On March 5, 2025, the House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing targeting Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago’s “Welcoming City Ordinance,” along with mayors of other cities with welcoming laws.
Here are 4 things we want to make clear:
1. This hearing is part of a larger set of baseless and unlawful attacks on Chicago.
On Day 1, Trump ordered the Attorney General and Department of Homeland Security Secretary to undertake “any other lawful actions, criminal or civil, that they deem warranted,” based on his own false allegations that sanctuary city policies interfere with enforcement of immigration laws. This order built on the legal theories of Stephen Miller, the white supremacist architect of many of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies. Within a week of Trump’s return to office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and several federal agencies launched enforcement actions that targeted Chicago and its suburbs with violent arrests in violations of the Fourth Amendment.
2. Welcoming policies are lawful.
As federal courts ruled under Trump’s first term, sanctuary jurisdictions are plainly within their constitutional right to set their local policies. Federal courts have repeatedly and uniformly found that sanctuary laws like the Welcoming City Ordinance comply with federal law. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution leaves to states and localities how to devote local law enforcement resources. The federal government cannot require or commandeer states or localities to help enforce federal immigration laws.
3. ICE detainers and arrests, not sanctuary policies, merit congressional oversight.
This Committee should scrutinize ICE, not jurisdictions like Chicago, for systematically violating constitutional law. Federal courts have held that local authorities are under no mandate to comply with ICE’s demands. Most recently, a federal court issued a ruling to set guardrails around how ICE routinely prolongs the detention of individuals held by local authorities without a judicial finding of probable cause, which is required under the Fourth Amendment. ICE has a long history of violating Fourth amendment rights—costing local jurisdictions enormous liability.
4. Welcoming policies foster safety and prosperity.
Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, along with Illinois and Cook County’s policies, became law with strong bipartisan support from elected legislators because they make our communities safer. These laws have provided peace of mind to our diverse immigrant communities that if they need help in an emergency or are a victim of a crime, they can call for help without fear of deportation. Law enforcement agencies throughout the country have supported laws that protect our community members for years, and know that involving local police in federal immigration enforcement efforts not only strains their agencies’ own capacity to address public safety concerns, but also degrades community trust. Safer communities also allow cities like Chicago to thrive economically. Research shows that sanctuary jurisdictions champion higher median household income, less poverty, and less reliance on public assistance to higher labor force participation, higher employment-to-population ratios, and lower unemployment.
Read NIJC's full statement for the record.
Azadeh Erfani is the Director of Policy at NIJC.