Denver Mayor Mike Johnston Testifies Before Congress About Immigration Policies

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston testified before the Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform earlier this month on March 5, according to a report by CBS News. Johnston was invited by the committee, as well as mayors from Boston, Chicago, and New York City ,to testify about so-called “sanctuary city” policies. Johnston gave an account of how the city of Denver handled a major influx of migrants.

“All told, 42,000 people arrived in Denver over 18 months, the largest per-capita influx of any city in America,” says Johnston. “The question Denver faced was, what will you do with a mom and two kids dropped on the streets of our city with no warm clothes, no food, and no place to stay?”

“When those buses kept on coming, Denver made a choice as a city not to hate each other, but to help each other, not to turn on each other, but to turn to each other, and see if together we could solve a problem that felt bigger than any one of us,” he continues in his testimony. “And that’s what we did. It wasn’t perfect, and it required sacrifice from all of us, but in the end, Denver came out stronger and closer than we were before because Americans expect us to do more than point fingers. They expect us to solve problems.”

Say what you will about Johnston’s policies, and some of what you say will likely be justified, but he has a good point that migrants require solutions and not infighting amongst the government agencies tasked with helping them. If more people in the halls of power thought that way, we could easily take care of everyone who needs help, be they migrants or citizens born here.

Then, however, Johnston faced pushback from Republican Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, a politician who became a household name after inappropriate behavior at a children’s play, as she dredged up racist accusations, saying, “I’ve heard that Denver crime went down while Aurora’s crime went up because you were also shipping them to Aurora, and we have documentation that I don’t have time to discuss here in this hearing that proves you were shipping illegal aliens to Aurora; their crime was increasing while you were hiding under laws that you will not demand be repealed … and then crime was going up from Tren de Aragua gangs vandalizing apartment owners.”

Johnston didn’t get a chance to respond to Boebert, but it should be noted that, while Tren de Aragua is a gang that operates in Aurora, there has been a lot of fear-mongering about the gang from the right based on misinformation. As the Denver Post points out, Tren de Aragua’s activity has been overblown, and there is no vast conspiracy to cover up the activity of this group. It’s unsurprising that Boebert would trot out a conservative talking point like that to undermine Johnston’s important message.