UPDATE: Sept. 2, 2025: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday signed an executive order demanding that President Donald Trump “stand down from his threat to send National Guard personnel to Chicago” and affirming that the Chicago Police Department “will remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency under the authority of the City of Chicago and Mayor Johnson,” according to a press release.
The order came as the Chicago Sun-Times reported the Department of Homeland Security is sending federal immigration agents and possibly National Guard troops to a suburban Chicago naval base for operations “similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer.”
“With this executive order, we send a resounding message to the federal government: we do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city,” Johnson said in a statement.
U.S. border czar Tom Homan told reporters Thursday that in addition to sending “a large contingent” of resources to Chicago, the Trump administration is planning to ramp up immigration enforcement in New York, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, as well as continue operations in Los Angeles.
A contingent of Democratic governors released a statement last week saying the “chaotic interference in our states’ National Guard must come to an end.”
UPDATE: Aug. 26, 2025: President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to prepare each state’s National Guard troops to assist in “quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order.”
The order states the troops should be “reasonably available for rapid mobilization” and mandates a standing National Guard quick reaction force available for “rapid nationwide deployment.”
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he was “ringing an alarm” in response to Trump’s threats to send the military to Chicago.
“No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor,” Pritzker said. He added that the city made no requests for federal assistance.
Noting that Trump cut more than $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants, Pritzker said Trump “is defunding the police.”
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” Pritzker said. He urged Illinoisans and Chicagoans to protest peacefully, adding, “We will use every lever in our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights.”
Dive Brief:
- Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker replied this weekend to President Donald Trump’s threat to send National Guard troops to the city to address crime, homelessness and undocumented immigration, and the Washington Post reported that his administration had been planning a military intervention in the city for weeks.
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Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore also spoke out against Trump’s suggestion that he could deploy the National Guard to address crime in Baltimore, with Moore extending an invitation for Trump “to visit Maryland, where we can discuss strategies for effective public policy.”
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In Washington, D.C., some of the National Guard units Trump deployed on Aug. 11 began carrying firearms, AP News reported Monday.
Dive Insight:
During an Aug. 11 press conference announcing the deployment of National Guard troops to address what Trump called “the epidemic of crime” in Washington, D.C., the president said he could also send troops to Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, California.
Though Chicago has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments, Johnson said in a statement Friday that “we take President Trump’s statements seriously.”
“The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” Johnson said. “Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities.”
Accusing Trump of “attempting to manufacture a crisis,” Pritzker said in a statement Saturday that Illinois would “continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect the people of Illinois.”
Murders and non-fatal shootings in Chicago declined last year from their peak during the pandemic, the University of Chicago Crime Lab reported, though it remained higher than the five-year average. Last month, a Council on Criminal Justice report found that violent crime rates in Chicago were lower in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2019 and that the city’s drop in homicides during that period was higher than the national average.
Baltimore is also among the cities cited in CCJ’s Crime Trends in U.S. Cities Mid-Year 2025 Update as having “large homicide declines.” Scott posted on X Friday that “Baltimore is safer today than it has ever been in my lifetime.”
Moore released a letter he sent Trump on Friday stating that Baltimore has seen a 22% decrease in homicides and a 19% decrease in non-fatal shootings from the year before and is “currently on track to have the lowest number of homicides in Baltimore City since we began officially keeping crime statistics.”
Moore formally invited Trump to join Baltimore’s next public safety walk in September at a date of Trump’s choosing.
Scott posted on X Saturday that whether or not Trump accepts Moore’s invitation, the city needs to see commitments from the White House to fully reinstate federal grants for Baltimore’s community violence work, ban ghost guns and Glock switches (triggers that allow semiautomatic guns to continuously fire rounds), and provide additional resources for Baltimore’s field offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other demands.
“Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has asked, in a rather nasty and provocative tone, that I ‘walk the streets of Maryland’ with him,” Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social. “I assume he is talking about out of control, crime ridden, Baltimore? As President, I would much prefer that he clean up this Crime disaster before I go there for a ‘walk.’”
If Moore needs help, Trump wrote, “I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime.”
Trump also threatened to “rethink” his decision to provide federal funding to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge, which collapsed after being struck by a ship in March 2024.
