Trump Wants to ‘End’ Sanctuary Cities. This Mayor Has a Different Idea.
Denver’s Mike Johnston believes his approach to immigration, not Trump’s, is working. And he’s not planning to give in.
AMID HIS IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN, Donald Trump has focused his ire on so-called “sanctuary cities,” which limit their compliance with federal immigration agents at varying levels. A Department of Justice memo issued January 22 said “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands or requests,” opening up the possibility that U.S. attorneys could prosecute local officials for refusing to cooperate with federal authorities. On Fox News that same night, Trump himself renewed his threat to cut funding from sanctuary cities. “We’re trying to end them, and a lot of the people in those communities don’t want them,” he said.
What do mayors who actually run sanctuary cities think of all this? The Bulwark called up Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to get a sense of what it’s like to lead a prominent sanctuary city during a time of increasing ICE raids and threats from the president. Johnston explained that there are limitations to what sanctuary cities, even his own, would do to counteract Trump. But he also said that Denver won’t be “bullied or blackmailed.”
Below is a slightly edited transcript of our talk.
The Bulwark: I would love to start with what a “sanctuary city” is. I first heard the term a decade ago when immigrants were claiming sanctuary in churches during the Obama era. But can you explain for the audience exactly what a city with sanctuary laws on the books means?
Mayor Johnston: In a lot of cities, it means different things, but for us, it’s quite clear. We do collaborate with ICE on finding, arresting, and charging violent criminals. If there’s someone with a criminal warrant, we partner with ICE to look for them. We do that all the time. If ICE calls us and we have someone like that in our custody, they say, “Can you let us know when you release them so we can pick them up?” And we do.
What we have that people would consider part of a sanctuary city package is we don’t ask someone’s status when we arrest them. We don’t have that information, so we don’t share it, because we don’t know who is undocumented, because we don’t ask that question.
One more thing that is misunderstood—my wife is a prosecutor, too, so I have a fair amount of expertise with this in my own house—we often avoid wanting to have ICE agents pick someone up before they go to trial, because if you’re charged with murder, we don’t want you sent to Mexico or Guatemala, where you will face no charges. We want to charge you and have you serve your time in Denver.
TB: The Department of Homeland Security did away with the practice of avoiding immigration enforcement in “sensitive” areas like schools, churches, and hospitals last week. I wrote this week about the palpable fear among educators and parents about ICE in schools. You have said as mayor you believe there need to be “safe and protected spaces” in the city. Can you describe why you say that and what they are?
Johnston: For us, it’s just a city that can operate smoothly, and these services are core to public safety. We can’t have a safe city if someone is scared to go to a hospital after being hit by a car, and they’re dressing their wounds in their own home. It’s the same with schools. Education in school is still a constitutionally protected right, and we want them there, learning English and developing skills.
The right to worship your God in your own church is also a fundamental right and should be safe. ICE has a job to do, and going to workplaces or house-to-house is fine, but we think the longstanding bipartisan practice of not targeting people in sensitive areas is a key to public safety.
TB: With fear and rumors rampant, I heard from a top immigration advocate in Washington, D.C. about rumors of raids coming in Denver, Philadelphia, and Northern Virginia. Your office told me you had heard those, too. This past weekend, ICE conducted a raid in nearby Adams County. Can you talk to me about the process of vetting these tips you get from your network?
Johnston: We’re mindful of residents who are afraid, and [we] talk to families to build plans on what to do with their kids if they’re detained by ICE and there is no one there to pick them up from school. Rumors spread. I get texts and calls, or I see a tweet, and we try to carefully monitor them to keep the peace and keep people up to date. We feel like we’re waiting on that development now of ICE raids, and having no outreach or coordination from ICE makes it so we don’t know how to best respond.
TB: What did you make of Trump’s threats to target sanctuary cities? Beyond threatening funding, he told Fox News he’s trying to “end” sanctuary cities. You have said you won’t be “bullied or blackmailed.”
Johnston: We think Denver has a clear set of values; we want to respect and protect them and are proud of the fact that we’ve been a welcoming city. Denver is the number-two destination for people under 30 moving from other cities. It’s why we’re growing so fast and why our economy is growing so fast.
We don’t think anything we’ve done is violating federal law, and it’s unfair and inappropriate to target our city. I think the figure is about half of Americans live in welcoming cities like ours, and it’s deeply unfair and an abuse of power to target them.
TB: Before Trump came to power again, one thing I saw both from Trump supporters, but also just people who follow politics, was, ‘Look, this guy isn’t going to do this. He isn’t going to do mass deportations. It was just campaign talk.’ Talk about how this idea ties into fears you have that he will be true to his word and still bring American military forces into U.S. cities.
Johnston: I also didn’t believe he would try to repeal birthright citizenship or try to repeal protections against immigration enforcement in churches, schools, and hospitals. But each time I hoped he would moderate his approach, we haven’t seen him do so. As a responsible leader of this city, I have to prepare for the commitments he’s made and get our team ready to handle what comes.
TB: From 2023 to 2024, as often happens, partisan politics won out in the immigration debate, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott sending buses filled with immigrants to Denver. What was the influx of migrants arriving by the busload from Texas like for your city?
Johnston: This time a year ago, we were seeing ten to eleven buses a day, with 200 to 250 people arriving a day, in sandals and a t-shirt, with nothing else in their possession. It was overwhelming to our resources, and a person driving by does not want to see people shivering on the corner in the middle of a blizzard. But we stood up shelters, nonprofits in our community were incredible, and we are proud of how Denver has shown up. People thought it would break us, but it made us stronger. And now things are quite stable, which has allowed us to focus on other priorities in the city.
TB: What additional areas have been alarming to you from the early days of Trump’s immigration onslaught?
Johnston: We’re trying to watch the activity all over the country and are in touch with mayors. We’re trying to see what the strategy looks like in other cities, but what we don’t know is how ICE is going to go about this. Raids—those we know how to manage.
But if there are wide-scale, public dragnets going into Walmarts or other public places, that would feel different in terms of how we manage our response. There have been challenges over the last year: We’ve been able to close eight shelters; 7,000 people were given work authorization, including 800 people who went through the Denver Asylum Seekers Program. Things have returned to a state of relative calm. So it’s a bit strange to have a crisis we have resolved be inflamed by the federal government coming back to our door.