Palmer blasts Democrat mayors of 'sanctuary cities' for harboring illegal aliens — 'You have violated your oath of office. You've committed a crime'
As President Donald Trump continues to crack down on illegal immigration, some Democratic mayors are pushing back by declaring their city to be a sanctuary for criminal aliens.
Four such mayors testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, where U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) told them they were breaking the law and hurting American citizens.
“Every crime committed by someone in the United States illegally is a crime that would not have been committed. Laken Riley, Ruby Garcia, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, the woman set on fire in the New York subway, these are all assaults, rapes, murders and other crimes that would not have taken the lives of these people if those people were not here illegally. They were given safe harbor,” Palmer said.
Palmer asked the mayors, including Eric Adams of New York, Mike Johnston of Denver, Brandon Johnson of Chicago and Michelle Wu of Boston, if they remembered their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and were familiar with the supremacy clause.
“Under the supremacy clause, you understand that the laws of the United States take precedence over the laws of Colorado, over the laws of Illinois, over the laws of Massachusetts and your cities?... When you declared your city sanctuary cities, you did so illegally. Do you understand that?” he asked.
Mayor Johnston responded, saying he “respectfully disagreed” with Palmer’s assessment.
“You're disagreeing with the law,” Palmer shot back. “It's against the law to give sanctuary to people who have committed felonies, and it's a felony to cross the border illegally. You gave sanctuary to people who are here illegally. You violated your oath to uphold the Constitution because of the supremacy clause, the laws of the United States take preference.”
Johnston and the other mayors continued to argue they were not violating the law, but Palmer swiftly shut them down.
“When you give safe harbor to people who are here illegally, and you interfere with the officers of the law who are there to even remove people that you know have committed crimes, you have violated your oath of office. You've committed a crime,” Palmer said. “Mr. Chairman, I don't understand why we haven't been discussing obstruction of justice. I mean, get real about this. We have a problem in the country with the people who have come here illegally, and I just gave you a few names of people who have been raped and murdered. There are numerous others.”
Palmer noted that Mayor Adams has been “attacked” by Democrats for agreeing to cooperate with federal officials on immigration. Despite Johnston’s repeated assertion that his city upholds all U.S. laws, Palmer again reminded him and the other mayors of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and said he was considering referring criminal charges against them and other sanctuary cities.
“I think we've got a problem here when we decide that there's some laws that we will obey and some laws that we won’t. I don't care who it is. Republican, Democrat, I don't care what office you hold. We need to abide by the laws passed by the United States," he declared.