A congressional hearing designed to criticize sanctuary city policies unexpectedly shifted on Wednesday, as a planned attack by Republican lawmakers instead dissolved into a platform that amplified Democratic mayors’ arguments about immigration and urban safety.
Before a packed room on Capitol Hill, the House oversight committee, led by its Republican chair, James Comer of Kentucky, sought to portray sanctuary cities – a city that touts municipal laws that protect undocumented migrants – as havens for criminal activity and foreign gangs.
“The point that we’ve got to iron out today is that we have to have cooperation with federal law to turn over those illegal criminals to Ice and we’ve heard reports and many of you have said publicly that you are going to obstruct that,” Comer said. “That is against the law. And we’re going to hear more about that today.”
But instead of cornering the mayors, Republican lawmakers seemed to inadvertently provide them a national megaphone to sell their approaches to local governance and immigration.
“If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms,” Boston mayor Michelle Wu said. “Stop cutting Medicaid. Stop cutting cancer research. Stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our cities safe.”
Along with Wu, Mayors Eric Adams of New York, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, and Mike Johnston of Denver were put at the center of the national debate about local governance, immigration enforcement and the balance between federal mandates and municipal discretion.
In opening statements, each mayor offered a defense of their sanctuary policies. Adams emphasized that such classifications do not shield criminals, but instead ensure immigrant communities can trust local authorities. Johnson argued that welcoming city ordinances do not impede criminal investigations, while Johnston framed the issue through a moral lens of humanitarian responsibility.
Wu, who brought her one-month old infant, said it was the Trump administration’s over-the-top tactics that jeopardized safety for Americans – and that the border czar, Tom Homan, should be the one that should face Congress.
“This federal administration is making hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” Wu said. “A city that’s scared is not a city that’s safe, a land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.”
The hearing took a turn when Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina demanded mayors answer inflammatory yes-or-no questions, including whether they “hated President Trump more than they loved their country”.
A shouting match then erupted between Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Comer, with Pressley attempting to enter critical headlines about the Trump administration into the official record. Comer had been generally receptive to her prior requests up until that moment.
The hearing occurred amid heightened national tensions around immigration, with Trump and Republican rhetoric focusing on linking immigrant populations to crime – a narrative sharply contested by the Democratic mayors and civil liberties advocates.
Comer suggested that sanctuary policies “create sanctuary for criminals” and directly endanger public safety. He called for potentially withholding federal funding from cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities and pressed each Mayor on whether they will turn over undocumented migrants to Ice.
The hearing comes as Adams faces a potential congressional investigation into the justice department’s efforts to dismiss corruption charges against him.
The Democratic representatives Jamie Raskin and Jasmine Crockett – who is a member of the House oversight committee – have accused the department of attempting an improper quid pro quo, alleging that federal prosecutors have looked to drop corruption charges in exchange for Adams’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
At one point, Robert Garcia, the Democratic congressman of California, publicly called for Adams’s resignation, declaring he was “confident that Adams committed the crimes with which he is charged”, though Adams – who has been ducking local media on the question – firmly denied any wrongdoing.
