Standoff intensifies over Trump's plan for Chicago crackdown
A political standoff over US President Donald Trump's plan to crack down on crime and immigration in Chicago intensified on Sunday, as a top administration official promised to deploy more federal officers and the Democratic governor of Illinois portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS News' Face the Nation that the administration will soon expand US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Chicago, confirming a stepped-up presence of federal agents in the nation's third-largest city.
Noem, however, declined to provide specifics on the planned surge of federal officers. The deployment comes after the Trump administration sent federal agents and National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June and deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C.
Chicago officials resist federal intervention
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have pushed back against the federal mobilization, with Johnson signing an executive order to bar the Chicago Police Department from assisting federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement.
In his own interview on Face the Nation, Pritzker accused Trump of having a plan to "stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections."
Pritzker has repeatedly told President Trump that Chicago does not need or want military intervention to fight crime. He argued that crime has fallen in Chicago and that sending in the National Guard could only escalate problems.
Chicago is home to a large immigrant population and has some of the country's strongest rules against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Political divide over public safety
The dispute highlights a growing political divide over public safety between the Trump administration and Democratic-led cities. Noem defended the administration's approach, saying it was focused on "making sure that we're upholding our laws" and going after the "worst of the worst."
She also stated that the decision to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago would be a "prerogative" of President Trump. In a separate social media post, Trump had warned Pritzker that he must fix Chicago's crime problems "FAST, or we're coming!"
The administration's focus on Democratic-run cities has prompted criticism from political opponents who accuse Trump of using federal power for political retribution.
The White House, in a statement, has countered these claims by saying that if Democrats focused on "fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer."
