Politics
Chicago’s Sanctuary City Protections Face Crucible Moment as Mayor Brandon Johnson Set to Testify Before Congress
Video: The WTTW News Spotlight Politics team on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s upcoming congressional testimony and more of the day’s top stories. (Produced by Andrea Guthmann)
Brandon Johnson has faced no shortage of high-profile tests during his 20 months as Chicago mayor.
Johnson’s first year in office was defined by the humanitarian crisis caused by a surge of migrants sent to Chicago by Texas’ Republican governor, even as Johnson coped with the problems that have bedeviled Chicago’s mayors for generations: the city’s precarious finances, persistent crime and violence, and allegations of misconduct by Chicago police officers.
And then the rookie mayor found himself in the white-hot international spotlight as the Democratic National Convention arrived in Chicago, straining the city’s resources and testing the city’s beleaguered police department.
But the scale of those challenges is likely to be eclipsed by the trial Johnson is set to face Wednesday, when he is scheduled to testify in front of the U.S. House Oversight Committee about Chicago’s self-proclaimed status as a sanctuary city.
“This is not about Brandon Johnson. This is about Chicago,” Johnson told reporters Feb. 25. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Who I am is who I will remain.”
The hearing is likely to represent a flashpoint in the ongoing battle between the city and the GOP-controlled U.S House of Representatives and the Trump administration, which is attempting to strip self-proclaimed sanctuary cities of all federal funding. Chicago gets approximately $4 billion every year from the federal government.
“I will be prepared to defend working people in this city,” Johnson said. “That’s it, that’s all.”
Johnson has repeatedly said Chicago will remain a welcoming city and Chicago police officers will continue to be prohibited from helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents deport undocumented Chicagoans.
Johnson has blasted President Donald Trump’s efforts to launch the largest mass deportation in American history as “unconscionable and abhorrent.”
Johnson is scheduled to testify alongside Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. All four are Democrats, but the Justice Department moved to dismiss Adams’ corruption case in an apparent exchange for his help with Trump’s efforts to conduct the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in U.S. history.
U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), the committee’s chair, has accused all four mayors of prioritizing “criminal illegal aliens over the American people.”
There is no evidence undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than other groups.
The committee’s account on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, features a sizzle reel for Wednesday’s hearing, complete with dramatic music and visuals, promising to hold the mayors “publicly accountable” for their actions.
The video includes Johnson telling reporters that the “goal of the Trump administration is to get us to surrender our humanity” and touting Chicagoans as a “compassionate” people. Those remarks are interspersed with images from raids conducted by federal immigration agents and news stories of violent crimes blamed on undocumented immigrants.
Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance is designed to ensure that all Chicago residents, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, can obtain city services, including police protection and medical care.
“Our country is under attack from within our country,” Johnson said, promising to continue to work to deliver a message of hope. “We’re going to hold to our values.”
Read More: What Does It Mean That Chicago Is a Sanctuary City? Here’s What to Know
Since Trump took office, many undocumented immigrants have returned to life in the city’s shadows, for fear of exposing themselves or their families to deportation, immigrant advocates said.
ICE agents detained a Chicago man outside a Gage Park school on Feb. 26 as he dropped off his children, officials said. Francisco Andrade-Berrera, 37, is “a known member of a violent street gang with criminal convictions for drug trafficking, gang loitering and damage to property” who was previously “removed from the U.S. to his home country in 2005 and 2013,” federal officials said.
Federal officials have released few details about who they were seeking, whether they have been convicted of crimes and why those people had been targeted.
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” told CNN on Jan. 27 that his agents would pursue “national security” or “public safety” threats into schools, hospitals and churches.
“We’ll go where we’ve got to go,” Homan said, after expressing frustration that efforts led by Chicago officials and immigration advocates to educate undocumented immigrants had made deportation efforts “very difficult.”
“For instance, Chicago (is) very well educated,” Homan said. “They call it ‘know your rights.’ I call it how to escape arrest, ... how to hide from ICE.”
Johnson is likely to be quizzed on the city’s support for efforts to educate all Chicagoans about their rights, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.
The mayor will testify even as a federal lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against Chicago begins to work its way through the court system.
The Trump administration has asked U.S. District Court Judge Lindsey Jenkins to invalidate the state, city and county laws designed to protect undocumented immigrants by prohibiting state and local law enforcement officials from helping federal agents.
Jenkins, a Biden appointee, is scheduled to hold an initial hearing in the case on April 15.
Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the second highest ranking law enforcement official in the U.S. Department of Justice, directed federal prosecutors across the nation to investigate and charge local officials who refuse to carry out the administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Johnson brushed off those threats.
“We are not going to be intimidated by those acts of terror to radically shift our way of living,” Johnson told WTTW News. “That’s what individuals who stoke fear into people want to see happen.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
