'Blood on your hands': 3 highlights from House hearing with 'sanctuary city' mayors

2. Jim Jordan confronts Denver mayor over sanctuary city policies

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, cited a case involving an illegal migrant named Abraham Gonzalez to argue against Denver’s sanctuary city policies. Jordan told Denver Mayor Mike Johnston that the Biden administration released Gonzalez into the U.S. following his arrest by border patrol in September 2023. 

“A few months later, he’s arrested in Denver, charged with aggravated assault. On March 11, 2024, he’s charged with motor vehicle theft, stole a car,” the Republican lawmaker recounted. “And then on March 20, 2024, Mr. Gonzalez is charged with felony menacing.” 

Jordan, who also serves as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, noted that Johnston received an ICE detainer request six days after the last charge. The agency requested that the Democratic mayor provide a 48-hour notice before releasing the illegal migrant and suspected gang member. 

"Three hundred and forty-five days you had him in custody. And ICE said, 'Hey, can you give us 48 hours heads up?' You gave them one hour's notice," Jordan said. 

The Ohio representative held up a notice slip the Denver Sheriff's Department provided to ICE, which listed the release location of the migrant as the "streets." As 9News reported on Wednesday, surveillance video shows Gonzalez running from ICE agents after his release from Denver County Jail. 

Due to city rules, the ICE agents could not arrest or detain the migrant inside the county jail without a signed warrant from a judge, according to the outlet. It took around 30 seconds for the agents to subdue Gonzalez, and the migrant assaulted at least one ICE officer. 

"An officer got assaulted because your policy, which says, 'We're going to release him to' — in your words, not mine — 'to the streets.' They have to arrest him in the parking lot," Jordan said about the incident. "They bring six officers when they could have just had one or two just come in your facility, into your jail, and take the guy there. But you won't do it that way."

The Republican lawmaker quoted from Johnston's testimony from earlier in the hearing, when the Democratic mayor claimed that his office has made the safety of Denver residents a priority. Jordan said of the mayor's testimony, "That's a lie." 

"It was not safer for the ICE agents who are part of your community. No way was it safer," the Republican representative said. "The safest thing to do is to say, 'ICE, we got him in custody. Come here. We'll release him.'"

"That is how stupid sanctuary policies are and what they mean to the community that you put at risk and to the ICE officer who was assaulted," Jordan continued.

After answering the lawmaker's questions regarding Denver's policies, the mayor said that he would consider making adjustments to the way releases are conducted.

Johnston also insisted that the case Jordan brought up during the hearing is the first that he has heard of an ICE agent being assaulted during an arrest in Denver.