Chicago braces for federal deployment

Trump threatens to send in National Guard, ICE

By: Emily Schmall
Bianca Flowers
and Heather Schlitz
Reuters

CHICAGO - when President Donald Trump threatened to flood Chicago with National Guard troops and immigration and customs enforcement agents earlier in August, [2025] Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the president lacked the legal authority.
..... But privately, Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson began discussion what they could do to shield Chicago from a federal deployment like those underway in two other Democratic-run cites with Black mayors, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. their conclusion: not much.
..... As trump has ramped up the treat of a federal deployment in the nation's third-largest city in recent days, public officials and community organizers said they are doing what they can to get ready. They offices of Pritzker and Johnson are closely coordination. the state's attorney general, Krwame Raoul, said on August 25 [2025] he was developing a legal strategy to execute if troops arrived,. Immigrant advocates are stepping up legal training.
..... While some locals have expressed support for Trump's decision, many in the heavily democratic-voting city are appalled.
..... Some community group leaders who work in Chicago neighborhoods most affected by violent crime said the residence of National Guard troops could undermine efforts to build trust. So would the appearance of cooperation between Chicago police offices and ICE, said Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling.
..... At a news conference on August 28, [2025] Snelling said that officers would not assist with federal law enforcement, but would not interfere with it either.
..... "We know people are living in fear," he said, "and working with ICE, it does nothing to help those relationships and in fact, it hurts. We're not going to ask for anyone's immigration status, we don't care/ We're going to continue to stand up for the people in our city to make sure that they're safe."
..... On August 25, [2025] Pritzker spoke on the riverfront in downtown Chicago, flanked by Johnson and the state's most powerful democrats.
..... "Mr President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here," he said.

Chicago crime

..... Trump has justified the possible move by painting a bleak picture of crime in Chicago, calling it a "disaster."
..... Illinois Republicans have echoed that description, and are increasing speaking up in support of Trump's pledged intervention. Families "need leaders who will finally make Chicago safe,' state Senator Neil Anderson said in a statement to Reuters.
..... Chicago has long had a reputation as a city with an elevated crime rate, particularly around gun violence. There have been 1,229 shootings so far this year, [2025] including a high-profile drive-by shooting in July [2025] targeting a rap artist.
..... However, the city has made progress since the end of the pandemic, according to Chicago crime data. Fatal shootings fell 36% from January 1 through august 25 [2025] compared to the same period a year ago. [2024 Its July [2025] homicide rate of 1.66 per 100,000 residents ranks below Washington, New Orleans and Little Rock, Arkansas, among other cities.
..... The falling crime trend mirrors other U.S. sites, reflecting the impact of hundreds of millions of federal dollars allocated in recent years for teachers, police and social workers - the people likely to influence at-risk youth vulnerable to gun violence, said John roman,a senior fellow at the research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.
..... Some of those funds, including $158 million in grants for violence prevention programs across the United States, were cut in April [2025] as part of the Trump administration's reshaping of government.
..... The federal funding cuts demonstrate that Trump;s pledge to tackle crime in Chicago is "performance" and to his actual goal, said Arne Duncan, former President Barack Obama's secretary of education and founder of community violence prevention nonprofit Chicago CRED.
..... Sending the National Guard, duncan said, "hearkens back to Klan patrols - that's the imagery he wants and it's incredibly disturbing. He wants these military clashes with civilians."
..... The perception among outsiders and even many Chicagoans is that safety remains a serious issue. In a NNORC survey this spring [2025] of city residents, about half said they felt unsafe in their neighborhoods at night.
..... Joleen Rees, an unemployed mother of four on Chicago's South Side said she feels "relatively safe," but takes care to keep her children in at night. She said that deploying federal troops was "not called for,: and that she would prefer that Trump focus on job creation.
..... But Mike Wyatt, an IT worker in Chicago's Loop, said he would welcome assistance addressing homelessness and empty storefronts downtown.
..... "We need some help," he said.

Sanctuary city

..... Trump has also singled out Chicago because of its so-called sanctuary city status for immigrants. From 2022, waves of migrants began arriving in Chicago form the border, mostly on buses sent by officials in Texas and other Southern states. By last summer, [2024] the city had placed about 46,000 migrants in shelters.
..... South Side resident Danielle Carter-Waltes, a spokesperson for the pro-Trump group Chicago flips Red, testified at a U.S. House committee hearing in April [2025] that Chicago was "drowning with the consequences" of its sanctuary city status.
..... That spurred Trump to say that Black Chicagoans had told him, "come to Chicago, please."
..... The potential deployment of troops and ICE agents has sparked a wave of trepidation among immigrates, with even permanent residents and citizens with Latino heritage fearing a mistaken detention, Said Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project.
..... In recent days, the group was scrambling to train tis mitigation lawyers in deportation litigation methods, and to hire more. "we're preparing for an escalation in enforcement and care tactics," she said.
..... The National Guard has been sent to Chicago before, but that involved coordinator with local officials.

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