Denver’s mayor has slammed back at the threat of arrest by President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed deportation czar, saying that a planned sweep by the military of immigrants is “immoral, unconstitutional and un-American.”
”I think there are thoughtful ways to solve this problem,” Mayor Mike Johnston told Erin Burnett on CNN Tuesday night. “If they want to focus on violent criminals we would be happy to help support pursuing, arresting and deporting them. We’ve helped past administrations and we’d do that so again,” he added.
“What we’re not going to do is support deploying the 101st Airborne into American cities to pull 10-year-old children out of their classrooms in handcuffs. I think that’s immoral, that’s unconstitutional and that’s un-American. If that’s what they’re proposing, they will find us resisting,” he vowed.
Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, he added: “We don’t think might makes right, we think right makes right,” and emphasized again that his city is willing to work together on a “pragmatic solution.”
Trump’s pick of hardliner Thomas Homan, former head of Immigration and Customs Enfrocement, threatened Johnston’s arrest on Fox News Monday, warning: It’s a “felony if you knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien from immigration authorities.”
“Me and the Denver mayor agree on one thing: He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.We’re gonna enforce the law. Period. And they’re not going to stop us. and that’s it,” Homan told Sean Hannity.
Homan has promised a “shock and awe” operation of mass deportations launched the first day of the Trump administration.
Johnston had previously warned that Homan’s draconian plans would trigger another infamous Tiananmen Square incident with residents rising up against federal agents. He said Denverites would not be “bullied” by the incoming Trump administration.
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has also defiantly vowed to uphold sanctuary status in Chicago, declaring: “If you come for my people, you come through me.”
