Dive Brief:
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The Trump administration ramped up threats over the weekend to deploy federal troops in Chicago with an inflammatory social media message.
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In Boston, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested dozens of people after the U.S. Department of Justice sued the city, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the Boston Police Department over the city’s “sanctuary” laws on Thursday.
- U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan tied together the administration’s immigration and military threats in an interview Sunday on CNN, saying “National Guard are always on the table,” and “We’re going to send additional resources to all ‘sanctuary’ cities.” CNN reported the administration plans to take action in most sanctuary cities this week.
Dive Insight:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month 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.”
Last week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order demanding that 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.”
Trump last week walked back threats to send federal troops into Chicago after a U.S. District Judge ruled Tuesday that his deployment of federalized California National Guard troops and U.S. Marines in Los Angeles violated federal law. The judge ordered the Trump administration to halt deployments to other cities.
But on social media Saturday, Trump posted imagery derivative of the movie “Apocalypse Now” showing military helicopters and explosions superimposed over the Chicago skyline with a message that “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” Many took that as a warning that he plans to deploy the military in the city. Trump told reporters Sunday he was not going to war with Chicago but said, “We’re going to clean up our cities.”
Mayor Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker were among those harshly criticizing the message. Trump “wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” Johnson posted on X Saturday. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times today, Johnson wrote that “sending in the National Guard is the wrong solution to a real problem” of gun violence and crime.
Homan said in the CNN interview that the message means the administration is “going to war with the criminal cartels [and] criminal illegal aliens.”
The administration is taking actions in the Chicago area that indicate preparations for increased ICE activity. Approximately 300 federal immigration agents are using North Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes as a logistical hub for immigration operations, ABC7 Chicago reported today. DHS has told leaders of another Chicago suburb it is planning to use a federal immigration processing center there for an operation that could last for 45 days, AP News reported.
The ICE operation in Boston, dubbed “Patriot 2.0,” followed a similar sweep in that city in May. ICE officers are surging throughout Massachusetts, according to Mass Live. “We expect that federal law enforcement will abide by the constitution and laws of this city, commonwealth and country, and we are prepared to take legal action at any evidence to the contrary,” Wu said in a statement to Mass Live.
“The City of Boston and its Mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America — they explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement Thursday about the lawsuit. “If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will.”
