{"id":3907,"date":"2025-09-08T10:19:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T14:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3907"},"modified":"2025-09-08T10:19:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T14:19:41","slug":"potential-federal-intervention-poses-challenges-for-chicago-police-on-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3907","title":{"rendered":"Potential federal intervention poses challenges for Chicago police on the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 As President Donald Trump threatens to expand<\/a> immigration raids and deploy the National Guard<\/a>, Chicago has become the latest flashpoint in a broader national struggle<\/a> over how far the federal government can push local authorities to cooperate with its immigration agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Chicago Police Department, the challenge is acute. The force must preserve public safety in a city already under strain while avoiding the appearance of working hand-in-hand with federal immigration authorities<\/a>, a stance that could erode community trust and ignite new protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same balancing act has confronted other big-city departments in recent months. Local police in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C<\/a>., were drawn into fraught arrangements with federal agencies that experts say left residents wary and, at times, undermined public confidence in their police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Chicago finds itself on the same path<\/a>, with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker objecting to any National Guard deployment and city officials bracing for how the added federal presence could reshape the dynamic on the ground. The outcome, policing experts warn, may determine whether Chicago police can maintain credibility in immigrant communities<\/a> likely to be targeted by a president determined to show force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the Trump administration is doing here is engaging in federal policing in a way that really rips at the seams of the relationships between state and local police and the federal government, between communities and law enforcement,\u201d said Nayna Gupta, policy director at American Immigration Council. \u201cThose kinds of standoffs and contentious practices is what erodes public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanctuary city conflicts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration surges, Chicago officials repeatedly reaffirmed the city\u2019s so-called sanctuary policies<\/a> that have been place for four decades. But as fear grew about looming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, the city\u2019s mayor has avoided detail about how local police will navigate tensions on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago\u2019s policies bar local law enforcement from asking about or detaining someone for their immigration status or from supporting ICE, including by securing perimeters for raids, transporting detainees or sharing information about undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order<\/a> last week declaring city police would not collaborate with federal immigration agents. It also requires Chicago officers to wear uniforms and not wear masks<\/a> to \u201cclearly distinguish them from federal agents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will not have our police officers who are working hard every single day to drive down crime deputized to do traffic stops and checkpoints for the president,\u201d Johnson said before signing the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said any cooperation between ICE and local officers hurts public trust and blurs the lines between agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt can get really messy,\u201d Futterman said. \u201cThere\u2019s how sanctuary cities are supposed to work on paper vs. what happens in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caught between protesters and ICE officials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gupta said Chicago police will have to coordinate with federal agencies to some degree, even to respond to protests against immigration raids and detentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, city officials say they\u2019re following a similar strategy to policing as the one in place around the 2024 Democratic National Convention<\/a>, which cost the city about $27 million in officer overtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ICE detained at least 10 Chicagoans at an immigration office on June 4, drawing dozens of protesters and local elected officials to the street outside. Police didn\u2019t originally know it was an immigration action and left after realizing that, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some protesters and local elected officials claimed they saw Chicago officers clearing the way for ICE agents and protecting their vehicles. Chicago City Council members demanded an internal probe into officers\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar tensions played out in California, where hundreds of protesters clashed<\/a> with federal immigration authorities in June, prompting Trump to deploy thousands of National Guard troops<\/a> to Los Angeles, despite the objections of local authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Los Angeles police made hundreds of arrests and dispersed demonstrations, including at locations where ICE agents were conducting raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanctuary city policies \u201cdon\u2019t mean a local police officer will stand in between an ICE officer and a non-citizen,\u201d which would be considered an obstruction of justice, said Rose Cuison-Villazor, a professor at Rutgers University Law School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether local officers step in if they disagree with federal agents\u2019 interactions with protesters is also uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo they have the power to intervene?\u201d Futterman asked. \u201cThese are really difficult legal questions. It\u2019s a really fraught situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local police, National Guard interactions not clearly defined<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Washington D.C.-based think tank the Police Executive Research Forum, said local police leaders are used to working with federal authorities including joint task forces aimed at terrorism, drugs or organized crime. But if the National Guard is deployed in Chicago, its role in performing local policing hasn\u2019t been clearly defined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, the District of Columbia sued to stop President Donald Trump\u2019s deployment<\/a> of National Guard during his law enforcement intervention<\/a> there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs far as the National Guard as police, they have traditionally assisted in natural disasters, large scale disturbances and aiding law enforcement in support functions like traffic and crowd control,\u201d Wexler said. \u201cI don\u2019t recall the National Guard being deployed to deal directly with day-to-day crime issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling has asked for more communication from federal authorities so \u201cwe don\u2019t have people running scared and it doesn\u2019t create chaos on our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner says the Trump administration\u2019s use of the National Guard is a threat to successful prosecutions of crime, risking witness statements being thrown out and evidence suppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone of these people are trained in evidence gathering procedures,\u201d Krasner said. \u201cNone of them are trained in Miranda warnings. None of them are trained in Fourth Amendment rights and procedures and illegal searches and seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenneth Corey, a former department chief with the New York City Police Department, warned that surging resources like the National Guard leads to an artificial and often temporary reduction in crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny time you surge resources like that you are going to see an immediate reduction in crime because it has a deterrent effect,\u201d said Corey, who now works at the University of Chicago Crime Lab\u2019s Policing Leadership Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the problem is it\u2019s short-lived. It can\u2019t be sustained. When they leave, crime returns. You haven\u2019t addressed the root causes of crime.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 As President Donald Trump threatens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3909,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907\/revisions\/3909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}