The mayor of Chicago has signed an order detailing how the city will resist a potential immigration crackdown threatened by the Trump administration.
We do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city, said Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat. The order directs city agencies on how to respond to possible immigration enforcement actions.
Trump has already deployed about 2,000 troops to Washington DC, and has threatened to extend the order to Chicago, which he describes as a mess. There are also reports that the administration plans to surge federal immigration agents into the city.
A White House spokesperson labeled Johnson's order as a publicity stunt. The order is the latest chapter in an escalating feud between the White House and Illinois state and local officials over violent crime and immigration.
Johnson's executive order demands that Trump and federal agents stand down from any attempts to deploy the US Armed Forces in the city. It also reaffirms a number of existing city policies, including requirements for law enforcement officers to wear body cameras and disclose their identities, following criticisms of ICE officers in other cities for concealing their identities.
Local officials emphasize that over one in five residents in Chicago is an immigrant, with more than half from Latin American countries. Johnson stated that the city would help residents understand their rights when encountering immigration enforcement and ruled out local officers' participation in joint operations with federal agents.
Trump, a Republican, has criticized Chicago, describing it as a killing field and expressing that crime in the city constitutes an emergency. His threats to deploy National Guard troops have been denounced as an abuse of power by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
Pritzker claimed, Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded, asserting that Chicago officials were politicizing crime rather than focusing on solutions, saying, 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.