Chicago’s mayor pushes back as Trump administration readies immigration crackdown

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.

“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.

Though Trump himself has tied crime to a possible increase of federal forces in Chicago, the administration is expected to characterize the surge of law enforcement resources as focused specifically on immigration enforcement, the Associated Press reported.

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

“All these sanctuary cities that refuse to work with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] where we know public safety threats are being released every day into this country — especially in those cities — we’re going to address that,” Homan told reporters.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that the government intends to “add more resources” to ongoing ICE operations in Chicago but did not disclose any details.

Last week the Trump administration asked the Naval Station Great Lakes for support with immigration operations, including “facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations,” according to the AP.

Under Mayor Johnson’s order, Chicago Police Department officers will also have to wear official police uniforms and will be prohibited from wearing face masks so city residents can distinguish them from federal officers, he said. (A DHS spokesperson previously told NPR that some immigration agents wear masks to protect themselves from increasing threats.)

On Sunday, the White House criticized Johnson’s executive order.

“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS are trying to make it one. They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC.”

Johnson said he believed the immigration crackdown could begin as early as Friday.