Far-left Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has promised to incite a rebellion or insurrection against the United States if President-elect Donald Trump attempts the mass deportation of illegal aliens and Biden “migrants” in the Mile High City.
Johnston vowed to station police at the “county line,” along with “50,000” residents, to block the entry of federal forces that would remove the invaders.
The shocking vow might have come as a surprise to the city’s cops, for Johnston implicitly said that they will be the city’s troops in a war against the federal government.
He said such confrontation would be a “Tiananmen Square moment,” a reference to the student rebellion in Beijing against the Communist Chinese government in 1989.
Nothing Changes in Far-left Denver
Speaking to the Denverite website, Johnston said nothing will change in Denver’s treatment of illegal aliens when Trump becomes president. Permitting them to drain precious city resources at the expense of taxpayers, he said, is “one of our core values.”
“And we’re not going to sell out those values to anyone,” he told the website. “We’re not going to be bullied into changing them.”
Denver will still be a “welcoming, open, big-hearted city that’s gonna stand by our values,” Johnston said.
Thus the city is scrutinizing federal grants that Trump has vowed to end if it maintains its “sanctuary” status. In September, Trump promised legislation to outlaw sanctuary cities.
Part of that effort will include revoking work authorization for illegals. “Johnston plans to explore the possibilities for creating both city and state work authorizations beyond the federal program,” the website reported.
Johnston: Police Will Block Deportations
Before claiming that Denver cops would be arrayed in a battle line against the military and other forces that will carry out Trump’s plan for the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Johnston told the website that cops “absolutely” won’t help that effort.
“We won’t do it,” the far-left mayor said.
The vast majority of law enforcement is local. Johnston is doubtful that federal forces would raid Colorado to round up immigrants, even if Trump tried to mount a national crackdown.
“I do not believe that our governor is going to let them use our [Colorado] National Guard at the state level,” he said. “Unless they were planning on bringing national guards mobilized from Texas or Alabama to come invade Colorado, I don’t know where they would find the forces to begin to do that.
“And that seems to me like a very, very bad idea from start to finish that no reasonable American would support,” he said.
In fact, almost 80 million Americans voted for exactly that on November 5.
No matter.
Johnston told the website that Denver cops and residents will set up a phalanx to block the deportation forces:
“More than us having DPD [Denver police] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,” Johnston said. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?” You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.” …
Johnston takes comfort in the idea that Trump will likely distract himself with high-controversy, low-impact issues.
If immigration laws were being enforced, Denver officials and those of other sanctuary cities would face felony charges for breaking the federal law that prohibits harboring illegal aliens.
Rebellion and Insurrection
But Johnston isn’t just suggesting passively breaking the law by refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deportations, or refusing to honor ICE detainers on illegal-alien criminals. (The Biden administration has done likewise, by the way, with its refusal to deport illegals. And it has compounded that illegality by creating unlawful programs to import illegal aliens “legally.”)
Instead, Johnston promises to use cops — and city residents — to block deportations, a clear violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 2383:
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
In cases of rebellion or insurrection, the president can call in the National Guard to put it down. Typically, the federal posse comitatus statute prohibits using the military to enforce federal law. But exceptions to that statute include cases of rebellion or insurrection, which Johnston has proposed.
The National Guard website explains several of these exceptions. First, in case of a rebellion or insurrection against a state government, the state’s legislature or governor can call upon the president to federalize the National Guard to put down the rebellion or insurrection. The website continues:
To enforce federal authority, whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, assemblages, or rebellion make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State.
Under the heading “interference with state and federal law,” the website explains that “the President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Perhaps he doesn’t realize it, but Johnston has openly proposed a rebellion or insurrection should Trump attempt to deport the city’s illegals and Biden “migrants.”
Unclear is whether Johnston or anyone else who applauds him understands the ramifications of his promise.
