The House Oversight Committee is playing the fool to a mad want-to-be king by summoning Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and three other big-city mayors to be interrogated about their enforcement of the laws of their cities and states. President Donald Trump has demanded that every city and state bow to his wishes and support his mass deportation policies, which are of questionable legality.
In Chicago and other jurisdictions around the country, local officials have found over time that it is best to focus local resources on the investigation and prosecution of those who violate our criminal laws.
Rather than joining in mass deportation efforts, communities like Chicago have determined that public safety is enhanced by creating trust between immigrant communities and the police so people feel comfortable cooperating with local law enforcement. That cannot happen if local police are also tasked with federal civil immigration enforcement.
This week’s hearing purports to be about immigration, but the issues at play are much broader.
In addition to setting immigration policy for state and local government, Trump thinks he alone should get to decide who gets federal money and who does not, attacking essential services for everyone just to punish those who do not fit with his political ideology, without regard for our safety or the Constitution.
There will be a temptation this week to focus completely on immigration policy and how many Americans are concerned about our nation’s broken immigration system. But that focus will miss the forest for the trees.
Congress is sitting idly by as the Trump White House refuses to spend money lawfully appropriated by that Congress and seeks to shut down agencies that Congress has approved and funded for years.
The story is not about immigration.
The story is that Trump believes he is the law and can use that law to punish anyone who disagrees with his views. Do not miss that point.
Trump subverts Constitution, weakens America
Since returning to the White House, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is “king” and thus “is the law.” These presidential fantasies of unchecked power often are dismissed as fanciful or rhetorical. But the truth is more alarming: his claims are an orchestrated effort to subvert the Constitution and restrict the freedom of anyone Trump wants to punish.
The negative impact on all Americans of Trump’s broad and arbitrary use of power is regularly obscured by focusing on attacks against vulnerable Americans such as transgender people, or the use of lies and exaggeration about certain communities, such as immigrants, newcomers and those seeking asylum. The attacks on these groups only foretell the harm that Trump’s unchecked power will inflict on all of us as it weakens our democracy.
Trump hurts all Americans through his effort to pause federal spending, an effort that ignores the constitutional grant of the “spending power” to Congress. In Illinois, that pause froze almost $2 billion dollars in federal funds across 14 state agencies, boards and commissions. These dollars — appropriated by Congress — were intended to improve, among other things, Illinois bridges and roads. Every Illinoisan who travels roads in need of repair is affected by this funding “pause.”
Similarly, Trump’s unilateral halt of funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development stopped work at the University of Illinois flagship campus that was dedicated to establishing soybean markets in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. Illinois farmers — the No. 1 producers of soybeans — are hurt by this abuse of power, as are farming communities and the entire state.
The framers of the Constitution explicitly placed limits on both presidential power and congressional power, with the intent of each branch having both specific powers and limitations on power that would check efforts by the other branch to exercise unfettered power. Those checks and balances protect all of us; efforts to weaken these checks and balances threaten all of us.
Sadly, Trump’s regal ambitions are getting a boost from a source that ought to know better. Rather than behave as a co-equal branch of government, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on immigration reinforces Trump’s effort to bend every elected official — at every level — to his will simply by signing a piece of paper with his trademark Sharpie.
Colleen K. Connell has been executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois since 2001.
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