Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Stands Up to House Republicans

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Mayor Brandon Johnson did the thing nearly every Chicagoan does whenever people — especially those who aren’t from here — start talking mess about the city. In a bright riff of direct examination led by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Johnson shot back against negative characterizations of Chicago at Wednesday’s sanctuary city hearing in Washington, D.C.

Equipped with graphic boards highlighting Chicago bona fides, they rolled out receipts: 

• In 2024, Condé Nast Traveler Magazine named Chicago the ​“Best Big City in the U.S.” for the eighth year in a row. ​“Best freakin’ city in the world,” Johnson ad-libbed.

• Chicago is a quantum technology hub: “$20 billion investment,” Johnson noted. 

• Voted No. 1 U.S. metro city for corporate relocation for 12 years straight? Mm-hm. 

• Amazing restaurants? Check. 

• Perfectly positioned next to 20% of the world’s fresh water? Yup.

“Everything that is dope about America comes from Chicago,” Johnson said in a satisfying payoff. He set off a round of affirmative nods for fans of beloved urban historian Shermann ​“Dilla” Thomas, who coined the phrase.

The Republican-majority House Oversight and Government Reform Committee invited Democratic mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City — cities with sanctuary laws — to testify. Chaired by right-wing Trump apologist James Comer (R-Ky.), the goal was ​“to examine their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities,” according to the committee’s website. In January, Comer began investigating how sanctuary policies affect public safety. In early February, the Trump administration sued the City of Chicago, claiming the city’s Welcoming City ordinance impedes federal immigration enforcement. 

Republicans on the committee seemed intent on creating a viral spectacle much like the depraved bullying displayed against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit on February 28. 

They threatened to strip Chicago of federal funding, and even jail some of the mayors, like Denver’s Mike Johnston, for defending their sanctuary status. They accused Johnson of encouraging the migrants to come to Chicago through the Welcoming City Ordinance. Republican committee members blamed the mayors for making ​“the United States complicit and one of the largest purveyors of human trafficking in the world,” according to Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, although Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was the one shipping vulnerable new arrivals and children to Democratic cities unannounced. They even tried to spook the mayors by stating they would be ​“criminally referred” to the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation.

Johnson persevered.

He avoided superficial traps set to paint him as an irresponsible and unfavorable mayor — particularly ones about a City Hall gift room and results of a recent opposition poll conducted by a right-wing think tank. He stuck to the script, didn’t overshare and remained calm in his replies even when Republicans like Rep. Byron Donalds, the Florida gubernatorial hopeful, tried to rile him up by berating and talking over him. 

“This is absolutely a sham,” Johnson told The TRiiBE and In These Times in an exclusive interview following the hearing. ​“The people that I speak with every single day, they want to know if they’ll have good-paying jobs, access to healthcare, how they’re going to be able to afford to live in the city of Chicago. 

“The theater that this administration is trying to create won’t do anything to solve the day-to-day challenges that mayors like me across the country have to deal with,” Johnson said.

Instead, Johnson used the national stage to reshape narratives about Chicago. In his opening statement, he uplifted the fact that Chicago was founded by a Black Haitian man and a Potawatomi woman. He emphasized that Chicago’s crime rate is trending downward, thanks to people-centered strategies designed to get at the root causes of crime. He touted the $50 million allocated for 29,000 youth jobs in this year’s budget, reopening mental health clinics shuttered by previous administrations, and building affordable homes on the South and West sides.

Facing a barrage of questions about migrant spending, Johnson later unpacked why he wouldn’t answer the question around how much money the city has spent. However, a city-published database shows the costs associated with new arrivals ($268 million in city funds, and another $370.5 million in state and federal grants).

“I wasn’t willing to give this specific number,” Johnson told reporters right outside the hearing doors. ​“What I was working to point out is that the state of Texas spent roughly $221 million to bus migrants, asylum seekers, across this country, which essentially was 1% of their overall budget. Over the last three years, the City of Chicago has spent less than $300 million. We have spent 20 times that amount, with new investments, on Black Chicago.” (In a Feb. 28 interview with The TRiiBE, Johnson shared more about investments in Chicago’s Black communities.)

