The mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Brandon Johnson pushed back on Saturday against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to deploy large numbers of federal officers into the country’s third-largest city, which could take place within days.
The Chicago police department will be barred from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge, according to the executive order Johnson signed.
The mayor directed all city departments to guard the constitutional rights of Chicago residents “amidst the possibility of imminent militarized immigration or national guard deployment by the federal government”.
When asked during a news conference about federal agents who are presumably “taking orders”, Johnson replied: “Yeah, and I don’t take orders from the federal government.”
Johnson also blocked Chicago police from wearing face coverings to hide their identities, as most federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers have adopted since the Trump administration took charge this year.
Last week, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago be made available to assist with immigration operations, as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.
Chicago is home to a large immigrant population, and both the city and the state of Illinois have some of the country’s strongest rules against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts. That has often put the city and state at odds with Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
On Thursday, Tom Homan, the administration’s “border czar”, said Chicago, along with a number of other cities, would soon be targeted in a planned immigration crackdown.
“Operations are ramping up across the country. But you can see a ramp-up across the operations in Chicago, absolutely,” Homan said.
In an interview with Fox News, Homan was asked whether he wanted to give a message to Johnson. Homan responded: “Get out of the way, because we’re going to do it.”
Johnson had harsh words for Trump during his news conference, accusing the president of “behaving outside the bounds of the constitution” and seeking a federal presence in blue cities as retribution against his political rivals.
“He is reckless and out of control,” Johnson said. “He’s the biggest threat to our democracy that we’ve experienced in the history of our country.”
In response, the White House insisted the potential flood of federal agents was about “cracking down on crime”.
NBC News reported that Ice, the border patrol and other agencies will send numerous agents and equipment to Chicago as soon as next week, in an attempt to increase arrests of undocumented immigrants.
The planned move comes weeks after the president deployed armed soldiers and military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington DC, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.
The Trump administration has been working on plans to send the national guard to Chicago, something Johnson and JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, have said would be an abuse of power.
On Friday, Pritzker said such a move would amount to an “invasion”. He told CBS News that, should Trump send in the national guard, voters “should understand that he has other aims, other than fighting crime”.
Pritzker said those aims may be to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections”.
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“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,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “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.”
Reuters and Associated Press contributed reporting
