CHICAGO — Many Chicagoans remain uneasy over the long Labor Day Weekend as a promised surge in immigration arrests looms.
That comes in addition to threats from President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard as a federal show of force.
In response to President Trump’s renewed threats to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson said the move was unwarranted.
“Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the City of Chicago. The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” Johnson said in a statement.
The deportation surge, announced by Secretery of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, is the first major push into the Midwest.
Until now, there have been isolated confrontations between judicial officers and ICE in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee and Walworth County.
Johnson has already signed an order barring the Chicago Police Department from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, in an interview aired Sunday on Face the Nation, said that Trump’s expected plans to mobilize federal forces in the city may be part of a plan to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections.”
