On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston reacted to incoming Border Czar Tom Homan saying he’s willing to arrest him and arguing that sanctuary cities are violating the law by stating that “What we’re not going to do is support deploying the 101st Airborne into American cities to pull ten-year-old kids out of their classrooms in handcuffs. I think that is immoral, that’s unconstitutional, and that’s un-American. And so, I think if that’s what they’re proposing, they will find us resisting.” But they will help the federal government with going after violent criminals and felons as they currently do and that while he won’t dispatch Denver law enforcement to oppose federal officials “if they are going to send the U.S. Army or the Navy SEALs into Denver to pursue folks to pull them off the job at hotels or restaurants where they’re working or pull kids off the soccer field, I think we will see Denverites and folks around the country who will nonviolently resist that.”
Host Erin Burnett asked, “Are you willing to go to jail over this?”
Johnston said, “I think there are thoughtful ways to solve this problem. If they want to focus on violent criminals, we would be happy to help support pursuing, arresting, and deporting them. We’ve helped past administrations. We’d do that again. If they want to focus on adding more judicial capacity so folks with asylum claims can have those cases heard more quickly, we would support that. What we’re not going to do is support deploying the 101st Airborne into American cities to pull ten-year-old kids out of their classrooms in handcuffs. I think that is immoral, that’s unconstitutional, and that’s un-American. And so, I think if that’s what they’re proposing, they will find us resisting. If they want to partner on commonsense solutions, we’ll always be happy to partner.”
Burnett then asked if Johnston would order his police to resist ICE agents enforcing federal law. Johnston answered, “We won’t use our law enforcement and we don’t think we need to. That’s not what we’re after. I think America is not after another conflict on this issue. They’re after a way to find pragmatic solutions to this problem. And so, to quote Lincoln, we don’t think here that might makes right. We think that right makes might. And so, if they are going to send the U.S. Army or the Navy SEALs into Denver to pursue folks to pull them off the job at hotels or restaurants where they’re working or pull kids off the soccer field, I think we will see Denverites and folks around the country who will nonviolently resist that. Because I think that doesn’t represent our values and doesn’t represent the Constitution.”
Johnston added that the city’s sanctuary status will remain, but “what that means is that if someone has committed a violent crime, has committed a felony, we do collaborate with federal law enforcement and we will. What it means we don’t do is if someone is driving to work and has a busted taillight on the way, we don’t arrest them and connect them to ICE for deportation.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
