Denver’s mayor has vowed to defend migrants in his sanctuary metropolis from mass deportation by utilizing native cops and 50,000 residents “stationed on the county line” — calling it a “Tiananmen Sq. second.”
“Greater than us having [federal agents] stationed on the county line to maintain them out, you’d have 50,000 Denverites there,” Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston lately instructed the outlet Denverite — after President-elect Donald Trump vowed to undertake mass deportations of unlawful migrants throughout the US.
“It’s just like the Tiananmen Sq. second … proper?” stated Johnston, referring to the well-known caught-on-video showdown between a Chinese language scholar and authorities tank in Tiananmen Sq. in China in the course of the 1989 insurrection there.
“You’d have each a type of Highland mothers who got here out for the migrants. And you do not need to mess with them,” the mayor stated of Denver residents apparently ready to go to the mat in opposition to the federal authorities.
Roughly 40,000 migrants have flocked to the Mile Excessive Metropolis since December 2022 — the biggest variety of new arrivals per capita throughout the nation.
With that inflow got here a surge in migrant crime tied to the Venezuelan jail gang Tren de Aragua.
The criminals have been terrorizing Denver and its close by suburb of Aurora, the place the gang has taken over house complexes and engaged in vicious incidents.
Aurora Metropolis Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky (R) instructed The Publish that Johnston’s plan “will simply additional present how unproductive he’s in one of many nation’s so-called sanctuary cities, which discourage or forestall native authorities from cooperating with federal immigration brokers within the case of migrants.
“If Mayor Johnston desires to face on the Denver border with, I imagine he stated, Highland mothers, or one thing to that impact, it would simply additional present how unproductive he’s,” Jurinsky stated. “Aurora doesn’t plan to supply the Trump administration any help, so far as I do know, however we will definitely not stand in the way in which of what the American individuals voted for.”
Xi Van Fleet, a survivor of Mao’s revolution in China, on Thursday known as out Johnston for evaluating his effort to Tiananmen Sq., telling Fox Enterprise that he’s “both profoundly unaware of the historical past, or he did the false analogy on function.”
Elon Musk, who Trump lately tapped to move the brand new Division of Authorities Effectivity, took to his platform X to say that Johnston’s menace reveals “the mayor of Denver hates his constituents.”
The strain of a hawkish new administration within the White Home gained’t change Denver’s standing as a sanctuary metropolis, Johnston stated.
“The brief reply is, we gained’t change that, as a result of these are considered one of our core values. And we’re not going to promote out these values to anybody. We’re not going to be bullied into altering them,” Johnston stated.
“I believe we’re gonna proceed to be a welcoming, open, big-hearted metropolis that’s gonna stand by our values.”
Trump’s decide for “border czar,” Tom Homan, instructed The Publish that his hope is the brand new White Home administration will file lawsuits in opposition to sanctuary cities and withhold federal funding from them.
If that doesn’t change their methods, the Trump administration will “flood” these areas with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to attend exterior native jails for unlawful migrants to be launched, he stated.
Johnston additionally stated he gained’t permit native regulation enforcement to help the feds in making arrests of unlawful migrants.
“Completely not,” Johnston stated. “We gained’t do it.”
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