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Leaders of several sanctuary cities where officials had prominently rejected [1 link] Donald Trump’s first-term immigration policies are shifting their tone as he prepares to take office again and carry out his [2 link] mass deportation plans.
Some local officials have softened on how closely they want their cities to be identified with the “sanctuary city” label and have pledged to work with federal immigration authorities. But others have doubled down on their cities being sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants and reject any notion that they’d cooperate with a Trump administration seeking to deport millions of them.
The mixed approaches of officials in some of the largest and heavily Democratic cities in the U.S. underscore the country’s shifting politics on immigration. While leaders in these cities largely — and often loudly — rejected Trump’s immigration policies when he was last in the White House, some are now willing to work more closely with his administration on a top priority or tamp down their rhetoric.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Cherelle Parker and District Attorney Larry Krasner, both Democrats, seem to have shied away from some of the rhetoric celebrating the city as a sanctuary — as well as the oppositional approach city officials took in the past.
Asked whether he still considered Philadelphia a sanctuary city, Krasner did not directly answer.
“Sanctuary city can mean a lot of things, and so that whole discussion can get confusing and maybe generate more heat than light,” he said in an interview with NBC News. Krasner said Philadelphia was a “city of brotherhood, of love, of sisterly affection, where we respect and support our immigrant neighbors who are hardworking and are law-abiding and are contributing to our society.”
Krasner added that he would “follow the law, uphold the Constitution, and whatever that says we have to do, we’re going to do.”
“To the extent that ICE has the legal right to do things, obviously we will not interfere,” he said, but added that if “ICE agents do things that are crimes, they’re going to have a problem.”
Sanctuary city is not an official term. Rather, it refers to a city, county or municipality that has enacted laws that either explicitly or effectively prevent or limit local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities as part of a broader effort to make undocumented immigrants feel safe.
Parker, the mayor, was asked during an interview last week with [3 link] NBC10 in Philadelphiaif she considered Philly a sanctuary city. She danced around the question, replying, “I believe that in America, our diversity is by far our greatest strength.”
“We’re a city made up of neighborhoods, and I too believe that our diversity is our greatest strength,” she said.
Asked by NBC News whether Parker identified Philadelphia as a sanctuary city, and whether city authorities would cooperate with ICE and the Trump administration if they move forward with deporting undocumented immigrants, her spokesperson also declined to answer directly.
“As Mayor Parker made abundantly clear after the November election, the Parker Administration remains laser-focused on the agenda that Philadelphians elected her to implement: making Philadelphia a safer, cleaner, greener City, with access to economic opportunity for all,” the spokesperson, Joe Grace, said in an email to NBC News.
Grace added that the city’s 2016 executive order on ICE detainers remains in place. In 2016, Jim Kenney, then the mayor of Philadelphia, signed an executive order barring the city from honoring some ICE detainers (a detainer is a request that local officials hold an immigrant who is due to be released from custody for an additional 48 hours to allow ICE to take them into its custody).
While that policy remains in place, the cautious tone struck by Parker and Krasner marks a notable departure from the one city officials struck during Trump’s first term. Kenney, for example, was caught on [4 link] camera singingand [5 link] dancing gleefully in 2018after a judge ruled in favor of the city’s sanctuary policies.
New York City’s yearslong immigration pivotIn New York City, a shift on immigration policy has been underway for several years. Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who [6 link] met with Trump in Floridaon Friday, has indicated his interest in working with the incoming administration, including on immigration issues.
New York has struggled to cope with a surge in migrant arrivals in recent years — a “crisis” that would “destroy” the city, [7 link] Adams said in 2023. Adams repeatedly criticized the Biden administration on the issue, saying it hadn’t done enough to help New York and other cities. He also met [8 link] with incoming border czar Tom Homanin December.
While Adams continues [9 link] to call New York a sanctuary city,he has [10 link] signaled a desireto change the city’s laws in a way that would allow city officials to cooperate with federal immigration and law enforcement officials to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Last month, he said migrants accused of crimes [11 link] should not necessarily receivedue process.
His broader approach is a stark contrast from that of his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, who was New York City’s mayor during Trump’s first term.
In 2014, when Barack Obama was president, de Blasio, a Democrat, helped enact laws that significantly hampered city law enforcement officials from working with ICE agents seeking to deport undocumented immigrants. Throughout the Trump administration, he expanded some of those laws to make it even more difficult for ICE agents to deport undocumented immigrants.
Adams spokesperson Liz Garcia said the mayor “has been clear that New York City will always be a city of immigrants, which is why the Adams administration has worked diligently over the past few months to ensure city staff has the most accurate, up-to-date information on how to uphold our sanctuary city laws.”
“We also continue to work with immigrant New Yorkers to ensure they know their rights around federal immigration enforcement,” Garcia said. “Our administration is doing the work to provide for immigrant communities across the city.”
Other local Democratic leaders say they won’t be ‘bullied’Meanwhile, leaders in other big sanctuary cities have maintained an aggressively oppositional posture to the incoming Trump administration on immigration issues.
In the weeks following Trump’s victory in November, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, [12 link] said the city“will not bend or break” on its sanctuary laws.
He [13 link] told The Washington Postin November that “there will not be any cooperation” with ICE deportations.
And last week, the Chicago City Council [14 link] voted down a proposal thatwould have eased laws barring city officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities who are targeting individuals involved in certain violent and drug-related crimes.
Responding to questions on the issue from NBC News, Johnson spokesperson Erin Connelly forwarded a recent press release that stated, “The City of Chicago and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Administration reaffirm our commitment to the welcoming city ordinance.” Chicago’s sanctuary policies are part of [15 link] that ordinance.
NBC News reported that ICE officials are planning a [16 link] major enforcement operationin Chicago following Trump's inauguration.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, has been even more outspoken on preserving his city’s sanctuary laws during the second Trump administration.
“We won’t change that, because those are one of our core values,” Johnston [17 link] told Colorado news website Denveritein November. “We’re not going to sell out those values to anyone. We’re not going to be bullied into changing them.”
In that interview, Johnston also raised the idea that Denver police, as well as Denver citizens, could band together to prevent federal immigration authorities from deporting undocumented immigrants.
“It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?” he said.
Responding to questions from NBC News about Denver’s status as a sanctuary city, and regarding the extent to which city officials might cooperate with ICE, Johnston spokesperson Jordan Fuja said in a statement: “Denver defines itself as a welcoming city and we do have laws on the books, both city and state, that ensure that local police do not do the work of federal immigration enforcement. That’s the federal government’s job, not ours.”
“If Donald Trump tries to break the law and abuse his power, he will get no help from us,” the statement said, adding that the mayor is “considering a number of options to strengthen protections for all our residents.”
“Denver is proud to be a welcoming city, and we will do everything in our power to protect those who live here,” the statement continued.
[18 link] [19 image] [20 link] Adam Edelman [21 link] [22 link]
Adam Edelman is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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