Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed Saturday’s executive order aimed at throttling the strength of federal law enforcement officials and National Guard forces whom President Donald Trump said he threatened his deployment into Illinois.
“We find ourselves in a position where we have to take immediate and dramatic actions to protect people from federal overreach,” Democrat Johnson said at a news conference.
One of the main points of the order was to instruct the city’s legal department to use “all legal mechanisms” to try and stop Trump’s potential plans, Johnson said.
Johnson later added that he would use “all the tools we have at our disposal, including the courts.”
“This is at least an area with some similarity between checks and balances in this country,” he said.
The executive order also includes other directives, including making it clear that Chicago police officers can take to assist federal law enforcement agencies and that it would prohibit them from covering their faces and the logos of police station uniforms.
“The order asserts that the Chicago Police Department will not cooperate with military personnel in police patrols and civil immigration enforcement. We are representatives to stop and checkpoint the president,” Johnson said at a press conference.
Johnson’s move comes as the president has already deployed military and federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and threatens to do the same in other major American cities like Baltimore.
Most democratic officials have so far pushed back Trump’s threat to send troops to American cities, with more than dozens of Democrat governors issued a statement denounced the president’s actions.
“The president’s threat and efforts to deploy state security forces without the request and consent of the governor tomorrow, whether in Illinois, Maryland, New York or another state, is an astonishing abuse of power, ineffective and undermines the mission of service members,” the governor said in a statement. “This chaotic federal interference in our state guard must come to an end.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, Mayor Muriel Bowser said earlier this week that a federal surge reduced crime, but immigration officers and National Guard forces were not at work.
“What we don’t work is a fragment of trust between the police and the community, especially between our community’s new federal partners,” Bowser told reporters last week. “We have masked ice agents in our communities isn’t working, and national security guards from other states aren’t using these resources efficiently.”
Trump has not announced plans to send federal law enforcement or National Guard troops to Chicago, but the Washington Post reported earlier this month that the Pentagon was heavily involved in planning military deployments to the city.
Earlier this week, NBC News reported that federal authorities are planning to surge agents in Chicago soon next week.
Johnson said on Saturday that the city had “reliable reports that there were days rather than weeks before seeing any type of militarized activity by the federal government.”
“At this point it’s unclear exactly what that looks like. We may see militarized immigration enforcement. We may see the National Guard, too. We may even see active duty troops and armed vehicles on the streets,” Johnson added.
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson on Saturday accused Johnson of having “Trump Franguement syndrome.”
“If these Democrats focus on correcting crime in their own city instead of doing propaganda stunts to criticise the president, their communities are much safer. While cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, Democrats suffering from TD are trying to make it,” Jackson said.
On Friday, Trump’s border border Tom Homan told Fox News that the administration is considering action in Chicago.
“Chicago is coming with all the other sanctuary cities,” Homan said. “Because President Trump is a place where there are problems.
“We’re trying to do it, so we’re out of the way,” Homan said later when asked about a potential pushback from local officials.
Earlier this month, the president deployed National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C., what he called an effort to combat crime. Military and federal officials were deployed in several areas of the country’s capital, along with metropolitan police stations.
So far, he has only deployed federal officials and National Guard troops in Washington as part of his stated plan to combat crime, but earlier this year, Trump federation opposed California National Guard against Governor D-Calif and sent troops to Los Angeles to subdue protests against the administration’s immigration enforcement action.
Earlier this week, at an event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Vice President JD Vance spoke about his plans to send him to other American cities, informing the crowd that he does not expect Trump to “force” the troops to governors and mayors who don’t want them.
“What the president said is, in very simple terms, I want the governor and mayor to ask for help,” Vance added.
The Vice President later mentioned Chicago specifically, telling attendees: “It’s not too far from Chicago. Chicago has had a lot of crime issues. Why are you asking them to help them out with the mayor and governor you provide to help them out and why are you asking them to help them with the fact that your own residents are falling car and being murdered on the streets?”
