Chicago mayor pushes back as Trump administration readies immigration crackdown : NPR

The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, speaks during a press conference at the River Point Park, Monday, August 25, 2025, in Chicago.

Nam Y. Huh / AP

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Nam Y. Huh / AP

The mayor of Chicago has limited how much the police service of his city can cooperate with federal immigration agents, in response to threats from the Trump administration to “accelerate” immigration application operations in the city.

Saturday, the mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson signed a decree According to the city’s police service, to collaborate with federal officers carrying out operations to apply civil immigration and with American soldiers on police patrols.

Johnson, a Democrat, said Trump acted outside the “limits of the constitution” by threatening to send more federal laws for the application of the law or even the National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of state and premises.

“We don’t want to see tanks in our streets. We don’t want to see torn families,” said Johnson. “We do not want the grandmothers to throw in the back of unmarked vans. We do not want to see the homeless chicagoans harassed or disappeared by federal agents.”

President Trump, in An article on his social media site Truth Social On Saturday, the Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker and suggested that federal forces could be sent to the Midwest City to fight crime.

“Six people were killed and 24 people were killed in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic governor of Illinois, just said that he did not need help to prevent crime,” Trump wrote. “He is crazy !!! he would better straighten him, quickly, or we come!”

The Trump administration recently members of the national guard deployed In the streets of Washington, DC in order to reduce crime in the national capital.

Sunday, Pritzker said on cbs Face the nation The fact that the possibility of sending the American army to the streets of an American city is equivalent to an “attack on the American people by the President of the United States”.

Pritzker also said that Trump also had “other objectives” in addition to simply fighting crime, such as the disturbance of mid-term elections in 2026. “He will simply claim that there is a problem with an election, then he has troops on the ground which can take control, if he is actually authorized to do so,” said the governor.

Although Trump himself has linked crime to a possible increase in federal forces in Chicago, the administration should characterize the sharp increase in the resources of the application of laws as focused on the application of immigration, the Associated Press reported.

The White House “Border Czar” Tom Homan said last week that there would be a “ramp -up” of immigration application operations in Chicago and other cities, including New York and Los Angeles.

“All these sanctuary cities which refuse to work with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] When we know that public security threats are released every day in this country – especially in these cities – we will resolve, ” Homan said to journalists.

Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) Kristi Noem said On Sunday, the government intends to “add more resources” to current ice operations in Chicago but has not revealed any details.

Last week, the Trump administration asked for the support of the Great Lakes at the Naval Immigration Operations Station, in particular “installations, infrastructure and other logistical needs to support DHS operations”, ” According to AP.

Under the order of the mayor Johnson, the officers of the Chicago police department will also have to wear official police uniforms and will be prohibited from carrying masks for the face so that the city residents can distinguish them from federal officers, he said. (A The DHS spokesman previously declared at NPR that some immigration agents wear masks to protect themselves from growing threats.)

The Johnson’s decree was criticized on Sunday.

“If these democrats focused on repairing crime in their own cities instead of making advertising waterfalls to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement. “The fight against crime should not be a partisan question, but the Democrats suffering from TDS try to make one. They should listen to the Democrat mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the success of the Trump administration in the conduct of violent crimes in Washington DC.”

Johnson said he was thinking that the repression of immigration could start on Friday.