Donald Trump: Resistance to his policy in Chicago grows

The resistance in democratically ruled major cities against the Trump government and its approach to migrants grows. According to Portland, the city of Chicago also complains that US President Donald Trump wants to use the national guards in the cities to take action against allegedly excessive crime and protests against raids from the migration authority ICE. For months there has been a dispute between the government in Washington and some states and cities in which it has deployed the National Guard or announced such a procedure. The states are injured in their sovereignty.

The most recent lawsuit is the US state of Illinois and the city of Chicago. It was illegal that Trump and his government put national guards under federal control in order to proceed in the city against allegedly sprawling crime, the lawsuit said.

The dispute over a commitment to the National Guard in Chicago, where people have been protesting against raids from the immigration authority for weeks, had further cooked at the weekend: US defense minister Pete Hegseth ordered around 300 national gardens from Illinois under federal control, as can be seen from court documents. They should therefore protect federal officials, such as ICE, and federal property.

Illinois’ Governor JB Pritzker explained on Monday night on X that Trump also called 400 national guards from the Republican Texas to use them in Illinois, Oregon and other locations in the USA. “We now have to start calling it what it is: Trump’s invasion,” the Democrat wrote. The lawsuit explicitly goes into the planned use of national guards from Illinois and Texas.

Flanking wants to ban Chicago ICE to stay in selected places. The Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson presented an arrangement that provides for ICE-free zones. According to Johnson, the city prohibits the ICE workers, such as checkpoints in parks or in public parking spaces to set up collective points. Private facilities could also contact the city to ensure that ICE officials can only enter the site with a search command.

The city makes serious allegations to the migration authority. For example, civil servants would have used raids for power demonstrations, especially in the past week. They would have sprayed tear gas. People were hunted, some of them were present in the incidents. Johnson spoke of a “display of tyranny”. Even in protests against the ICE operations, emergency services were tough.

The US government has been different for weeks and points out that ICE is doing their work and the American people from criminals-supposedly the “worst of the bad”-should be protected. It is part of Trump’s intensified anti-migration course.

Chicago’s lawsuit is not the first case. Recently, the state of Oregon and the city of Portland had already sued Trump. A court then stopped using national guards from Oregon. The US government reacted by ordering soldiers from another state – California – to Portland. But the court also blocked this step a little later.

A court in California had also prohibited the US government a long time ago to use soldiers in Los Angeles for civil prosecution.

In the United States, the governors of a state usually have control over the national guard. In times of war or in national emergencies, however, the US President can take command. The National Guard is a military reserve unit and part of the US armed forces. For example, it can be used for natural disasters, unrest or emergencies inside.

Trump only denounces the problem of street crime in public only in the democratically ruled cities. Critics accuse him of organizing a show with the use of the national guard and wanting to intimidate political opponents.

Last week, the Republican also caused irritation when he said in front of high -ranking military that “some of these dangerous cities should be used as training grounds for our military”.

Cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York City or Los Angeles have become “very uncertain places” that would be put in order one after the other. The US President used martial rhetoric: “This is also war. It is a war from the inside,” said Trump.

The ever new announcements and statements by the President are worried that the mood in the cities could heat up with a view of ongoing ICE raids and could result in clashes and violence.

Trump had already sent soldiers to Los Angeles months ago with the aim of suppressing protests against ICE raids. Weeks ago, the US President also caused the national guard in the US capital Washington in order to contain the crime from his point of view. At the time, he described Washington as a “rat hole”.