Florida Republican exposes Dem sanctuary city mayors over outrageous sums they have spent on migrant crisis

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) exposed sanctuary city mayors over outrageous sums of taxpayer money they’ve spent on the migrant crisis during a blistering line of questioning in a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday — but half of them couldn’t even provide a full figure.

“Around $79 million since 2022,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston told members of the House Oversight Committee, while New York City Mayor Eric Adams disclosed a stunning $6.9 billion has been spent on the migrant crisis.

Also present at the hearing to was Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who explained 1% of his city’s overall budget went to illegal immigration — roughly amounting to $166 million of the $16.6 billion spent last year — but he wouldn’t provide a hard number.

“You’re the mayor and you don’t have the math in front of you?” asked an incredulous Donalds, who announced his own run for the Florida governor’s mansion last month. “If you don’t have a hard number you’re not running your city well.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu wouldn’t even offer any figure — telling the committee her city doesn’t keep track of how much it spends on illegal migrants.

“You don’t ask about how much money the city of Boston has spent on illegal immigration? Are you out of your mind?” Donalds asked. “To the city of Boston, just understand that your mayor does not care how much of your resources she has spent on people who are not citizens.”

Wu offered Beantown’s Aaa bond rating as proof that its financial house in order.

While Adams got a comparatively gentle line of questioning from most Republicans in the committee, the others — leaders of some of the largest sanctuary cities in the country — were forced to explain their policies after refusing for years to cooperate with federal illegal immigration enforcement.

Some of the migrants have slipped through the localities’ fingers and gone on to commit horrific rapes and murders.

Johnson, Johnston and Wu pushed back in their opening statements against the charges, pointing to decreasing crime rates in their cities, while acknowledging that detainers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are only honored for migrants with a criminal warrant — not civil requests.

That still left hundreds of dangerous migrants released the streets each year. In New York alone, federal civil immigration detainers plummeting from 1,485 in 2020 to fewer than 200 over the next four years of the Biden administration, according to NYPD statistics.

“It is very difficult for ICE to get a judicial warrant,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told The Post, displaying the statistics sheets outside the hearing room. “It takes time. It’s not something that can be done quickly. And that is the problem. … It is literally an obstacle that Democrats have put in place because they don’t want to comply with detainer requests.”

Some Republican members on the Oversight panel called those practices outright violations of federal law — with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) at one point even saying she was referring three of the big city Dems to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

Only Adams was spared from the referral because he “stated publicly that he believes that illegal immigration is hurting his city,” Luna told The Post outside the hearing room after her round of questioning.

“I actually went through and asked those people individual questions pertaining to their own policies,” she said. “And I gave them a chance if they would have answered and said, ‘No, I think this is wrong … I wouldn’t have referred them. But the fact that they didn’t, and then they doubled down, then I referred them.”

Meanwhile, multiple members of the panel blamed sanctuary city policies for infamous murders committed by migrants — including Laken Riley, the nursing student who was killed in Georgia by a Venezuelan gang members who came through New York City.

“Every crime committed by someone in the United States illegally is a crime that would not have been committed,” Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) stated in the hearing.

“Laken Riley, Rubi Garcia, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, the woman set on fire in the New York subway — these are all assaults, rapes, murders and other crimes that would not have taken the lives of these people if those people were not here illegally,” he said.

Democrats dismissed the Republicans’ accusations, with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the panel saying “the premise of this hearing is false.”

“We’ve got local law enforcement cooperating with the local political leadership, and it’s working,” Connolly claimed. “It’s bringing down crime rates. And the proposition that immigrants cause crime is false and, in fact, patently false.”

But other GOP firebrands wouldn’t hear of it.

“You all have blood on your hands,” erupted Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who put the mayors in the host seat with a series of “yes” or “no” questions about the fallout from their sanctuary policies.

“Do you acknowledge breaking into our country is a crime?” she asked, followed by “Do you believe its acceptable for illegals who commit heinous crimes be released back into the public instead of being detained and deported?” and “When an illegal alien rapes a woman, do you believe you’re on the right side of history?”

Toward the tail end of the hearing, Denver’s mayor hinted that despite he and his colleagues’ opposition to the Republicans’ immigration stance, the early days of the Trump admin have taken some of the pressure of his city’s budget.

“Our expenditures are down dramatically, and we’d like to see it stay that way,” Johnston said of the difference between 2024 and 2025.

The hearing comes as the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has continued across the country, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducting raids nationwide to round-up and begin deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Trump has said he intends to extend deportation to all illegal immigrants.

Both New York and Chicago have already been sued by the Trump administration over their sanctuary policies for allegedly interfering with federal deportation operations — and the president has vowed to bring legal action against other sanctuary cities.