Politics

Mayor Brandon Johnson Signs Executive Order Designed to Protect Residents if Trump Sends National Guard, ICE Strike Team to Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Saturday designed to protect Chicagoans if President Donald Trump makes good on his threats to send the National Guard and a strike team of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Chicago.

During a hastily scheduled event at City Hall, Johnson told reporters that the city had received credible reports that the federal government is planning to send hundreds of agents and perhaps National Guard troops or active-duty military forces to Chicago as early as this coming Friday.

“We do not want to see tanks in our streets,” Johnson said. “We do not want to see families ripped apart. 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. We don’t want to see Chicagoans arrested for sitting on their porch.”

Federal leaders have not informed Chicago officials that the president has authorized a deployment, Johnson said, calling the Trump administration “erratic,” impulsive” and “out of control.”

“We have not called for this,” Johnson said, flanked by members of his senior leadership team and members of the Chicago City Council. “Our people have not asked for this. But nevertheless, we find ourselves having to respond to this.”

Read the full executive order here.

A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to Johnson’s action or statements.

The city will launch the “Protecting Chicago Initiative” in an effort to ensure that all Chicagoans know their rights and directs the Chicago Law Department to pursue all possible legal challenges to the president’s actions and respond to the violation of Chicagoans’ civil rights.

“We will use every single tool at our disposal, including the courts,” Johnson said, promising every part of Chicago government is ready to  “stand up to tyranny.”

Johnson said the executive order he signed had two goals. The first is to make it clear that members of the Chicago Police Department will not assist the federal agents or National Guard troops sent to Chicago by the president.

The order also reaffirms the city’s Welcoming City ordinance, which prohibits all city employees from assisting federal immigration agents in nearly all cases, Johnson said.

“We will not have our officers who are working hard every single day to drive down crime deputized to do traffic stops and checkpoints for the president,” Johnson said.

The order also directs all Chicago police officers to wear their uniforms and refrain from wearing masks “so that residents can clearly distinguish them from federal agents,” Johnson said.

Federal immigration agents have frequently worn masks and refused to identify themselves during operations across the country.

Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker have repeatedly said there is no need for Trump to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, dismissing the president’s pledges to combat crime as cover for an unconstitutional federal overreach.

Pritzker has also vowed to challenge any deployment in court.

If Trump makes good on the latest in a long series of threats against Chicago and its leaders, Chicago would join Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and become the third American city to be occupied by federal troops deployed over the objections of local leaders.

All three cities are led by Democratic mayors who are Black and have refused to help carry out Trump’s goal of implementing the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

Chicago and Los Angeles are also self-proclaimed sanctuary cities and have refused demands from federal officials that local law enforcement help federal agents deport undocumented immigrants. Trump ordered the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers when the federal government took control of the department.

Attempts by the Trump administration to force cities like Chicago and Los Angeles to stop protecting undocumented immigrants by yanking federal funding have been blocked by several federal judges indefinitely.

California officials sued Trump alleging he illegally federalized the state’s National Guard without the consent of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in June after protests sparked by immigration raids swept Southern California.

A three-day trial of those claims ended earlier this month, but no ruling has been issued.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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