WASHINGTON >> Republican members of Congress hammered four Democratic mayors Wednesday about their so-called sanctuary city policies, accusing them of endangering Americans and threatening to prosecute local officials. The mayors pushed back, defending their communities as welcoming places — not lawless danger zones — and called on Congress to pass immigration reforms.

The comments came in an often fiery hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where Republicans said the mayors were undermining President Donald Trump’s immigration and mass deportation efforts.

Republicans repeatedly highlighted a handful of brutal crimes committed by immigrants who crossed illegally into the U.S., with Rep. James Comer opening the hearings by saying the policies “only create sanctuary for criminals.”

But the Democratic mayors — Michelle Wu of Boston, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, Mike Johnston of Denver and Eric Adams of New York — defended their policies as legal, even as they seemed to carefully avoid using the term “sanctuary.”

Republicans, they said, were trying to paint their cities as overrun by criminal immigrants even as crime was falling. The mayors said a key to safety is creating cities where residents feel comfortable reporting crimes and working with police.

“We know there are myths about these laws. But we must not let mischaracterizations and fearmongering obscure the reality that Chicago’s crime rates are trending down,” Johnson told the committee in a hearing room packed with reporters and onlookers. “We still have a long way to go, but sensationalizing tragedy in the name of political expediency is not governing. It’s grandstanding.”

There’s no legal definition for sanctuary city policies, but they generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers. Courts have repeatedly upheld the legality of sanctuary laws.

Illegal immigration was a key plank of Trump’s presidential campaign, and he has repeatedly pressed on the theme since coming to office, including a Tuesday night speech to Congress where he vowed to “complete the largest deportation operation in American history.”

Denver’s Johnston said that crime dropped when the city was faced with an influx of immigrants, many bused from border states by Republican politicians. Like the other mayors, he said the onus should be on Congress to update federal immigration laws.

New York’s Adams got some of the only praise from Republican lawmakers, with Comer thanking him for working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration law, the mayors said, is a federal responsibility, and the attempt to put that responsibility on local law enforcement makes communities distrust the police and others they may need to call for help. Trump’s crackdown, the mayors said, has terrified immigrants, many of them in the U.S. legally.