Chicago’s mayor pushes back as Trump administration readies immigration crackdown
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks during a news conference at River Point Park, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, in Chicago.
Nam Y. Huh/AP
Chicago’s mayor has limited how much his city’s police department can cooperate with federal immigration agents, in response to threats from the Trump administration to “ramp up” immigration enforcement operations in the city.
On Saturday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order barring the city’s police department from collaborating with federal officers conducting civil immigration enforcement operations, and with U.S. military personnel on police patrols.
Johnson, a Democrat, said Trump was acting outside “the bounds of the Constitution” by threatening to send more federal law enforcement officers or even the National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of state and local leaders
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has sharply criticized former President Donald Trump’s recent call to deploy the National Guard to Chicago for a federal crime crackdown. Johnson warned that residents would resist such measures, saying that Chicagoans are “used to standing up against tyranny” and would not tolerate their city turning into a “military-occupied state.”
Trump’s comments over the weekend, suggesting intensified federal law enforcement in Chicago, were also condemned by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who dismissed the plan as a “manufactured crisis.” Both Johnson and Pritzker, prominent Democrats, have publicly minimized the urgency of the city’s crime challenges, even as violent crime statistics continue to draw national attention.
Mayor Johnson stressed Chicago’s commitment to local governance and questioned the role of federal agents, pointing out that they “do not have police powers.” He expressed solidarity with other Democratic leaders, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, in rejecting what he described as authoritarian tactics. Johnson also made it clear that the city would pursue legal and civic measures to counter any unwarranted federal intervention.
“We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want to see families ripped apart,” Johnson said. “We do not want grandmothers thrown into the back of unmarked vans. We don’t want to see homeless Chicagoans harassed or disappeared by federal agents.”
President Trump, in a post on his social media site Truth Social on Saturday, criticized Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and suggested federal forces could be dispatched to the Midwest city to fight crime.
“Six people were killed, and 24 people were shot, in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME,” Trump wrote. “He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!”
The Trump administration recently deployed National Guard members to the streets of Washington, D.C. in an effort to reduce crime in the nation’s capital.
On Sunday, Pritzker said on CBS’s Face the Nation that the possibility of sending the U.S. military to the streets of an American city amounts to an “attack on the American people by the President of the United States.”
Pritzker also said Trump also had “other aims” besides simply fighting crime, such as disrupting the 2026 midterm elections. “He’ll just claim that there’s some problem with an election, and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control, if in fact he’s allowed to do this,” the governor said.