The city of Denver will work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Trump administration to deport immigrants who are "violent criminals," Mayor Mike Johnston told CNN on Tuesday.
However, Johnston added that the city won't allow arrests in schools or churches, an assertion he has made before.
Earlier Tuesday, President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security removed an ICE policy that had prohibited officers from making arrests or conducting raids in essential service locations such as schools, churches or health care centers.
"We're taking it incredibly seriously," Johnston said in the interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins. "We feel like we have to take the president at his word when he lifts prohibitions on being able to conduct ICE raids at schools or hospitals or churches."
"You can't have a safe city if someone can't feel confident to take their kid to the emergency room or can't feel confident to drop their kid off at school. And so for us, those are core public services," he said.
When Collins pressed Johnston on how he would push back against such policies, the mayor said he could sue to stop the federal government.
"We will challenge that in court. We think it's longstanding bipartisan practice. I think it's not just illegal, but I think it is immoral," Johnston said. "I met with a number of West Point cadets this weekend. Not one of them signed up because they want to come home to their hometown and pull a 12-year-old girl out of history class or have to pull a mom and her daughter out of a church pew. I think that's not what our military officers or our ICE officers should be doing."
"We think there are plenty of reasonable, common sense ways to go about enforcing the removal of violent criminals and we can support and collaborate on that, but there's no reason to target citizens that are going to work every day and going to school and trying to pay taxes and get a chance," he continued.
How has Mayor Mike Johnston talked about immigration and deportation before?
Johnston has come under pressure from conservative lawmakers and pundits for previous comments on immigration.
In an interview with Denverite, Johnston talked about how Denver residents could resist the Trump administration's immigration policies, saying: "It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?"
Johnston has spoken proudly of Denver's Asylum Seeker Program, a housing and training program for new migrants. He said it has helped turn a crisis into an “opportunity” for the "bighearted" city.
When asked if city officials had seen any ICE raids or activity this week, Johnston said his administration had not "but we assume that they are coming."
