On Saturday, August 30, 2025, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed a sweeping executive order known as the Protecting Chicago Initiative, a move intended to shield the city’s residents from what he called the "possibility of imminent militarized immigration or National Guard deployment" ordered by President Donald Trump. The announcement, made during a hastily arranged news conference at City Hall, was a direct response to what Johnson described as credible reports that federal agents, and perhaps even National Guard troops or active-duty military forces, could arrive in Chicago as early as Friday, September 5.
"We do not want to see tanks in our streets," Johnson declared, standing alongside senior city officials and members of the Chicago City Council, according to reporting by WTTW News. "We do not want to see families ripped apart. We do not want grandmothers thrown into the back of unmarked vans. We don’t want to see homeless Chicagoans harassed or disappeared by federal agents. We don’t want to see Chicagoans arrested for sitting on their porch."
Johnson’s executive order, as reported by The Hill and Al Jazeera, established the Protecting Chicago Initiative with two primary goals: first, to make it clear that Chicago police officers will not assist federal agents or National Guard troops sent by the president, and second, to reaffirm the city’s Welcoming City ordinance, which prohibits city employees from assisting federal immigration agents in nearly all cases. The order also directs all Chicago police officers to wear their uniforms and refrain from wearing masks, aiming to ensure residents can clearly distinguish them from federal agents, who have often worn masks and refused to identify themselves during operations elsewhere in the country.
"We will use every single tool at our disposal, including the courts," Johnson emphasized, promising that every part of city government was ready to "stand up to tyranny." He added, "The City of Chicago will do everything in our power to defend our democracy and protect our communities. 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."
The order comes against a backdrop of heated national debate about the role of federal forces in local law enforcement. President Trump, who has made a second term push for what he describes as a "hardline, anti-immigration agenda," stated last week that Chicago would be the next city targeted for National Guard deployment after Washington, D.C., in an effort to address crime. "Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this," Trump said at the White House, according to The Hill. "And it won’t even be tough."
The Trump administration is reportedly considering using Naval Station Great Lakes, just north of Chicago, as a staging area for a major immigration enforcement operation involving more than 200 Department of Homeland Security agents, according to unnamed sources cited by CNN and NBC News. Plans for this operation are said to be separate from the possible National Guard deployment, but both have sparked alarm among local leaders.
Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, has joined Johnson in staunch opposition to the federal plan. In a statement to Al Jazeera, Pritzker said, "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." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also weighed in, telling CNN that Trump had "no authority" to send federal troops to Chicago, noting that the U.S. Constitution gives the power of policing to the states.
Chicago’s approach is not unique among major American cities led by Democratic mayors. Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. have already seen deployments of federal forces over the objections of local officials, who argue that such moves are both unconstitutional and counterproductive. In June, Trump sent 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles after a wave of protests and immigration raids, as reported by Al Jazeera. Attempts by the Trump administration to force cooperation from sanctuary cities like Chicago and Los Angeles by threatening to withhold federal funding have been blocked by several federal judges, a fact that Johnson and Pritzker have pointed to as evidence of legal precedent supporting their resistance.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, however, dismissed the mayor’s actions as "publicity stunts" and accused Democrats of politicizing crime. "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. Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] are trying to make it one," Jackson said in a statement to NewsNation and other outlets. She further suggested that Johnson should "listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC."
Yet, the data on crime in Chicago provides a more nuanced picture. While the city has long struggled with gun violence, fatal and nonfatal shootings have been on a downward trend in recent years, according to city data cited by The Hill. Critics of the federal approach argue that the presence of masked federal agents and out-of-state National Guard troops only serves to erode trust between police and the communities they serve, a sentiment echoed by Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. "What we know is not working is a break in trust between police and community, especially with new federal partners in our community," Bowser told reporters last week, as reported by NBC News.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking in Wisconsin earlier in the week, attempted to strike a conciliatory note, saying, "What the president has said is that, very simply, we want governors and mayors to ask for the help... The president of the United States is not going out there forcing this on anybody, though we do think that we have the legal right to clean up America’s streets if we want to." Still, Trump border czar Tom Homan made it clear on Fox News that the administration was committed to targeting sanctuary cities like Chicago: "Get out of the way, because we’re going to do it."
For now, Chicago is preparing for what could be an unprecedented confrontation between city and federal authorities. Johnson’s order directs the city’s law department to pursue all possible legal challenges and mobilizes every part of city government to defend residents’ rights. As Johnson put it, "Protecting Chicago is the next step in the work we have been doing to defend our city from federal overreach and illegal action." Whether the federal government will move ahead with its plans—and how the courts will respond if it does—remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the battle over who controls Chicago’s streets is far from over.
