Mayor Parker’s administration told Congress it doesn’t endorse Krasner and Bilal’s anti-ICE statements
In its report, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee portrayed Philadelphia as obstructive to ICE, saying that officials ignored 162 detainer requests between January 2024 and June 2026.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration told a powerful congressional oversight committee earlier this year that it does not endorse statements made by District Attorney Larry Krasner and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal about federal immigration enforcement, according to a report released Thursday.
The 18-page interim report was released by the Republican-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee less than three weeks before a midterm election when the GOP may lose its majority in the chamber. It’s part of the committee’s probe into immigration policies in Philadelphia, one of several jurisdictions that Republicans say have endangered public safety by shielding immigrants from deportation.
The report shows the Parker administration, which has largely communicated behind the scenes with the federal government about immigration enforcement, attempted to distance itself from Krasner and Bilal.
» READ MORE: House Judiciary committee criticizes Philly law enforcement over sanctuary policies
The pair each made comments about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that went viral in January after a federal agent fatally shot a civilian in Minneapolis. Bilal called the agency “fake, wannabe law enforcement” and threatened to arrest agents.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel at the time released a statement clarifying that his department is in charge of municipal policing and criminal investigations, not the sheriff’s office.
A May letter to the House Judiciary Committee from then-City Solicitor Renee Garcia went further, according to the report.
“The Sheriff and District Attorney of Philadelphia are separately elected officials whose statements are wholly separate and not endorsed by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s Administration,” Garcia wrote.
Spokespeople for Krasner and Bilal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the city’s law department declined to comment.
The Judiciary Committee’s report comes amid already heightened tensions between the city’s law enforcement agencies and a series of unrelated allegations of wrongdoing that have enveloped the sheriff’s office.
Earlier this week, Krasner publicly blamed the police department for botching a 2023 murder case against a man accused of fatally shooting Officer Shane Seiber on Saturday, drawing a defense from the police force that said it was not the time to be “assigning blame.”
Separately, Bilal is facing the prospect of independent, court-ordered supervision of her office, which has been accused of mishandling deed transfers for years. Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office admitted in court that it had found $20 million in sheriff’s sale proceeds that was supposed to have been transferred to the city, but had not been disbursed.
Krasner and Bilal have been confrontational toward federal immigration enforcement, with the progressive district attorney comparing ICE agents to Nazis, and Bilal saying that her message to agents is: “You don’t want this smoke.”
Parker, a centrist Democrat, has taken a quieter approach. While the mayor earlier this year signed legislation that effectively codified Philadelphia’s “sanctuary city” status, she has largely avoided directly criticizing President Donald Trump’s administration and its mass deportation campaign.
For years, Philadelphia’s policy has been that officials do not comply with detainer requests by ICE to hold immigrants who are already in city custody unless ICE produces a warrant signed by a judge.
» READ MORE: Mayor Parker’s restraint with Trump is both calculation and gamble as the president escalates against blue cities
Still, despite the Parker administration’s attempts to smooth over the city’s relationship with Washington Republicans, the House Judiciary Committee described Philadelphia’s government as part of the problem, saying the city’s policies of not cooperating with ICE in some circumstances are deliberately obstructive to federal law enforcement.
The committee in May requested a trove of records from the city, police department, sheriff’s office, and district attorney’s office after it accused Philadelphia of shielding immigrants who have committed crimes.
Between January 2024 — when Parker first took office — and June 2026, the city did not comply with 162 detainer requests from ICE, according to the report, which cited records provided by the city. Over the same time period, the report says, the city received seven judicial warrants, which the report said were either honored or involved people who were transferred to state prison after being convicted.
The committee wrote that the city released a handful of immigrants who had detainers and had previously been charged with crimes, such as assault. Those immigrants were later arrested by ICE, the report said.
However, city officials have in the past said that just because they do not comply with an ICE detainer request does not mean that the person is released into the community. Some continue to be incarcerated in city facilities or are transferred to other jurisdictions.
» READ MORE: Krasner rips Trump and House Judiciary Committee over ‘war against immigrants’
The Judiciary Committee was also deeply critical of both Bilal and Krasner for their offices’ respective policies toward immigration enforcement.
For Bilal’s part, the committee wrote that the sheriff, whose office secures the municipal courthouse in Center City, “actively obstructs ICE from making safe immigration arrests inside the city’s courthouse.” The committee wrote that, when ICE has a warrant to take custody of an immigrant, agents must wait to arrest the person until they’ve been transferred from the courthouse to the city’s prison complex.
And the committee took particular issue with Krasner, a frequent target of state and national Republican opposition to reformist styles of law enforcement. The report is critical of the office’s policy of reviewing cases against undocumented immigrants and at times seeking “immigration-neutral outcomes.”
“In practice, this means that prosecutors in Krasner’s office are not prohibited from crafting generous plea deals that avoid immigration consequences for even the worst offenders,” the committee wrote.
However, Krasner had said his office’s policy of seeking outcomes that don’t trigger deportation apply only in nonviolent cases. And he condemned the Judiciary Committee’s probe during a news conference in May, saying it was carrying out “an untruthful, authoritarian, political campaign.”
Krasner at the time also demanded the committee hold a public hearing. No such hearing has taken place.
