The Democratic mayors of New York, Denver, Boston and Chicago are expected to face withering scrutiny from House Republicans at a hearing on Wednesday over sanctuary cities and whether they are thwarting President Trump’s deportation efforts.
Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have accused blue-city mayors of putting their residents in harm’s way by not assisting in federal immigration investigations. Mr. Trump has threatened to withhold federal money from jurisdictions he deems uncooperative, and he recently filed a lawsuit accusing leaders in Chicago of thwarting the administration’s immigration policies.
The committee, which is stocked with Republican firebrands like Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, promoted the mayors’ appearance with a sizzle reel set to dramatic music that spliced clips of the mayors’ defending their immigration policies with video of tent cities, criminals with guns and the Declaration of Independence up in flames.
The term “sanctuary city” is not a legal designation but a catchall phrase to describe jurisdictions that limit cooperation with the federal immigration authorities. Democrats have long championed these restrictions as a way to create safe and welcoming environments for immigrants. But they have come under increasing pressure as migrants started showing up in greater numbers — sometimes sent by Republican governors in other states — at their cities’ shelters.
The hearing could be a minefield for the mayors. They will need to defend themselves and their policies while also saying that they follow all federal laws.
The mayors also face the risk of making the kind of viral stumbles that derailed the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania when they were called before Congress in December 2023.
Democrats and Republicans alike are expected to scrutinize Mayor Eric Adams of New York City. The Trump administration has moved to drop federal corruption charges against him, in what the prosecutor previously overseeing the case called a quid pro quo with Trump officials. In exchange for leniency in the criminal case, she said, the mayor would help the president with immigration enforcement.
Here is a look at the mayors and their cities’ challenges.
— Jack Healy
Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago
Mayor Brandon Johnson has plenty of problems at home in Chicago. Municipal finances are tight. Voters rejected his plan to use new tax revenue to address the growing homeless population. Contract negotiations with the teachers’ union, Mr. Johnson’s longtime employer, have exposed divisions on the City Council.
But those debates have been primarily with his fellow Democrats. As Mr. Johnson heads to Washington, he will engage with Republicans on an issue that may pose a larger political threat to himself and the government he leads.
For years, Republicans have singled out Chicago, the nation’s third most populous city, as an avatar for all that ails urban America. Chief among their grievances is a city ordinance that blocks cooperation on immigration enforcement.
Shortly after Mr. Trump took office, the Justice Department sued Mr. Johnson over Chicago’s immigration policies and also said it could prosecute local officials who prosecutors believed were impeding the work of immigration officers.
During Mr. Johnson’s nearly two-year tenure, Chicago has struggled to manage the influx of migrants, many of whom camped outside police stations or slept on airport floors after being bused north by Texas conservatives. Though the flow of new arrivals has slowed considerably, the local politics may have shifted. Some Chicagoans protested plans to open new shelters in their neighborhoods, and a handful of City Council members tried, but failed, to roll back the ordinance limiting cooperation with immigration officials.
Though it all, Mr. Johnson has defended Chicago’s status as a “welcoming city” for undocumented immigrants.
The hearing will be a major test for Mr. Johnson, who until his election in 2023 held a relatively low-profile seat as a county commissioner. His time as mayor has had bright spots, including reductions in the homicide rate. But he has not fully sold residents or City Council members on his vision for Chicago, and he has often struggled to turn his priorities into policy.
On immigration, though, he has not wavered.
“Our song of unity won’t change because who’s in the White House,” Mr. Johnson said last week.
— Mitch Smith
Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston
It would be fair to say that Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, and the Trump administration do not get along.
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, has threatened the city with increased immigration enforcement and suggested that the police chief should resign.
“I’m coming to Boston, and I’m bringing hell with me,” he said last month.
Ms. Wu, a first-term Democrat, called the comments “clueless.”
A Harvard-educated progressive who speaks fluent Spanish, Ms. Wu, 40, has done little to retreat. She has instead spent time assuring immigrants that the city remains a safe and welcoming place.
A flashpoint in tensions between the Trump administration and the city is a local law known as the Trust Act. It prohibits Boston police officers from participating in most federal immigration enforcement actions, though they can assist in some cases when crimes have been committed.
Earlier this year, federal officials accused the Boston police of ignoring dozens of federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants. Police officials said that they had never received most of the requests because Immigration and Customs Enforcement had disregarded the department’s request in 2023 to submit its requests by email instead of fax.
