When Denver Mayor Mike Johnston joins three other big city mayors Wednesday to testify before a House committee’s looking into “sanctuary” cities, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and her three Republican colleagues from Colorado plan to put the Democrat on the hot seat.

Boebert, a third-term lawmaker from Windsor and a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is assured of a chance to grill Johnston. Additionally, the state’s other GOP representatives — freshmen U.S. Reps. Jeff Hurd, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans — have asked to “waive on” to the panel for the hearing.

If granted, the procedure would give every Republican member of Congress from Colorado a turn at the microphone for the high-stakes inquiry.

“Tomorrow in the hearing, we are going to highlight how these sanctuary city and state policies fail public safety, make America less safe, and why we need to continue the path forward to build safe communities that we all deserve,” said Evans, an Army veteran and former Arvada police officer, at a press conference in Washington on Monday.

“As a police officer for over a decade in the metro area,” Evans added, “I saw firsthand what was contributing to these problems, and a significant percentage of the blame lays on sanctuary city and state policies that allow violent transnational criminal organizations and cartels to come into our community and find safe harbor.”

Boebert’s office declined to preview her line of questioning, but she’s sparred with Johnston previously over the city’s immigration policies. Boebert also spelled out her position when she spoke at another hearing devoted to immigration enforcement on Monday.

“Thanks to the Trump administration’s policies, the border is CLOSED to all illegal aliens!” Boebert tweeted, quoting her own remarks at the committee hearing. “However, Colorado’s Sanctuary State policies prevent ICE from being able to do their job and remove criminal aliens from our streets!”

Johnston and Denver’s response to the immigrant crisis have been in the national spotlight since 2023, when an estimated 43,000 immigrants — who entered the country illegally across the southern border with Mexico — began pouring into the city, straining public services and costing taxpayers more than $80 million.

The city’s “sanctuary” status — a term Johnston disputes, meaning jurisdictions that limit or refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement — took center stage in January. That’s when President Donald Trump took office promising to initiate a massive deportation program, drawing a vow from Johnston to block federal authorities from deporting immigrants from Denver. He had suggested using the city’s police force to block immigration agents, a comment he had since walked back.

A week after Trump’s inauguration, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, asked Johnston to testify and submit material to the panel.

“To provide much needed oversight of this matter, the Committee requests documents and information related to the sanctuary policies of Denver,” Comer said in a letter that went on to call out the mayor.

“Denver is a sanctuary jurisdiction under Colorado law, and Mayor Mike Johnston confirmed that he was prepared to go to jail to protect illegal aliens from federal immigration authorities,” Comer wrote.

Johnston waved off Comer’s concerns in a statement to The Denver Gazette, though he later agreed to appear before the committee, alongside the mayors of Boston, Chicago and New York.

“The most helpful thing congressional Republicans could do right now is fix our broken immigration system,” Johnston said. “While they work on that, we will focus on running the cities that manage the consequences of their failure to act.”

Crank told The Denver Gazette that he intends to press Johnston on the city’s approach to immigrants and its cost.

“Sanctuary Denver Mayor Mike Johnston needs to face the facts: sanctuary city policies hurt Coloradans,” Crank said in an emailed statement. “He’s going to face some tough questions from the Republican delegation, and we plan to hold him accountable.”

While he probably won’t have more than a few minutes to question Johnston at the hearing, Evans detailed his arguments about the dangers of sanctuary policies in an opinion column published Monday in the Washington Reporter.

“These policies don’t just make life harder for law enforcement, they make Colorado more dangerous,” Evans wrote.

“After years of sanctuary policies, we are seeing the results firsthand: The illegal immigrant crisis has overwhelmed Denver’s schools and hospitals. Illegal immigrant gangs like Tren de Aragua have taken root in Aurora. The cartels are here. Colorado is among the worst in the nation for auto theft. And local police can’t do a thing about it because of sanctuary policies.”

Boebert has needled Johnston over the city’s policies since last year, when she mocked a 22-page guide published by Denver titled, “Newcomers Playbook: A Guide to Welcoming Newcomers into Your City.”

“This is a guide that tells other cities how to follow the Denver model of bringing illegals into a city,” Boebert tweeted. “I wish I was joking, but this is reality.”

Added Boebert: “We need to vote out everyone in government who refers to illegal alien criminal invaders as ‘newcomers’ and do so quickly. Our nation is being stolen from us and they’re complicit.”

Johnston fired back with a reference to Boebert’s ejection, along with her date, from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” at one of the city’s theaters in September 2023 after audience members complained the couple were being disruptive.

“Did I forget a section in the playbook about not vaping and getting handsy at Beetlejuice?” Johnston responded on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We haven’t had that issue with any of our newcomers, but now that we know you’re paying attention, we’ll add it.”