DENVER — Mayor Mike Johnston will travel to Washington D.C. next month to testify before a congressional committee about Denver’s so-called “sanctuary city” status after lawmakers in our nation’s capital announced they were launching an investigation into the policies of such cities and their impact on public safety.
“After discussions, the Mayor and the Committee have reached an agreement to appear at a Congressional hearing with the House Oversight Committee on March 5,” said mayor’s office spokesperson Jordan Fuja. “For the last two years, Denver has shown the country that you can be a compassionate and welcoming city without sacrificing public safety or core services. We look forward to discussing with the Committee.”
The announcement last month by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee pointed at Denver and three other cities (Boston, Chicago and New York City) as jurisdictions that “take it upon themselves to decide what laws they will and will not abide by all to shield removable aliens, especially criminals, from federal law enforcement."
The committee’s chairman, Republican Congressman James Comer, of Kentucky, said the investigation would help Congress determine “whether further legislation is necessary to enhance border security and public safety,” arguing it was “imperative that federal immigration law is enforced and that criminal aliens are swiftly removed from our communities.”
Comer initially called on Johnston to testify on Feb. 11, and also asked that the mayor provide a list of documents and communications, including "all documents and communications among or between any official, employee, contractor, or agent of the City and County of Denver related to the city’s sanctuary status."
Following the announcement, Johnston issued a statement saying, “The most helpful thing Congressional Republicans could do right now is fix our broken immigration system. While they work on that, we will focus on running the cities that manage the consequences of their failure to act.”
Comer – citing a New York Times article from earlier this year — defined sanctuary jurisdictions in a letter to the mayor as "states, counties or cities that put some limits on how much they are willing to cooperate with federal agencies’ efforts to deport” people in the U.S. illegally.
- Read the full letter from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to Mayor Johnston here or below
The letter classifies Denver specifically as a sanctuary city due to a bill signed into Colorado law during the 2019 legislative session that claims to provide "clarification of the authority of criminal justice officials with respect to the enforcement of certain federal civil laws."
Denver has never officially called itself a sanctuary city, but was given that title under President Donald Trump's first administration in 2017.
At the time, the Trump administration asked for "sanctuary cities," including Denver, to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its crackdown on immigration. In response, then-Mayor Michael Hancock signed an executive order that created a legal defense fund for people threatened with or in removal proceedings and ordered the Denver Sheriff Department, which operates the city's jail, not to seek federal funding that required the department to gather and release information about a person’s immigration or citizenship status.
In that order, Hancock called Denver a "safe and welcoming city" but never used the word "sanctuary."
Johnston has followed in those same steps, and has laid out a four-part plan for how Denver will respond to mass deportations under the second Trump administration.
Denver
How Denver is preparing for potential mass deportations under Trump
During the announcement of said plan last month, Johnston said his administration would partner with ICE "if they want to reach out to us on violent criminals we have in our custody for deportation," but said his office would stop short of doing "ICE's job for them."
"I think we know and are prepared that there may be ICE operations here. If they're targeting violent criminals, we'll support that and we'll collaborate," the mayor told CNN. "The thing we're worried about is, we don't want people targeting schools or churches or hospitals. We think it fundamentally infringes on the public safety of a city if you can't go to the hospital and feel secure there or take your kids to school. So, we really want to make sure they're not targeting protected populations or protected places in Denver."
Johnston said he was open to testifying before the congressional committee to “open a conversation about… what Congress can do to help make this situation in cities much easier to manage.”
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