Ever the social studies teacher, Johnson talked up Harold Washington, Chicago’s beloved first Black mayor, who established the Welcoming City ethos around immigration. He said Black Chicago’s story is also one of migration. More than six million Black Americans moved to Chicago during the Great Migration between the 1910s and 1970s, escaping the repression and racial terror of the Jim Crow South. 

“There were neighborhoods once upon a time on the West Side of Chicago that were not predominantly Black. When Black folks began to move into neighborhoods like Austin and North Lawndale, other people left and othered us,” Johnson said. ​“Keep in mind, it was in the ​’80s when people knew the type of torment and torture that was happening at the hands of local law enforcement, and I believe there was a state’s attorney [Richard M. Daley] at the time that refused to investigate and look into the allegations.” 

“So Black men, in this particular moment,” he continued, referencing Washington and corporation counsel James Montgomery’s decision to install measures protecting immigrants, ​“understood that if they did not exercise their power to put a check on federal agents, the consequence that it would have on Black folks would be severe because there was already evidence around that.”

The hearing marked a 180-degree shift in Republican ideology around states’ rights. Gosar invoked the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause: ​“The Constitution is explicit that the federal government has jurisdiction and supremacy over all immigration laws, right?” he said. ​“We’re the ones who can define that.”

Johnson told The TRiiBE and In These Times: ​“It’s Pharisaic, quite frankly, in terms of how this party prides itself on local control, except for when they control the federal body: the House, the Senate, the judicial branch, the executive branch.” A preacher’s kid, Johnson evoked Biblical Pharisees who were obsessed with man-made rules to the point of complete and utter hypocrisy.

Republicans have been all in on states’ rights and local governance: They championed states’ rights on abortion, which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. On the issue of slavery, Trump has said President Abraham Lincoln should have negotiated with the South to avoid the Civil War. Underpinning this sentiment is the belief the federal government had no business telling states what to do with its enslaved Black population.

Trump has already pointed to Chicago as a place riddled with violence and ​“horrible people” who will never be ​“wonderful” citizens. His administration is looking into legal grounds to deport and jail American citizens convicted of violent crimes to El Salvador’s mega prison.

During the hearing, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) alleged Chicago has a higher murder rate than the country of Haiti. He said he hopes Trump orders a ​“don’t go to Chicago” travel advisory.

Johnson’s response? ​“They’re not dog whistling. They’re yelling it out loud.”

“That’s why it’s incumbent upon us in Chicago, and cities like Chicago, to continue to [double] down on our collective efforts to ensure that our investments go right to our people because there is a real threat, to your question, with the type of concentration of power at the federal level,” Johnson said during an early evening press conference with the Illinois delegation after the hearing. ​“Our education system is threatened. Our departments of justice, environment, housing; all of the investments that I’ve made since I’ve been mayor, all of those investments are threatened when you have such animus at the federal level.”

Johnson’s day didn’t end after the hearing and press availability. Surrounded by an Illinois delegation of Chicago school board members Jitu Brown and Tara Stamps, and Reps. Jonathan Jackson, Delia Ramirez and Danny K. Davis, Johnson addressed the group of grassroots organizers who caravanned to support him. 

They championed Johnson for defending Chicago and everyday working people. They also applauded him for not backing down to, as Jackson described, a government dead set on harming working people by cutting Medicaid, food stamps, housing and other essential public services. 

“I often talk about the soul of Chicago, and I think we showed the world today what the soul of Chicago represents,” Johnson said. ​“Our soul is based on the fact that we believe that no human being is illegal. We believe that Black people are right to fight for our liberation. We believe that working people should run this country, that our country should work for all working people. We are not going to stop until all of our people have what they need to thrive.”