.
The Daily Signal spoke with a number of border security advocates who provided contrary perspectives to those of the Democratic mayors.
Jessica Vaughan, a researcher for the Center for Immigration Studies, a pro-border security think tank in Washington, told The Daily Signal that the House Oversight Committee hearing was meant to shine a light on sanctuary city policies and to force Democrats to defend their controversial positions openly.
“I’ve just never seen it before on the immigration issue where the committee had witnesses who were there, you know, not to provide reinforcement for the majority members on the committee to buttress their view of this issue,” said Vaughan, adding:
Part of it was, really, to get them to admit what their policies are and to show how these are violating federal law.
Throughout the hearing, Republicans leveled accusations of unlawful governance against the mayors, accusing them of willfully disobeying federal law.
Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., harshly criticized Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, saying, “You gave sanctuary to people who were here illegally. You violated your oath to uphold the Constitution. Because of the supremacy clause, the laws of the United States take preference.”
The Democratic mayors consistently defended their policy of not cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless its agents present federal warrants.
John Fabbricatore, a former Denver ICE field office director and a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that he views that stance as an impediment to federal law enforcement.
“The law says that ICE can use civil immigration enforcement, administrative law. It’s in the law. By local administrations pushing that ICE needs a criminal warrant, that is a roadblock to getting things done,” Fabbricatore said.
“If ICE had to go in every time and try to get a criminal warrant for every single illegal alien that’s out there, it would put thousands and thousands of cases into the system in which we already are low on U.S. attorneys,” he said.
Another narrative pushed throughout the hearing by the mayors was that sanctuary policies do not cause an increase in crime.
Vaughan pushed back on that assertion. “The other thing I thought was interesting was when [Colorado Republican Rep.] Lauren Boebert questioned the mayor of Denver about the crime rates, and he bragged about how the crime rates had gone down. And she pretty much said, well, that’s because you moved all these migrants to the suburbs. And, you know, the same is true in Boston,” she said.
One figure at the front line of sanctuary city issues is Terry Newsome, a Chicago activist who documents immigration issues, confronting migrants and the state-funded contractors who provided them with food, housing, and transportation.
Newsome thinks that the transportation of migrants by Johnson into the Chicago suburbs is the cause of an increase in horrific crimes in those areas.
He pushed back against Johnson’s assertion that mass migration had not increased crime in Chicago.
“You heard Mayor Brandon Johnson talk about the crime rate. I’m waiting to hear back from my police buddies, ’cause that’s bull—-. That number’s bull—-,” Newsome said.
Newsome spoke of a series of homicides in the Chicago area, where in a short time span, eight people were killed in a mass shooting in the Windy City neighborhood of Gage Park, followed shortly afterward by the shooting of four in Cicero, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
He said that those crimes were committed by immigrants who came in under sanctuary policies.
“I’m like, holy s–t, it’s them [immigrant gangs] again,” Newsome said of his reaction to the incidents.
“And then it was, and my police officer buddies validated it, and then, less than five days later, a sister of a police officer was shot in the back. … Because even with the gangster days, they didn’t do s–t like that.”
But now, President Donald Trump’s administration and its allies in Congress—who share the skepticism of Vaughan, Fabbricatore, and Newsome toward sanctuary policies—are acting against those policies.
In February, Trump signed an executive order calling for a report on all federal funding going to illegal immigrants.
Under Secretary Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security is also using the Alien Registration Act to mandate that all immigrants without legal status provide their addresses and information to the federal government. Attorney General Pam Bondi in February also froze funding from her office to sanctuary city jurisdictions.
Vaughan said the mayors at the hearing recognize that the new administration will not be accommodating toward their policies
“They were all lawyered up,” she said. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu “spent $650,000 of taxpayer money for legal counsel for this hearing.”
