Denver’s Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston has said he will encourage people to protest mass deportations of migrants planned by President-elect Donald Trump in Colorado, as civic leaders in ‘sanctuary cities’ begin to scale up their response to the threat plans.
In an interview with Denver’s Channel 9, Johnston, 50, said he is willing to go to jail to stop all deportation efforts. Denver’s neighboring city of Aurora has been at the center of the migration debate after three apartment complexes were reportedly taken over by the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua.
In response, Danielle Jurinsky, a Republican Aurora city councilwoman, said she had spoken to Trump’s transition team about “Operation Aurora” and warned city leaders: “I hope we take this seriously. This is coming.”
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Urban areas including Denver, New York and Los Angeles have shown mixed reactions to Trump’s promise to deport large numbers of immigrants in the US illegally. Laws in the “sanctuary city” generally prohibit city employees and resources from being involved in federal immigration enforcement.
On Friday, Tom Homan, Trump’s new “border czar,” vowed to send “twice as many” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Los Angeles to carry out mass deportations. Members of the LA City Council have warned that Los Angeles will not cooperate.
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said the city has always welcomed immigrants and that law-abiding immigrants and families will be protected, but said the current migrant crisis has cost the city billions of dollars and the federal government has failed to help. deal with the influx, estimated at more than 200,000 migrants.
‘I can’t let them work [legally]” said Adams. “I can’t let them participate in our tax system.”
But Denver Mayor Johnston walked back comments he made to Denverite earlier this week about sending police officers to the county line to prevent federal agencies from entering the city.
“It’s like Tiananmen Square with the rose and the gun at the moment, right? You’d have all these Highland mothers standing up for the migrants. And you don’t want to mess with them,” he said.
In the subsequent interview, he said he regretted using the 1989 Tiananmen Square image of a man blocking a tank during pro-democracy protests.
‘Would I have taken it back if I could? Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have used that image,” Johnston said. “That is the image we can hopefully avoid. What I was trying to say is that this is an outcome that we can hopefully avoid in this country. I don’t think any of us want that.”
Johnston added that his willingness to go to prison over this issue was real.
“I would do that if I believed the rights of our residents were being violated,” he said. “I think there are things happening that are illegal, immoral or un-American in our city. I would certainly protest it, and I would expect other residents to do the same.”
And the mayor said he would encourage people to protest and that he is not against all deportations — a line other sanctuary city mayors have also tried to draw — including deportations for violent criminals.
“We believe that if you are a violent criminal who commits serious crimes such as murder or rape in Denver, you should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and deported,” he said.
