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Denver Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston announced an executive order Thursday directing city authorities to detain ICE agents who are considered to have used excessive force against or “assaults or shoots or kills” civilians in the Mile High City.
The announcement comes weeks after Philadelphia’s top prosecutor made headlines by likening ICE agents to Adolf Hitler’s Geheime Staatspolizei and warning of similar repercussions that have yet to be put into practice, as Johnston’s now have.
“To protect Denver, our first responders will always provide life-saving aid to anyone who is injured, no matter who injured them,” Johnston said on the steps of the city government’s plaza downtown.
“No ICE officer gets to stand in our way of saving someone’s life. To protect Denver, if we see any ICE officer using excessive force against a Denver resident, we will step in to detain that officer and remove them from the situation,” he said, adding that federal agents should be held to the same standard as city police officers.
“Regardless of what the federal government does, we will not abdicate our responsibility to prosecute crimes in our city.”
Johnston said the order was drafted by his appointed city attorney Michiko “Miko” Brown.
He said Brown is a descendant of Japanese Americans who were collectively detained and sent to internment camps under an executive order signed by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.
Johnston gestured to the courthouse behind him, noting it was named for former Colorado Republican Gov. Ralph Carr.
In 1942, Carr took a different tack than many Western state governors and opposed Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese, German and Italian Americans across the region.
Johnston went on to say he would not abide by “abduction[s]” of residents, remarking that “no one will have to worry if their dad will be abducted when he heads to the store.”
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Denver Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston is seen. (RJ Sangosti/Getty Images)
“[I]n Denver we have proven time and time again that we are stronger than any obstacle we face because we are a city that turns to each other and not on each other. Through fires and floods, booms and busts, and tournaments and raids, we have stayed true to the values of the West: All are welcome. All are valued. All are protected.”
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Krasner recently took to the podium in Penn Square to denounce I.C.E. as “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis” and pledged that “if we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities.”
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That remark led to a congressional warning, as House Intelligence Committee member Greg Steube, R-Fla., requested that Attorney General Pam Bondi investigate Krasner’s remarks under a federal statute that prescribes up to 10-year felony charges for threatening federal officers.
Digital reached out to DHS for comment.
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