{"id":10225,"date":"2025-06-12T17:31:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T17:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/blue-state-republicans-make-it-personal-pummeling-their-governors-on-sanctuary-policies\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T17:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T17:31:38","slug":"blue-state-republicans-make-it-personal-pummeling-their-governors-on-sanctuary-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/blue-state-republicans-make-it-personal-pummeling-their-governors-on-sanctuary-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue-state Republicans make it personal, pummeling their governors on \u2018sanctuary\u2019 policies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Familiar home-state foes faced off Thursday in Washington as Democratic governors from New York, Minnesota and Illinois testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on their states’ “sanctuary” policies limiting cooperation between federal immigration officers and state law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York, Tim Walz of Minnesota and JB Pritzker of Illinois had come prepared to weather the onslaught of pointed questions from Republicans, who think their immigration laws are too permissive. But the GOP lawmakers who also hail from these blue states appeared even more ready to twist the knife on longstanding feuds and partisan debates: Several House Republicans who aren\u2019t full-time members of the Oversight Committee waived onto the dais for the explicit purpose of lighting into their governors.<\/p>\n

Rep. Elise Stefanik<\/a> (R-N.Y.), weighing a bid for Hochul\u2019s job after President Donald Trump yanked her nomination<\/a> to be United Nations ambassador, excoriated the vulnerable governor expected to face primary and general election challenges in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Kathy Hochul\u2019s New York. It\u2019s one of the many reasons why you\u2019re hemorrhaging support from hardworking New York families,\u201d Stefanik said as she ticked off the names of undocumented immigrants accused of violent offenses in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are horrific crimes, and they\u2019re heartbreaking,\u201d Hochul sought to interject, before Stefanik cut her off: \u201cThey\u2019re horrific crimes that are committed on your watch.”<\/p>\n

Fellow New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler<\/a> also waived onto Thursday\u2019s hearing. He, too, is deciding whether to take on Hochul as a gubernatorial candidate next year.<\/p>\n

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer<\/a> (R-Minn.) was also permitted to participate in the proceedings. He used his time to question witnesses to pummel Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, on their state\u2019s approach to working with ICE.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne reason you\u2019re here testifying before us today is because you refuse to cooperate with ICE while states like Florida and Virginia empower their law enforcement to detain and remove criminal illegal aliens,\u201d Emmer charged.<\/p>\n

Walz \u2014 like Hochul, whose team predicted that the hearing would be \u201cderailed by wild accusations\u201d \u2014 let the scene play itself out as a one-sided conversation by the Republican House member \u2014 at least initially.<\/p>\n

“Which of the questions do you want me to answer first?\u201d the governor asked before Emmer began talking over him again.<\/p>\n

All three governors are defending their leadership as driven by an understanding that immigration is a federal issue; their states do work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on criminal matters; and that the United States is a country of both laws and immigrants.<\/p>\n

Republicans, however, are casting their states as cesspools of woke lawlessness as protests against ICE raids grip cities from New York to Los Angeles, where Trump has responded by calling in the National Guard<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It’s all setting the stage for the national discourse around the issue ahead of the 2026 congressional midterms and 2028 presidential election. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Familiar home-state foes faced off Thursday in Washington as Democratic governors from New York, Minnesota and Illinois testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on their states’ “sanctuary” policies limiting cooperation between federal immigration officers and state law enforcement. Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York, Tim Walz of Minnesota and JB Pritzker of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}