As protests against the White House’s hard-line immigration policies spread beyond Los Angeles, the House took a swing at D.C.’s “sanctuary city” stance on Thursday, passing a bill that would force local authorities to cooperate with federal enforcement officials.
The measure passed 224-194, with 11 Democrats crossing the aisle to support the measure.
The bill would block District policies that restrict sharing immigration status information with the Department of Homeland Security, or that prevent complying with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain people until ICE officers can take them into custody. After the bill advanced out of the Oversight Committee, Republicans amended it to remove an exception for immigrants who come forward as a victim or witness to a crime.
“State and local governments must work with the Department of Homeland Security to share information on individuals they arrest. They must also honor lawful detainers,” House Oversight Chair James R. Comer, R-Ky., said Wednesday during floor debate. “When they do not, Congress must act.”
Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass., countered that Congress should stop interfering with Washington’s self-governance, saying city officials should be left to set their own policing policies.
“Mayors, police chiefs, sheriffs, and local leaders across the country have made clear that the way to combat violent crime is allowing local police to do their jobs of ensuring public safety in their own communities, not commandeering local police to spend limited time and resources rounding up and detaining nonviolent immigrants who pose no threat,” said Lynch, who is currently acting as Oversight ranking member.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where it faces uncertain prospects for passage.
The House passed two other D.C.-specific bills earlier in the week — one that would stop D.C. from letting noncitizens vote in local elections, and another aiming to reverse part of a 2022 police accountability overhaul that removed the Metropolitan Police union’s ability to bargain over disciplinary policies.
The move to pass the three measures angered advocates for D.C.’s autonomy, especially as the House holds off on another bill that would plug a $1.1 billion hole Congress punched into the District’s budget in March, when it passed a full-year continuing resolution.
“It just goes to show that Congress, people in Congress, really don’t care about D.C. communities,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free D.C. “They care about wielding power and holding power.”
The Senate passed a District budget fix immediately after the CR vote, and prominent Republicans, including President Donald Trump, urged the House to do the same. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters in May that he was trying to schedule a vote “as quickly as possible,” adding that “reconciliation has taken all of our energy right now. … It’s just a matter of schedule.”
But instead of moving on the D.C. budget fix after passing its version of the reconciliation package in May, the House took up this trio of bills, which advocates describe as meddling in local affairs. Meanwhile, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office released a supplemental budget that filled the gap by freezing new hires and delaying expenditures.
After taking a combative tone against Trump in his first administration, Bowser has adopted a more conciliatory approach in his second, drawing criticism from some officials in the heavily Democratic jurisdiction. Her budget proposal for the coming fiscal year seeks to reverse the District’s law prohibiting local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities unless they have a warrant.
This week, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced two letters into the record opposing the trio of House bills: one from Washington’s attorney general and another signed by every city council member.
D.C. is hardly the only so-called “sanctuary” jurisdiction being targeted by Trump and the GOP, as immigration enforcement protests have spread from L.A. to other places around the country. On Thursday morning, Republicans on the Oversight panel called in the governors of New York, Illinois, and Minnesota to answer questions about procedures in their state.
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