Chicago mayor vows to protect residents after Trump’s border czar singles out Windy City for mass deportations

Donald Trump’s incoming “border czar” has suggested the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations will begin in Chicago, part of a plan that would deploy law enforcement officers into communities across the country for broad sweeps targeting people living in the country without legal permission.

The Windy City’s mayor is vowing to protect his city’s residents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents who could push into schools and workplaces, butting against so-called “sanctuary” policies barring federal forces from using local police for deportation enforcement.

“What the Trump administration has called for is for local police departments around the country to behave as ICE agents. In sanctuary cities, that is not permissible,” Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson told CNN.

“If there is someone here in this country that commits a violent crime and they are undocumented, they are in the hands of the law,” he added. “That is clear.”

Immigrants who have committed crimes already will be identified by police once they are arrested and in custody, “then the law, of course, is fully prepared to prosecute,” he said.

“Look, no one is going to harbor or protect criminals, whether you have come here as an immigrant or undocumented or otherwise,” Johnson continued. “Any administration that would look to disrupt the sensibility of public accommodations, consider [it] … a threat to our democracy.”

This week, Homan told a group of Illinois Republicans that he wants Democratic officials to “get the hell out of the way” of Trump’s plans.

Trump’s pledge to arrest, detain and deport people living in the country without legal permission as part of his “day one” agenda is “going to start right here in Chicago,” Homan said.

“If your Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside,” he added. “But if he impedes us — if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien — I will prosecute him.”

Trump’s allies expect to expand his pledge to target potentially millions of people beyond the scope of undocumented immigrants who are accused of committing crimes.

Trump and Homan have also said that US citizen children of non-citizen parents are expected to be deported along with their families.

Chicago has welcomed more than 50,000 people who arrived in the country from the US-Mexico border since 2022, largely from Republican-driven measures to send people seeking asylum from their states into Democratic-led cities.

Immigrants’ advocacy groups are warning that the Trump’s administration’s agenda could violently disrupt vulnerable immigrant communities and the citizens and legal residents within them.

“We are talking about disrupting households. We’re talking about disrupting communities. We’re talking about disrupting local economies,” said Fred Tsao with Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights told Chicago ABC affiliate WLS.

“We have the right to be safe in our homes, and to require a warrant if law enforcement wants to come in,” he added.

“It’s no secret that Illinois will face countless, baseless attacks over the next four years from the Trump Administration,” a spokesperson for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told The Independent this week.

“Rather than responding to every ridiculous boast from Trump lackeys, Governor Pritzker is focused on what he was focused on during the first Trump term: leading our state with competence instead of chaos,” the statement added.

Homan also met with New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week, and the mayor told reporters that he shares “the same desire” to “go after those who have committed repeated violent acts among innocent New Yorkers and among migrants and asylum seekers.”

But he said he is exploring how to “unravel” the city’s sanctuary policies “and get clarity on what we can do and can’t do.

“We need to examine them and see what my authority is to use executive orders to make New York City safe,” he added.