CHICAGO — Chicago's mayor is defying President Donald Trump's threat to deploy the National Guard to the Windy City to combat crime and scoping out legal avenues to prevent soldiers from overtaking the city.
On Friday, Trump talked about his controversial deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and said Chicago and New York City would be next. He has described the deployment in the nation's capital as a bid to clean up crime, but critics dismiss the move as little more than political overreach.
“The guard is not needed,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities.”
Johnson also noted the city's decline in murders, shootings and car thefts. Chicago police crime data from earlier this month show murders are down 31% from the same time last year, shootings have dropped by 36% and vehicle thefts are down 26%.
“The things that we’re doing in Chicago by investing in people, youth employment, mental health care, services, building more affordable homes, making sure that our detectives bureau has all the resources that it needs ... that’s why we’re seeing the results that we are experiencing right now,” he said.
“Occupying our cities with the military — that’s not how we build safe and affordable communities,” he added.
Johnson on Sunday further questioned why Trump slashed federal investments in violence prevention and reduced the budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid if he wanted to drive down violence in big cities.
“The National Guard is not going to put food on people’s table. The National Guard is not going to reduce unemployment,” Johnson said.
The mayor's office said in a statement Saturday that it was working with Illinois' governor and Cook County, which is home to Chicago, in “evaluating all of our legal options to protect the people of Chicago from unconstitutional federal overreach.”
Edwin Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the Illinois branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Trump will face legal challenge if the guard is deployed in Chicago without a valid reason.
"There’s a higher barrier for the president to send National Guard into Chicago [than into D.C.], because there has to be a reason or he has to have the agreement of the governor of the state of Illinois. And clearly, from what we see, he’s not going to have that. He’s going to have to articulate a reason for doing it. I think that reason will be challenged by the state of Illinois," Yohnka said in an interview.
He said the ACLU of Illinois will also be “on the lookout” for how troops, if deployed, behave on the streets and challenge any arrests, detention sweeps or use of excessive force.
Speaking Friday at the Oval Office, Trump said he hadn’t made any concrete plans with regard to Chicago and hadn't spoken to Johnson about any troop deployment.
He claimed, however, that people in the city "are screaming for us to come.”
“When we’re ready, and we’ll go in and we’ll straighten out Chicago, just like we did D.C. Chicago is very dangerous,” he said.
On Saturday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker accused Trump on X of “attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families.”
The chair of the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee spoke to NBC Chicago about the need to reduce crime in the city but said Trump's National Guard threats are misguided.
“We still see an unacceptably high number of robberies, carjackings, burglaries, break-ins. We have work to do, but we need help that makes sense," Alderman Brian Hopkins said. "The federal National Guard isn’t going to make a difference in carjacking in Chicago. If he really wanted to help, we’re short 2,000 police officers. Unfortunately, that is not what Trump is talking about.”
Trump has also threatened to deploy the guard to Baltimore and has attacked Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on social media.
Moore said in a statement that Trump “would rather attack his country’s largest cities from behind a desk than walk the streets with the people he represents.”
Trump has been using the National Guard in unconventional ways compared to past presidents.
Typically, the guard is called upon for crises, including natural disasters and civil unrest. In June, Trump deployed thousands of guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles amid protests against immigration raids, against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
The current D.C. deployment has raised eyebrows, as well. While it is touted as being a stand against crime, the numbers show violent crime in the nation’s capital was down 26% compared with last year, according to D.C. police data.
Shaquille Brewster and Selina Guevara reported from Chicago and Marlene Lenthang from Los Angeles.
