Chicago’s local policies around immigration and public safety came up repeatedly Wednesday during a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with sanctuary city mayors. Mayor Brandon Johnson was among four mayors who faced interrogation from conservative lawmakers for roughly six hours, during which many claims were made about Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance and its impact on residents.
Here’s a rundown of several key claims made during the hearing, and our reporting on the issues and numbers referenced by officials.
❌ Sanctuary city policies make Chicago, other cities less safe
Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky, said sanctuary city policies make us all less safe in his opening statement.
A 2019 study by the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, has shown that immigrants commit fewer crimes on average than U.S.-born people.
The CATO Institute study found that undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime in the state of Texas.
According to the Migration and Policy Institute, several other studies have shown that immigrants do not raise crime rates in the local communities where they settle. The institute cites a study by the University of Massachusetts that connects lower crime activity, including violent crime, with communities that have inclusive immigration policies.
✅ Johnson has a low approval rating
Republican Illinois U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood was one of several members to reference a recent poll showing Johnson’s approval rating around 6%, which LaHood claimed is “the worst showing of any political figure in the country’s history.” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina also brought up Johnson’s low approval rating. The representatives appeared to be referring to a recent M3 Strategies poll that showed only 6.6% of 696 likely Chicago voters held a favorable opinion of the mayor.
❌ Sanctuary city mayors are committing treason, breaking federal laws
Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, seemed to accuse the Democratic mayors of treason more than five hours into the meeting.
Greene concluded by saying: “According to the U.S. Constitution, giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States is an act of treason, and those that violate that should be held accountable.”
Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the civil liberties group, called them “bullying tactics.”
“That’s not how this system works, and it’s not against the law to enforce state and local law,” Yohnka said. “We don’t lock people up or threaten them with prosecution for dutifully enforcing the law of the state or the city over which they preside.”
Yohnka said the arguments around the supremacy clause are a “misread.” The supremacy clause of the Constitution holds that federal law takes precedence over state laws.
“There’s no suggestion that in any of these four communities that federal civil immigration law isn’t enforced and can’t be enforced. It is simply who does it,” Yohnka said. “The question there is about local officials setting local priorities and not having those priorities set by the White House.”
✅ Trump’s deportation efforts are ‘terrorizing immigrant families’
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., used her five minutes to deliver a passionate speech about why she believes GOP leaders are not making the country safer by implementing policies to punish immigrants.
“My colleagues across the aisle are producing TV ads to try to pretend that they’re making this country safe again. It’s total bull—-t,” Stansbury said. “What they are doing is terrorizing immigrant families.”
Since President Donald Trump began to roll out his mass deportation campaign, some Chicago attorneys say in many cases immigrants are getting arrested without the proper warrant. Many of these immigrants also have no criminal records. Some own their own businesses.
That’s the case of Eduardo Orozco’s father, who got arrested in January.
“My father, he has been here for about 26 years. He has his own company. He pays his taxes. He’s got no criminal record. He got no DUIs, no felonies, not even a misdemeanor,” Orozco said, who lives in suburban Chicago.
Thousands of businesses in Illinois are owned by immigrants who don’t have a legal status. And a 2024 study by the American Immigration Council found that 46% of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. In Chicago, the Sun-Times and WBEZ have reported on undocumented residents skipping medical treatment, missing church services and avoiding going to school in order to lower the risk of being apprehended and deported by federal authorities.
✅ Chicago spent millions on sheltering migrants
Mayor Johnson still avoided giving a dollar amount, but said since migrants were first bused to Chicago by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022, “roughly 1% of the city’s budget over the course of four years” was spent.
A city dashboard detailing money spent on shelters, nonprofit providers and more as part of the city’s efforts caring for migrants lists over $638 million as being spent between 2022 to 2024.
Johnson followed up that Chicago officials “do not seek the status of any individual that is seeking service.”
🟡 ICE is detaining “criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators”
While questioning Johnson, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., referenced the number of people that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has said are living in Chicago without legal status who also have criminal records.
However, ICE has not responded to multiple requests from the Sun-Times and WBEZ about the number of immigrants the agency has detained since Trump took office in January nor has it provided information about their criminal records.
Attorneys working with those detained in the Chicago area say many do not have criminal records.
Diana Rashid, managing attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center, said Wednesday her team has worked with 20 individuals arrested and detained by immigration officials in raids since Trump’s inauguration. In February, she received 17 new referrals. While she is still checking people’s criminal backgrounds, Rashid says so far “only seven … have criminal records,” ranging from minor offenses such as retail theft to more serious offenses such as possession of a stolen vehicle.
According to an analysis of federal data by the New York Times, a growing number of people detained by ICE have no criminal record, with the share of those detained who do not have a criminal record increasing to 16%, up from 6%.
🟡 ICE can come into schools and detain children
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said Trump, “wants to send armed ICE agents into their classrooms to rip children from the school desk as they’re trying to learn.”
The Trump administration did reverse a policy that barred federal immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive locations, such as schools.
While sanctuary laws can’t stop federal agents from going to schools and churches, Chicago Public Schools has a policy to not allow immigration officers into schools without a criminal warrant. The district also said last month it has lawyers at the ready to review any warrants or other paperwork and to advise staff.
CPS’ off-limits approach was affirmed by the Board of Education in a resolution in November in advance of Trump’s swearing-in. The need for that local protection was affirmed earlier this year after the Trump administration said federal agents could now arrest migrants at schools and churches, reversing longstanding federal guidance.
WBEZ’s Sarah Karp has more on what parents should know about ICE and schools.
🟡 Chicago does not cooperate with ICE
Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance means “the City will not ask about your immigration status, disclose that information to authorities, or, most importantly, deny you City services.”
Comer asked each of the mayors whether their sanctuary city polices would allow them to turn criminals over to ICE for deportation.
Staring straight ahead, Johnson said: “With a criminal warrant from the federal government, our local law enforcement repeatedly cooperates with federal agents.”