Chicago’s Mayor Moves to Establish ‘ICE-Free Zones’ as Trump’s Crackdown Intensifies: What to Know

With the Trump Administration escalating its crackdown in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson has ordered the creation of “ICE-free zones” throughout the city to limit the areas in which federal authorities can carry out their immigration enforcement operations. “The fact is, we cannot allow them to rampage throughout our city with no checks or balances. Nobody is above the law,” Johnson said. “If we break the law, you should be held accountable. If Congress will not check this Administration, then Chicago will.” The Executive Order the Mayor signed on Monday will bar federal agents without a valid warrant from using city-owned spaces—including schools, libraries, and parks—and what Johnson described as “unwilling” private businesses in their immigration enforcement efforts. The White House decried the move, saying it shields “ the most depraved, violent criminal illegal aliens from justice” and calling it “not only an insult to every Chicagoan,” but a “dangerous intensification of Democrats’ lunatic ‘sanctuary’ agenda where criminal illegals come before American citizens.” Johnson, meanwhile, described his Monday order as a move to build “a broad civic shield that limits the reach of harmful enforcement practices.” Read more: ‘Military-Style’ ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building Shows Escalation in Trump’s Crackdown It comes as the Administration has intensified immigration enforcement in Chicago in recent weeks amid its efforts to crack down on immigration and crime in Democratic-led cities—and as Chicago officials and residents are seeking to fight the federal operation in the streets and in the courts. Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director at Live Free Illinois, a Chicago-based organization working to end gun violence and lower incarceration rates, describes the federal crackdown in the city as a source of fear and “chaos.” “When you’re seeing ICE, seeing federal law enforcement out in communities, it creates a lot of chaos. It’s very scary. It feels like you’re looking at what you see on TV in other countries,” she tells TIME. “It is terrifying to know we have masked people running around our community. We don’t know if you got vigilantes or if you have federal agents coming after you.” An intensifying immigration crackdown The Trump Administration launched a ramped-up immigration effort in Chicago, known as Operation Midway Blitz, early in September. Last week, federal authorities detained dozens of residents in a Chicago apartment building in what Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker described as a “military style” raid, marking an escalation of enforcement tactics in the crackdown that has drawn outrage from local officials, residents, and rights groups. The raid led to the arrest of 37 people, all of whom the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said were “involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators.” The agency also said the building was targeted as a location frequented by members of the gang Tren de Aragua, which President Donald Trump has targeted throughout his aggressive immigration enforcement campaign.  Children, including four U.S. citizens with undocumented parents, were taken into custody during the raid, according to a DHS spokesperson who spoke with CNN.  “Federal agents reporting to Secretary Noem have spent weeks snatching up families, scaring law-abiding residents, violating due process rights, and even detaining U.S. citizens,” Pritzker said last Friday of the federal operations. “They fail to focus on violent criminals and instead create panic in our communities.” More than 1,000 arrests have been made across Illinois in Operation Midway Blitz, DHS announced on Friday. Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said in a news conference on Monday that Chicago Police Department (CPD) officers do not interfere with federal agents’ enforcement operations, but emphasized the department’s’s duty to continue protecting Chicagoans.  “This is not a game. This is not a joke. This is still our city, and we still have a responsibility to maintain safety and calm in our city,” he said. The escalating operation in Chicago comes as the Trump Administration has pursued an aggressive immigration agenda since the President returned to office in January, ramping up immigration arrests and seeking to conduct mass deportations. Trump and Administration officials have repeatedly said their efforts are targeting the “worst of the worst” dangerous criminals. However, recent data shows that a majority of those held in ICE detention do not fit that description, with most detainees not having been convicted of any crime. The Administration has also sought to crack down on crime in major cities such as Washington, D.C., and Memphis. Trump has long railed against crime in Chicago, calling it a “shooting disaster” as far back as 2013 and repeatedly pointing to gun violence in the city. Read more: Here Are the Facts About Crime in Chicago Bates-Chamberlain, of Live Free Illinois, says that while Trump is “using the excuse of violence to come into Chicago, everything he is doing is counterproductive to reduce the gun violence.” She tells TIME that she believes “a lack of investment in children, lack of employment opportunities” are contributing to gun violence in the city, and that to counter violence “there has to be a comprehensive approach. Those approaches aren’t anchored in law enforcement approaches.” “What we’ve seen is when you give back resources to the community that is most impacted by gun violence, you see amazing declines,” she says, pointing to “street outreach, the base community coming together, the police department addressing clearance rates like when cases go unsolved and when people aren’t held accountable for homicides,” as well as having “afterschool programs, jobs” available and “addressing trauma in our neighborhoods and making sure we have mental health support.” “With Trump, he’s saying he’s coming in to address gun violence while he also cuts gun violence reduction efforts across the country,” Bates-Chamberlain says. Local leaders and residents putting up a fight The Mayor’s order is part of a broader effort by city and state officials—and residents—to push back against the federal crackdown on the city. Protests have mounted in Chicago in recent weeks amid the federal operations, particularly around an ICE detention facility in the suburb of Broadview. Border Patrol agents shot a woman during a protest at the facility on Saturday, according to DHS, which said agents were rammed by vehicles and forced to fire defensively when “a suspect tried to run them over.”.  The same day, the White House announced Trump had authorized sending 300 members of the Illinois National Guard there in response to what spokesperson Abigail Jackson described as “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness to enter the city.” Read more: Trump Orders National Guard to Oregon and Chicago. Here Are the Other Places Where Soldiers Are Being Deployed Pritzker said Trump had also ordered the deployment of 400 troops of the Texas National Guard to Illinois and Oregon, which the Governor likened to an “invasion.” Illinois and Chicago sued the Administration over the deployment of the National Guard to the city on Monday, describing it as“patently unlawful,” and asking the court to “halt the illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional federalization of members of the National Guard of the United States, including both the Illinois and Texas National Guard.” Johnson himself signed a previous Executive Order after Trump signaled in August that he was planning to send federal troops and agents to Chicago, directing city law enforcement not to “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement” and aiming to make information about residents’ rights available.