(The Lion) — Republican lawmakers grilled four Democratic “sanctuary city” mayors during a congressional hearing on Wednesday – vowing to hold them accountable for a “public safety nightmare.”
Sanctuary cities, which have various policies limiting or resisting cooperation with federal immigration authorities, have been under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration and Congress in recent weeks.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced last week that the four mayors, Michelle Wu of Boston, Eric Adams of New York City, Mike Johnston of Denver, and Brandon Johnson of Chicago, would be held “publicly accountable” at the hearing for their refusal to cooperate on immigration. The committee also released a video previewing the hearing, which included a clip of President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, promising an immigration crackdown.
“Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want,” he said. “More agents in their communities, more people arrested, more collaterals arrested. So if that’s a game they want to play, game on.”
The six-hour-long hearing sparked combative exchanges between Republican lawmakers – who argued the sanctuary policies had allowed criminals to evade federal authorities – and the Democratic mayors, who insisted their cities were trying to be welcoming and safe for immigrants.
“Over the past four years, the Biden administration created the worst border crisis in American history,” said the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, in his opening statement. “In a few short weeks, President Trump has proved what we all know to be true: the Biden administration could have stopped the crisis at any moment if only they had the courage to enforce the law.”
Illegal entries at the southern border have plummeted since Trump took office in January – a “94% drop in a month,” Comer added. “The border crisis was not the result of climate change, a lack of resources, or a failure to grant amnesty. It was the result of the last administration’s deliberate choice.”
Comer said that the Biden administration’s open border policies allowed “millions of unvetted illegal aliens” into the country, adding that many of them have committed violent crimes.
“The mayors here today each lead a so-called ‘sanctuary city.’ And let’s be clear: these policies only create sanctuaries for criminals,” he said.
Democratic members of Congress on the committee, as well as the four mayors, defended the cities’ softer approach towards immigration. Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Virginia, the committee’s ranking member, claimed the Trump administration was implementing a “radical and cruel immigration agenda.”
“Forcing local law enforcement to carry out the federal government’s immigration duties also discourages residents from coming forward to share information with the police about violent crimes for fear that they, or someone close to them, will be detained or deported,” he said.
Those sentiments were echoed throughout the hearing by the four mayors, who insisted their “welcoming” policies towards undocumented immigrants help keep cities safer in the long run.
“As mayor, I do not control who enters or remains in our country, but I do have to manage the population that is within our city,” said NYC Mayor Adams. “In order to carry out this function without having long-term negative ramifications, I must create an atmosphere that allows every law-abiding resident, documented or not, to access vital services without fear of being turned over to federal authorities.”
The mayors of Denver, Boston and Chicago also emphasized that they did not want people in their cities to live in fear of being deported.
“A city that’s scared is not a city that’s safe,” Mayor Wu of Boston said.
Amid the heated exchanges that followed, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, told the mayors “You all have blood on your hands.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, said she would be criminally referring the mayors to the Justice Department for investigation.
It’s “very clear,” Luna said, that the sanctuary policies violate federal law and are thus a federal offense. “You all speak about a broken immigration system,” she said, “and yet here you guys are aiding and abetting in that entire process.”
