DENVER | Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said this week that the city will sue the Trump administration if it instructs federal immigration enforcement agents to detain Denver residents at schools, churches, hospitals, and other “sensitive locations.”
“If individuals are scared to go to the hospital if they’re sick or scared to take their children to school, it can have devastating impacts on the entire community,” a mayoral spokesperson wrote in response to questions from Chalkbeat about a Wednesday press release from Johnston’s office called “ICYMI: Denver’s Commonsense Approach to Trump Mass Deportation Plan.”
“If President Trump instructs ICE to begin going into the sensitive locations, Denver is prepared to take the administration to court and do everything within our legal authority to keep them safe,” the mayoral spokesperson wrote.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials announced Tuesday that they had rescinded a decades-old policy that treated schools and child care centers, among other institutions, as sensitive locations where immigration enforcement should generally not take place. Instead, the department is instructing immigration agents to use “common sense.”
Asked whether the city would sue proactively to prevent raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, at schools or whether its legal action would be in response to an incident, Johnston’s office said that “[s]hould the Trump Administration take any action in Denver we believe is unlawful, we will respond with legal challenges.”
Denver Public Schools has issued its own guidance to schools on what to do if ICE agents show up. The guidance says school staff should deny the agents entry and place the school on a secure perimeter, which means no one is allowed in or out.
School staff should ask the ICE agent for their identification and whether they have a warrant or court order, the guidance says, and then call the school district’s lawyers.
If students’ parents are detained in the community by immigration enforcement while their children are at school, educators will have to help decide where those children should go once the school day is over and who should be allowed to pick them up.
DPS is advising families to update their children’s emergency contact information in the district’s data portal to include someone who is not a parent or guardian. Parents should designate a trusted adult to care for their child if they’re not able to do so, the district’s guidance to families says. It encourages parents to discuss that plan with their children.
The Johnston administration said it is “preparing for the heartbreaking risk of children being separated from their parents.” The city is working on a plan to take custody of any children whose parents are detained or deported and placing the children with relatives or in foster care.
A spokesperson wrote that Denver will ensure children can visit with their parents “whenever legally possible” and work with immigration attorneys to navigate the legal process. The city will also notify consulates to begin “working across borders to identify a compassionate solution.”
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
This lawless, defiant civil servant so called mayor needs to start complying with the powers that be and start putting the safety of the community of legal citizens before he sticks his neck out for those who are here illegally . It’s a slap in the face to those “real” immigrants who have gone through the process legally! Get your head out of your ass Mike and start being a law abiding example for the community to which you serve!
Good luck with that, Mikey.
City of Denver ranks very high with number of homeless and is short some 70,000 housing units, which is possibly greater than any other “sanctuary” city. The people who entered our country have violated our law and are not owed anything as they are not citizens. So if the Mayor wants to do his own thing he will do it without the support of a majority of we taxpayers. I look forward to seeing him do some jail time.
Amen!
Comprehensive federal immigration reform is needed now and that should be the clear and only message from every municipal, county and state official across the U.S.
Who’s going to mow your lawn, fix your roof, pick your vegetables, work at the slaughter houses, make your hotel beds make your burgers, wash the dishes at the restraunts and wash your cars with all the immigrants gone?
Answer: The same people who were doing those jobs 4 years ago would be my guess.
Huh, what a shock that a leftist is terrified of losing their potential revolutionary vanguard. Don’t worry, there’s always the dirtbag left white kids in the Mile High City to keep that going.
Now this lawsuit idea takes some balls. This guy (Denver Mayor Mike Johnston) and his staff have spent several years acting in secret to send illegals by the thousands to the outlying cities. We saw plenty of it right here, obfuscation and smoke and mirrors in CORA’s asking for his (Johnsons) formal policy on relocation from Aurora officials. The situation Johnson faced was owed to his own promises of what he had visions to continue more of. It was political genius by TX. Gov. Greg Abbott to see the folly of these sanctuary cities and bus the illegals that were over running the Texas borders, and resources to those cities. And Denver got to share in the overtaken border crisis. This lawsuit deserves to be fully owned by Denver leadership, and several Colorado Congress reps. Perhaps Denver/Aurora voters will pay close attention.
If their illegals the age don’t matter they need to go why is everyone so blind thinking the kids are going to be any different than the parents.. they need to go