Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) signed an executive order Monday prohibiting federal immigration officials from using city property during their activities.
“We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority,” Johnson said in a statement on the executive order. “ICE agents are detaining elected officials, tear-gassing protestors, children, and Chicago police officers, and abusing Chicago residents. We will not stand for that in our city. With this Executive Order, Chicago stands firm in protecting the Constitutional rights of our residents and immigrant communities and upholding our democracy.”
The order prohibits immigration officials from using a “city-owned and controlled parking lot, vacant lot, or garage” as a base for immigration enforcement. It further allows “private landowners and leaseholders” to display signage delineating “non-public areas of the property in which the landowner or leaseholder wishes to restrict activities related to civil immigration enforcement.”
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin condemned the order, stating that Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker “refused to allow the local police department to give our officers back up at the scene of a law enforcement attack—a growing and violent crowd began throwing rocks at our law enforcement, yet their chief of patrol ordered their officers not to help.”
She said the mayor’s policies “not only endanger our law enforcement but [also] public safety. While he continues to release pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and murderers onto Chicago’s streets, our brave law enforcement will continue to risk their lives—without pay—to arrest these heinous criminals and make Chicago safe again.”
