Democrats struggle against relentless Republican hammering on immigration

Democratic mayors, summoned to Washington to answer for their handling of the immigration crisis, struggled on Wednesday to combat Republican allegations their cities are rife with violent crime and in need of rescuing by the GOP administration.

It was the culmination of months of relentless attacks by President Donald Trump and his allies, and it sets up further moves by the administration — including Vice President JD Vance’s trip to the southern border Wednesday afternoon — to keep Democrats in a defensive crouch on the issue.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee grilled the chief executives of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City on the heels of Trump’s victory lap in his joint address to Congress Tuesday evening. There, he proclaimed that his administration had begun “the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.”

Mirroring the administration’s language, Republicans in Congress pulled out isolated incidents of violence by undocumented immigrants to make their case that cities with sanctuary status should open their jails to federal authorities — despite the mayors saying there’s no law requiring local authorities to coordinate with U.S. immigration officials.

“Sanctuary cities make us all less safe and are a public safety nightmare,” said House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.). “We cannot let pro-criminal alien policies [and] obstructionist sanctuary cities continue to endanger American communities and the safety of federal immigration enforcement officers.”

Democrats countered with nuanced, at times convoluted, legal arguments about where the authority, and responsibility, to deal with the immigration issue lies.

“The welcoming city ordinance is pretty straightforward — it allows for our local law enforcement to focus on local policies,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, of his own city’s sanctuary city policies that protect undocumented residents.

The mayors also rejected the Republican claim that their cities were unsafe because of their sanctuary policies. Johnson pointed out that his city's homicide rate was at a recent low, while Michelle Wu of Boston argued that her city was the safest in the country, in part, because of its gun policies.

Ultimately, however, the events of this week show how Democrats are writhing under the heavy boot of the GOP on immigration, a major electoral issue on which the left has had trouble gaining traction — even as the Trump administration has pursued unpopular efforts like ending birthright citizenship and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make arrests in schools and churches.

During Wednesday’s roughly six-hour hearing, Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat, acknowledged that lawmakers were having a hard time coming up with comprehensive immigration policy given Congress’ responsibilities to regulate immigration and the cities’ own authorities.

“We’re struggling with this right now — there’s a tension between that authority of Congress to act under Article I of the Constitution, and then your responsibility, nobly taken, to provide a safe environment for the residents and visitors to your cities,” Lynch said to the mayors. “How do we reconcile? And I’m asking you for advice.”

The mayors had few, if any, answers. Instead, they punted it back to the Republican lawmakers, including by imploring Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

"Respectfully, congressman, you could pass bipartisan legislation and that would be comprehensive immigration law,” Wu said in response to a line of questioning from Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). “The false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals, or immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm. That is actually what is undermining safety in our communities.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on sanctuary cities on Capitol Hill, March 5, 2025.

That plea is almost certain to fall on deaf ears in a Republican governing trifecta, where GOP lawmakers are more focused on reducing illegal immigration than on expanding pathways to citizenship.

The administration has its own immigration agenda, with Trump officials dialing up the pressure on Congress to fill resource gaps in the months ahead. The president said Tuesday night that he sent a detailed funding request to Congress and urged GOP leaders to move quickly as he vows to complete the “largest deportation operation in American history.”

Vance was in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday to survey the state of migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, where he sought to build momentum for the congressional funding ask as the administration’s ability to meet its deportation ambitions has been stymied by lack of resources.

“We didn't need new laws to secure the border, we needed a new president, and thank God we have that,” said Vance, who was on the ground with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Back on Capitol Hill, Democrats throughout the hearing extolled the virtues of immigration. Mass deportations, Wu said, would be “devastating for our economy.”

At times, both the Democratic mayors and Democrats on the Oversight Committee tried to change the subject entirely. Wu, for instance, called on Congress to pass gun control legislation and to protect Medicaid, as Republicans are mulling cuts to the health care program.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, whose Illinois district is not far from Chicago, bemoaned the cost of eggs under the new Trump administration, saying it would soon be cheaper to buy a magazine for an assault rifle than breakfast.

Republicans, on the other hand, demanded the mayors account for violence that they argued was the result 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 a number of crimes around the Denver area. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina accused the mayors of having “blood” on their hands. And Rep. Clay Higgins spoke beside a photo of a young baby held by her parents, one of whom was killed by an undocumented immigrant in Texas.

“He’ll never be here to raise his daughter,” Higgins said, emphatically. “You mayors, you have responsibility not just to your communities and the citizens … but by extension to the entire Republic.”

Jordan pressed Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to answer specifically on the Denver case, which Jordan said culminated in the assault of an ICE official. Johnston said he had reviewed video of the incident and offered to sit down with ICE officials if there were procedures his city could change.

The mayors of California cities that have policies protecting undocumented immigrants were not called to testify. That was a missed opportunity, according to Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). “They should have been called to account. They weren't. But there'll be other opportunities, and maybe I can make that happen," said McClintock, who chairs an immigration subcommittee.

One mayor received a more friendly welcome by Republicans than the others: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has found himself allied with the Trump administration on its immigration agenda after the Department of Justice moved to drop the corruption case against him.

Comer thanked Adams for his cooperation with the administration on working with ICE, while Democrats accused him of entering into a quid pro quo with the administration in return for the dismissal of his criminal case — an allegation Adams vehemently denied.

But the much anticipated hearing, which was hyped with a movie-style trailer from the House Oversight Committee, failed to deliver the same kind of reverberations as the hearing with elite university presidents in late 2023 over allegations of antisemitic activity on their campuses.

House Republicans weren’t able to trip up mayors in the same way Rep. Elise Stefanik did when she questioned the college presidents about whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct.

Still, like many other Oversight Committee hearings in this Congress and the previous legislative session, tensions still at times boiled over into testy exchanges. Comer at one point threatened to remove Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley from the hearing, as she tried to read an article to enter materials into the Congressional record.

“This trend of you all trying to get thrown out of committees so you can get on MSNBC is gonna end,” Comer said. “We’re not gonna put up with it.”

Irie Sentner, Myah Ward, Emily Ngo, Kelly Garrity and Alex Nieves contributed to this report.

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