Mayor Wu has defended the city’s approach as the best way to preserve trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement. And she promotes Boston’s public safety record: In 2024, there were 24 homicides, the lowest number since at least 1957.
Gov. Maura Healey has taken the brunt of the criticism, especially for the state’s failure to conduct criminal background checks on shelter residents. And Massachusetts had difficulty handling the 2023 surge in migrants. Many of them arrived from Haiti, drawn to a long-established Haitian American community in Boston and the state’s longstanding right-to-shelter law. Contracts with motels and hotels cost Massachusetts hundreds of millions of dollars.
For her part, Mayor Wu, who is up for re-election this year, seems ready to spar during the hearing.
“I’m there, no matter how challenging the circumstances, to stand up for Boston, and also to stand up for the truth, the facts, of who we are,” Ms. Wu, a daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, told reporters when asked about the hearing. “Some people are trying to paint a story of cities where immigrants live as dangerous places, when in fact we are proof of the opposite.”
— Jenna Russell
Mike Johnston, Mayor of Denver
In his cowboy boots and his Wrangler corduroy jacket, Mike Johnston of Denver knows how to dress the part of a Western mayor. And shortly after last November’s election, he turned President Trump’s promise of mass deportations into an OK Corral moment.
The first-term Democratic mayor told interviewers that he was willing to go to jail to stop unlawful immigration enforcement, and he envisioned resistance protests akin to the Tiananmen Square uprising in China.
Mr. Johnston, a former school principal and state legislator, has walked back some of his more defiant comments, but he is likely to be grilled about them at the hearing.
His message this time might sound more tame: Stand up for Denver’s embrace of immigrants, but also insist that the city is complying with federal immigration laws.
One of his chief antagonists at the hearing is likely to be Representative Lauren Boebert, a conservative Republican who represents a largely rural swath of eastern Colorado. Mr. Johnston and Ms. Boebert have sniped at each other on social media, and she is a vociferous critic of Denver’s more liberal politics.
The arrival of 42,000 migrants in the Colorado capital over the past two years tested the city’s welcoming posture. Many were bused from the Southern border by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.
Then, during the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump spread false stories that Venezuelan gangs had taken over decrepit apartment buildings in a diverse working-class suburb of Denver.
Mr. Johnston likes to point out that despite the influx of migrants, crimes including homicides and auto thefts have fallen by double digits over the past year.
At the hearing, he may also reject the Republican characterization of Denver as a “sanctuary city.” Denver has never passed such an ordinance and works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers if they request information about a person already in detention.
But Mr. Johnston has said that Denver does not ask for people’s immigration status and that police officers do not participate in immigration raids. And state law limits cooperation between Colorado law enforcement agencies and immigration officers.
— Jack Healy
Eric Adams, Mayor of New York
Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election this year, faces a difficult task at the hearing: Look independent while also appearing loyal to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Adams is a conservative Democrat who has railed against the city’s sanctuary laws as migrants have been accused in high-profile crimes that made headlines.
At the same time, he faces accusations that he is beholden to President Trump after the Justice Department moved to drop corruption charges against him.
New York City has an estimated 400,000 undocumented immigrants, and many residents are worried about mass deportations. But an influx of more than 230,000 migrants over the last three years has taxed city services.
Democrats in the City Council have made it clear that they will not weaken the city’s sanctuary laws. But Mr. Adams, a former police officer, has argued that these laws hurt public safety, preventing the police and city jails from openly working with ICE to target undocumented immigrants who are charged in or convicted of crimes.
The policy debate has become mired in Mr. Adams’s personal fight against corruption charges. After the Justice Department demanded that the charges be dropped, the federal prosecutor leading the case resigned and accused the mayor of agreeing to help Mr. Trump with immigration enforcement in exchange for leniency in the criminal case.
Two Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee began an investigation this week into the push to drop charges against Mr. Adams and requested communications between the mayor’s lawyers and the Justice Department.
Mr. Adams also faced calls to resign after meeting with Thomas Homan, the president’s “border czar,” and then announcing that he would issue an executive order to allow ICE into the Rikers Island jail complex.
In an interview with Mr. Adams on Fox News, Mr. Homan said he expected the mayor to help, or he would be “up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
— Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Luis Ferré-Sadurní