Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) held nothing back in a recent House Oversight hearing with the Mayors of New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Boston, dressing them down for their sanctuary city laws in defiance of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda.
Rep. Gosar began by mockingly demanding that Mayor Eric Adams (NYC), Mayor Michelle Wu (Boston), Mayor Brandon Johnson (Chicago), and Mike Johnston (Denver) accommodate him at their houses and provide him with food, money, transportation, and lodging at a luxury hotel.
"Obviously, you would not like this because you do not know me, right? You know nothing about me [and] might not like that," Rep. Gosar continued, saying, "Sanctuary cities offer this kind of hope, this false hope, to illegal aliens by saying that very thing, 'stay with me. We do not tell anybody that you broke our laws.' Now, thank you, you have made the United States complicit and one of the largest purveyors of human trafficking in the world."
The Arizona Congressman further accused the Mayors of "disgracing the legal immigration system" and those who did enter the United States legally before adding that they failed to establish genuine trust by defying immigration policy.
"How can you establish trust at the very beginning when you have a false narrative here? You are defending folks who have broken the law. The definition I have always looked at is, 'trust is a series of promises kept.' What kind of trust are you supporting here? Is it the trust of an illegal alien? It is a false hope, it is false trust," Gosar said.
He then referenced Arizona SB1070, the controversial 2010 state-level anti-illegal immigration measure that was never fully implemented after the Supreme Court found provisions unconstitutional.
Gosar asked if the Mayors would have supported the measure as an example of a state challenging federal supremacy regarding immigration law, but none seemed to remember it.
"We [Congress] are the ones who can define that. We are the ones that want a comprehensive immigration policy. How can you get a comprehensive immigration policy when you [Mayors] are defying it from the very get-go? You are building it on false promises and false tenets," Gosar concluded.
