Arguing that “no country should be above international law,” Mayor Brandon Johnson urged the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday to hold President Donald Trump’s administration accountable for what he called a “worsening human rights crisis in the United States.”
In a virtual appearance before the panel’s members meeting in Switzerland, Johnson invited U.N. experts to come to Chicago to witness firsthand abuses committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during raids he said have wreaked havoc in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs.
“That is why I call on this council to hold the federal government of the United States to the same standards of accountability you apply elsewhere in the world,” Johnson said, urging the group to consider holding a special session on the matter. “Human rights are universal — or they are meaningless.”
Earlier this week, Johnson condemned ICE agents for going inside a North Center preschool and “tearing a teacher out of a classroom in front of” toddlers.
The mayor said video of the incident “shocked the conscience of every single Chicagoan,” adding, “This is not who we are. We … cannot have this in our city or our country.”
Johnson vowed to hold U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino “accountable for the crimes you have committed against our people.”
During his speech, Johnson accused the Trump administration of seeking to “evade scrutiny for its violations of human rights, just as it has sought to evade accountability for its actions in cities like mine,” by refusing to either submit to the U.N. Human Rights Council a Universal Periodic Review Report or appear before the panel.
“This refusal to engage in good faith with international mechanisms for accountability and oversight is a moral failure,” the mayor said. “In Chicago, we live with that moral failure every day. Families torn apart by immigration raids. Raids that have targeted daycare teachers, ride-share drivers and restaurant cooks.”
Johnson went on to describe in detail an immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago that he claimed has been “marked by violence” and is an “assault on the dignity of all Chicagoans.”
“Federal agents drag parents out of their vehicles in the pickup line for elementary schools. They throw neighbors supporting neighbors to the ground and assault them,” Johnson said. “Right before Halloween, federal agents deployed tear gas on a children’s parade.”