Mayor Mike Johnston is preparing for a hostile interrogation in the nation’s capital by influential Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Lauren Boebert — part of a new investigation into “sanctuary” cities that could have serious implications for Denver’s finances and its future.
Johnston, alongside the mayors of Boston, Chicago and New York, is set to testify Wednesday morning about their immigration policies before the powerful Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The hearing has come with Hollywood hype, including a blockbuster-style promo from the committee promising to investigate a “radical and corrupt establishment.”
The hearing comes with countless risks for Johnston and the city. Johnston could be trapped in a viral political moment during hours of questioning. Just as worrying for the mayor, his statements could be used against him and the city.
This week’s hearing, city officials fear, may just be the beginning of a long and expensive inquiry by Congress, and perhaps even the Department of Justice. And it could become ammunition if President Donald Trump tries to slash federal funding to Denver and the other cities.
The feds are flexing their power over cities like Denver
The Trump administration and the Republican Party are targeting “sanctuary” cities. They want to force local law enforcement in Denver and elsewhere to help with immigration enforcement – a move critics say is prohibited by the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
The feds have already sued Chicago and New York to try to force them to conform with Trump’s immigration policies.
Meanwhile, the committee’s investigation into so-called sanctuary cities began in January.
The hearing with the mayors starts at 8 a.m. MT on Wednesday, March 5, and will be streamed on Denverite.
“The pro-illegal alien mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver, and New York City have implemented reckless, illegal policies that shield criminal aliens from federal immigration enforcement and endanger public safety,” said Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the chair of the committee. “Criminal alien predators should not be free to roam our communities.”
In the video, the committee highlighted news clips about crimes committed by immigrants, from child sex offenders to the alleged Tren de Aragua members who wielded guns in an Aurora apartment complex.
At the hearing, dozens of committee members — 26 Republicans and 21 Democrats — will be seated in risers above the four mayors, who will sit at a table, looking up at scowling faces. The hearing could go on for more than three hours.
Committee members will have the opportunity to ask – and in many cases pontificate – about the cities’ policies.
Johnston, in particular, will be in the hot seat for how the city handled the arrival of more than 42,000 new immigrants in recent years, many of whom were bused from Texas. The committee may ask: Did Denver dump immigrants in adjacent communities like Aurora and Castle Rock without a plan? Violate federal law? Aid criminals?
Rep. Boebert is expected to go especially hard at Johnston. She is a longtime critic, taking issue with his “City and County of Denver’s Newcomers Playbook” — a guide for supporting new immigrants that he shared with mayors nationwide.
“We need to vote out everyone in government who refers to illegal alien criminal invaders as ‘newcomers’ and do so quickly,” Boebert posted to X. “Our nation is being stolen from us, and they’re complicit.”
The Mayor’s Office maintains Denver has not broken any city, state or federal laws and has always been willing to cooperate with the federal government in getting violent criminals off the street.
But the hardest question Johnston may face is whether Denver is a “sanctuary city” or not. The city has never formally embraced that term, and he will likely say it is not one.
But it’s a loaded question: Former mayor Michael Hancock rejected the term “sanctuary” in 2017” and then vaguely embraced it after criticism from immigrant allies.
Political theater or a hearing with teeth?
In interviews with Denverite, advocates on both the left and right described the hearing as “political theater” where the actors — perhaps even Johnston himself — will be “grandstanding.”
But they also maintained Denver could face serious political and economic consequences for its welcoming attitude in the wake of the congressional investigation.
“This is a powerful moment to speak to our values and to stand firm that our values aren't up for debate and they're not for sale, even as the federal government is trying to overstep and decide what's best for our communities,” said Raquel Lane-Arellano, the communications manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.
“It's scary because they are using authoritarian tactics.”
Generally, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform focuses on how federal money is being spent and how laws are being implemented, said Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
In this case, the hearing is a “preemptive attack” on the cities, Chishti said.
Everything Johnston says will be sworn under oath. If he misspeaks or fudges the truth, it could come back to bite him and the city. The Trump administration has already ramped up the pressure: immigration czar Tom Homan has even said the mayor could be arrested if he interferes with federal law, and he has similarly threatened to put local activists in handcuffs.
Denver immigration attorney Hans Meyer likens the investigation to the congressional anti-communist witchhunts of the early 1950s.
“They're going to bear a striking resemblance to McCarthyism — the sort of energy, the vibe, the control of the federal government apparatus, the use of political intimidation, threats of prosecution, ostracism, funding,” Meyer said. “All those things are tools of coercion the Trump administration is going to try to use to force local and state jurisdictions to do its bidding.”
No federal funding to the city has been cut yet, but there’s a lot of money at stake. Denver estimates it will spend $99,240,033 in federal dollars in 2025 on everything from transportation to human services and public health and safety.
Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping the committee catalyzes a change.
“For people to actually stand up and say, ‘Wait a second, this is not what we want,’ sometimes you have to make people feel uncomfortable,” said John Fabbricatore, a recent Republican Congressional candidate and former ICE official.
Fabbricatore does not believe the city has directly violated federal law, but he thinks Colorado and Denver’s immigration policies have been harmful.
How will Johnston respond?
The unflinchingly optimistic Johnston is trying to put a positive spin on his interrogation.
“I’m going to make the remarkable stance of assuming best of intent,” Johnston told City Cast Denver, later adding, “They want to make this a divisive, dramatic, catastrophic issue on immigration, and it’s not. It doesn’t have to be ideological.”
He argued the city’s immigration policy has actually kept the public safer and benefited the local economy. Denver, as he sees it, serves as a model of how cities should respond to mass immigration.
The mayor has been preparing for the hearing with attorneys and others who are grilling him with questions they believe will be asked. Those span from the predictable to unrelated topics like diversity, equity and inclusion.
Denver is also ready to spend up to $2 million with a DC law firm to prepare and respond to the Congressional inquiry, which officials think could continue for months beyond this week’s hearing. The private firm has expertise in federal politics and deep connections to Joe Biden’s White House.
Lane-Arellano, of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, believes the investigation is meant to strike fear and turn Denver residents against their undocumented neighbors. But she doesn’t think it will work on Johnston or the city itself.
“I don't think Denverites are afraid of this administration and what they're threatening to do,” she said, pointing to recent demonstrations across the city.
Even frequent left-leaning critics of the Johnston administration — the Housekeys Action Network Denver, the Denver Party for Socialism and Liberation and the American Friends Service Committee — backed Johnston in a statement.
“As Mayor Johnston represents our city on the national stage, let’s show him that Denverites stand with him in defending our welcoming policies and the protections that keep families together,” the coalition wrote.
Johnston won’t just be talking about the current moment. The city and state’s protections for immigrants were the result of two decades of campaigning, much of it by immigrants.
“Clearly this administration wants to come after cities that have stood by all of their residents, like Denver has,” Lane-Arellano said. “And the risk here — and the opportunity — is to stand by our values.”
