Democratic mayors, summoned to Washington to reply for his or her dealing with of the immigration disaster, struggled on Wednesday to fight Republican allegations their cities are rife with violent crime and in want of rescuing by the GOP administration.
It was the fruits of months of relentless assaults by President Donald Trump and his allies, and it units up additional strikes by the administration — together with Vice President JD Vance’s journey to the southern border Wednesday afternoon — to maintain Democrats in a defensive crouch on the problem.
Republicans on the Home Oversight Committee grilled the chief executives of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York Metropolis on the heels of Trump’s victory lap in his joint deal with to Congress Tuesday night. There, he proclaimed that his administration had begun “probably the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American historical past.”
Mirroring the administration’s language, Republicans in Congress pulled out remoted incidents of violence by undocumented immigrants to make their case that cities with sanctuary standing ought to open their jails to federal authorities — regardless of the mayors saying there’s no regulation requiring native authorities to coordinate with U.S. immigration officers.
“Sanctuary cities make us all much less secure and are a public security nightmare,” stated Home Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.). “We can’t let pro-criminal alien insurance policies [and] obstructionist sanctuary cities proceed to hazard American communities and the protection of federal immigration enforcement officers.”
Democrats countered with nuanced, at instances convoluted, authorized arguments about the place the authority, and accountability, to cope with the immigration subject lies.
“The welcoming metropolis ordinance is fairly easy — it permits for our native regulation enforcement to concentrate on native insurance policies,” stated Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, of his personal metropolis’s sanctuary metropolis insurance policies that shield undocumented residents.
The mayors additionally rejected the Republican declare that their cities had been unsafe due to their sanctuary insurance policies. Johnson identified that his metropolis’s murder price was at a current low, whereas Michelle Wu of Boston argued that her metropolis was the most secure within the nation, partially, due to its gun insurance policies.
In the end, nonetheless, the occasions of this week present how Democrats are writhing beneath the heavy boot of the GOP on immigration, a significant electoral subject on which the left has had hassle gaining traction — even because the Trump administration has pursued unpopular efforts like ending birthright citizenship and permitting Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make arrests in faculties and church buildings.
Throughout Wednesday’s roughly six-hour listening to, Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat, acknowledged that lawmakers had been having a tough time developing with complete immigration coverage given Congress’ duties to control immigration and the cities’ personal authorities.
“We’re scuffling with this proper now — there’s a rigidity between that authority of Congress to behave beneath Article I of the Structure, after which your accountability, nobly taken, to offer a secure setting for the residents and guests to your cities,” Lynch stated to the mayors. “How will we reconcile? And I’m asking you for recommendation.”
The mayors had few, if any, solutions. As an alternative, they punted it again to the Republican lawmakers, together with by imploring Congress to go a complete immigration reform invoice.
“Respectfully, congressman, you could possibly go bipartisan laws and that may be complete immigration regulation,” Wu stated in response to a line of questioning from Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). “The false narrative is that immigrants normally are criminals, or immigrants normally trigger all kinds of hazard and hurt. That’s truly what’s undermining security in our communities.”
That plea is sort of sure to fall on deaf ears in a Republican governing trifecta, the place GOP lawmakers are extra centered on lowering unlawful immigration than on increasing pathways to citizenship.
The administration has its personal immigration agenda, with Trump officers dialing up the stress on Congress to fill useful resource gaps within the months forward. The president stated Tuesday evening that he despatched an in depth funding request to Congress and urged GOP leaders to maneuver shortly as he vows to finish the “largest deportation operation in American historical past.”
Vance was in Eagle Go, Texas, on Wednesday to survey the state of migrant apprehensions on the U.S.-Mexico border, the place he sought to construct momentum for the congressional funding ask because the administration’s skill to fulfill its deportation ambitions has been stymied by lack of sources.
“We did not want new legal guidelines to safe the border, we wanted a brand new president, and thank God we have now that,” stated Vance, who was on the bottom with Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Again on Capitol Hill, Democrats all through the listening to extolled the virtues of immigration. Mass deportations, Wu stated, can be “devastating for our economic system.”
At instances, each the Democratic mayors and Democrats on the Oversight Committee tried to alter the topic fully. Wu, for example, referred to as on Congress to go gun management laws and to guard Medicaid, as Republicans are mulling cuts to the well being care program.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, whose Illinois district is just not removed from Chicago, bemoaned the price of eggs beneath the brand new Trump administration, saying it will quickly be cheaper to purchase {a magazine} for an assault rifle than breakfast.
Republicans, alternatively, demanded the mayors account for violence that they argued was the results of lax immigration enforcement, drawing from emotionally charged and graphic examples.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio pointed to the arrest of an alleged Venezuelan gang member charged with quite a lot of crimes across the Denver space. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina accused the mayors of getting “blood” on their arms. And Rep. Clay Higgins spoke beside a photograph of a younger child held by her mother and father, considered one of whom was killed by an undocumented immigrant in Texas.
“He’ll by no means be right here to lift his daughter,” Higgins stated, emphatically. “You mayors, you will have accountability not simply to your communities and the residents … however by extension to the whole Republic.”
Jordan pressed Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to reply particularly on the Denver case, which Jordan stated culminated within the assault of an ICE official. Johnston stated he had reviewed video of the incident and supplied to sit down down with ICE officers if there have been procedures his metropolis may change.
The mayors of California cities which have insurance policies defending undocumented immigrants weren’t referred to as to testify. That was a missed alternative, in line with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). “They need to have been referred to as to account. They weren’t. However there will be different alternatives, and perhaps I could make that occur,” stated McClintock, who chairs an immigration subcommittee.
One mayor acquired a extra pleasant welcome by Republicans than the others: New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, who has discovered himself allied with the Trump administration on its immigration agenda after the Division of Justice moved to drop the corruption case in opposition to him.
Comer thanked Adams for his cooperation with the administration on working with ICE, whereas Democrats accused him of coming into right into a quid professional quo with the administration in return for the dismissal of his legal case — an allegation Adams vehemently denied.
However the a lot anticipated listening to, which was hyped with a movie-style trailer from the Home Oversight Committee, did not ship the identical form of reverberations because the listening to with elite college presidents in late 2023 over allegations of antisemitic exercise on their campuses.
Home Republicans weren’t in a position to journey up mayors in the identical means Rep. Elise Stefanik did when she questioned the school presidents about whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their faculties’ codes of conduct.
Nonetheless, like many different Oversight Committee hearings on this Congress and the earlier legislative session, tensions nonetheless at instances boiled over into testy exchanges. Comer at one level threatened to take away Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley from the listening to, as she tried to learn an article to enter supplies into the Congressional report.
“This development of you all attempting to get thrown out of committees so you will get on MSNBC is gonna finish,” Comer stated. “We’re not gonna put up with it.”
Irie Sentner, Myah Ward, Emily Ngo, Kelly Garrity and Alex Nieves contributed to this report.
