CHICAGO – Monday, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker fired the first shots against Republican President Donald Trump and his second term in the White House. They set a defiant tone for the next four years as they fight for immigrant rights and other left causes.
When Pritzker and Johnson talked about Trump before he was sworn in as president on Monday, they didn’t use his name. But at a Rainbow PUSH Coalition breakfast to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the two Democrats spoke out strongly against the Republican leader’s plans and behavior. People were scared and unsure because of rumors of immigration raids in Chicago and changing news about executive orders the president promised to sign. They spoke in public from a suite at Soldier Field.
The mayor tried to sound upbeat by using religious images to talk about the tough job that Chicago leaders have ahead of them.
“This transition that we are experiencing, you all, is only but a moment in time,” he said. “The Bible says that the lawless man must first be shown before that great day.” How does that wonderful day look? In the words of Dr. King, it does look like real leadership. You all know that real leadership is stirring up trouble. “I think I know a little more about that now.”
Johnson has had a rough few months in office, and now Trump’s border chief, Tom Homan, has called him out directly while calling the third-largest city in the country “ground zero” for mass deportations. This has put Johnson in the national spotlight. Several news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids would begin in Chicago on Tuesday. However, Homan seemed to change his mind after the stories came out.
It will be interesting to see how the new, progressive mayor of Chicago handles threats against immigrants. This is important because his leadership is being criticized by both progressives and moderates. During Trump’s first term, mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot jumped at every chance to show that they were strong cities fighting back against attacks by the GOP on immigrants and other groups.
“We will not bow down to the oligarchs as the city of Chicago.” Johnson used the Bible’s warning against fake gods to explain why they would not bow down to a golden calf. “Just as the lawlessness comes to light, so does Chicago’s character.” “And our love story is the best in America.”
Pritzker spoke in a cleaner, but still strong, voice.
“As a new administration takes office less than two hours from now, across America our most vulnerable communities are about to contend with new uncertainty about their future,” he said. “But let there be no doubt: we’re not going back here in Illinois.” … We will not stand idly by while a takeover of the federal government makes everyone feel unsafe and less important by people who want to get rich at the cost of the good people of Illinois.
Later Monday afternoon, the governor was supposed to talk to reporters and answer their questions.
A lot of new executive orders were announced by Trump’s team in Washington, D.C. These orders would end birthright citizenship and asylum rights and set up a federal-local task force to deport criminal gang members. A lot of these moves are likely to be fought in court.
As soon as Trump was sworn in as the 47th president, he came up with a number of ways to carry out his plan to remove a lot of people. To do that, he had to declare a national emergency at the southern border of the United States, bring back the “Remain in Mexico” policy for migrants, send the troops to the border, label drug cartels as terrorist groups, and use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
“As commander-in-chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” he said. “We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before.”
The Illinois TRUST Act of 2017 says that state and local police can’t help the federal government with immigration enforcement. For many years, Chicago has been known as a “sanctuary city,” which means that it doesn’t work with federal immigration officials. Johnson and the City Council have said again that they will keep their promise.
A reporter asked Johnson as he left the Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast what he would do about the federal task force in Chicago and the other immigration orders, but he did not answer.
As a Democrat representing a big group of Mexican immigrants in Little Village, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García said about the news, “It’s showing hate and vitriol and demonstrating that he will be a divider in chief.”
“The Constitution has not been suspended,” García said at the Soldier Field event. He and other members of Chicago’s congressional delegation had skipped the inauguration. “The president can’t stop it.” This kind of fight has been fought before, and we won.”
On Sunday, the Johnson administration told aldermen about how the city was getting ready for possible threats against foreigners under Trump. Several people who attended the meetings but asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record say that top mayoral deputies told City Council members that a “Transition of Power” task force was put together soon after the November election to focus on three areas: community safety, infrastructure, and policy.
There was talk during the briefings that John Roberson, Johnson’s COO, might have hinted that if the Republicans win the presidency and Congress, Washington might cut off government funding to Chicago or Illinois. A number of Democrats from Chicago in Congress share this worry and hope to come up with a solution soon.
It wasn’t clear if City Hall had talked to Trump’s team before Monday. He told the Sun-Times that he wants to meet with the president.
This past weekend, the mayor was in Washington, D.C. He went back Sunday night after giving a speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In what he said, he tried to make it sound like Democratic leaders were the ones protecting their towns from a new wave of attacks on immigrants.
A group of officials and immigrants’ rights activists gathered under a Blue Line stop in Avondale early Monday morning to hand out “Know Your Rights” pamphlets to people who were riding the train to work. After that, they were going to go to businesses, laundromats, bakeries, and other places to tell people how to deal with possible contacts with ICE.
Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Chicago and U.S. Representative, said in Spanish, “We want people to know that they have rights and that they don’t have to show their papers to federal immigration officials. They are also protected by the Constitution.”
After being asked if she agreed with deporting people with crime records, Ramirez said she didn’t support policies that take away people from the U.S. who have only helped the economy.
She told us to be careful. “How do they decide who is a criminal?” A child who came to the U.S. without papers is a criminal, right? We need to be very careful about what we say about people.
Graciela Guzman, a new state senator whose parents fled the civil war in El Salvador, said she has already noticed that things are moving a lot more slowly in her neighborhood than usual. “A lot of friends, family, and neighbors” have told her that they are not going to work or school, she said.
“How do we center human rights in this time?” He asked Guzman. “That’s what my area deserves. That is something that every seat in the state deserves. That is what our country deserves.
The people crowded under the heat lamp at the station yelled at people coming in the morning, “Know your rights! ¡Conoce tus derechos!”
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