When President Donald Trump threatened to flood Chicago with National Guard troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this month, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said that the president lacked the legal authority.
But privately, Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson began discussing what they could do to shield Chicago from a federal deployment like those underway in two other Democrat-run cities with Black mayors, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Their conclusion: not much.
As Trump has reiterated the possibility of a federal deployment in the nation's third-largest city in recent days, public officials and community organizers said they are doing what they can to prepare.
The offices of Pritzker and Johnson are closely coordinating. The state's attorney general, Kwame Raoul, said on Monday he was developing a legal strategy to execute if troops arrived. Immigrant advocates are stepping up legal training.
While some locals have expressed support for Trump's decision, many in the heavily Democratic-voting city have voiced opposition
Some community group leaders who work in Chicago neighborhoods most affected by violent crime said the presence of National Guard troops could undermine efforts to build trust.
"To bring individuals with no relationships and really no training, to create an antagonistic relationship between local law enforcement and those federal agencies, is taking us 20 steps backwards," said Reneé Hall, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
On Monday, Pritzker spoke on the riverfront in downtown Chicago, flanked by Johnson and the state's most powerful Democrats.
"Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here," he said.
Trump has justified his decision by painting a bleak picture of crime in Chicago, calling it a "disaster." Illinois Republicans have echoed that description, and are increasingly speaking up in support of Trump's pledged intervention.
Families "need leaders who will finally make Chicago safe," state Senator Neil Anderson said in a statement to Reuters.
Chicago has long had a reputation as a city with an elevated crime rate, particularly around gun violence. There have been 1,229 shootings so far this year, including a high-profile drive-by shooting in July targeting a rap artist.
However, the city has made marked progress since the end of the pandemic, according to Chicago crime data. Fatal shootings fell 36% from January 1 through August 25 compared to the same period a year ago. Its July homicide rate of 1.66 per 100,000 residents ranks it below Washington, New Orleans, Kansas City and Little Rock, Arkansas, among other cities.
The falling crime trend mirrors other U.S. cities, reflecting the impact of hundreds of millions of federal dollars allocated in recent years for teachers, police and social workers – the people likely to influence at-risk youth most vulnerable to gun violence, said John Roman, a senior fellow at the research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.
Some of those funds, including $158 million in grants for violence prevention programs across the U.S., were cut in April as part of the Trump administration's reshaping of government.
Arne Duncan, former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education and founder of community violence prevention nonprofit Chicago CRED, argued that the federal funding cuts suggest Trump’s pledge to tackle crime in Chicago may not align with his actions.
Duncan criticized the idea of sending the National Guard, saying it could evoke disturbing historical associations such as Klan patrols, and warned it might risk military clashes with civilians.
However, the perception among outsiders and even many Chicagoans is that safety remains a serious issue. In a NORC survey this spring of city residents, about half said they felt unsafe in their neighborhoods at night.
Joleen Reese, an unemployed mother of four on Chicago's South Side, said she feels "relatively safe," but takes care to keep her children in at night. She said that deploying federal troops was "not called for," and that she would prefer that Trump focus on job creation.
But Mike Wyatt, an IT worker in Chicago's Loop, said he would welcome assistance addressing homelessness and empty storefronts downtown.
"We need some help," he said.
Trump has also singled out Chicago because of its so-called sanctuary city status for immigrants. From 2022, waves of migrants began arriving to Chicago from the border, mostly on buses sent by officials in Texas and other southern states. By last summer, the city had placed about 46,000 migrants in shelters.
South Side resident Danielle Carter-Walters, a spokesperson for the pro-Trump group Chicago Flips Red, testified at a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing in April that Chicago was "drowning with the consequences" of its sanctuary city status.
That spurred Trump to say that Black Chicagoans had told him, "come to Chicago, please."
The potential deployment of troops and ICE agents has sparked a wave of trepidation among immigrants, with even permanent residents and citizens with Latino heritage fearing a mistaken detention, said Eréndira Rendón, vice president of Immigrant Justice at The Resurrection Project.
This week, the group was scrambling to train its immigration lawyers in deportation litigation methods, and to hire more.
"We're preparing for an escalation in enforcement and scare tactics," she said.
The National Guard has been sent to Chicago before, but that involved coordination with local officials. Although Trump has indicated that he does not need to receive any formal request, his power to send in troops is limited under U.S. law, and his actions in Los Angeles earlier this summer are still being litigated. There are no restrictions on the deployment of federal law enforcement officers such as ICE agents, however.
City and state lawyers will likely argue that deploying the National Guard to Chicago would violate the U.S. Constitution and a 19th century law that bars the military from civil law enforcement, said University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman.
"A fundamental legal principle is we don't turn our military on its own citizens," Futterman said.
Denise Poloyac, a board member for the Chicago chapter of protest organization Indivisible, said that a large federal presence would be met with nonviolent protest. She said such a move could be perceived as authoritarian and might spark fear among Chicagoans.
"We're not going to let that happen," she said.
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