In his first official visit to Chicago since taking office, President Trump lambasted the city’s officials on Monday for their policy of refusing to work with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the capture of illegal immigrants in the city.
In a speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, the president repeatedly linked the fight against crime to the need for local police agencies to cooperate with ICE’s efforts to remove immigrants who are in the country illegally. Trump singled out Chicago as a particularly bad offender. “Chicago is, unfortunately, the worst sanctuary city in America,” Trump said.
The president offered a statistic to back up his assertion. “Chicago protects criminals at a level few could even imagine. Last year, in Cook County alone, ICE asked local law enforcement people to ‘please, pretty please, we beg you, we’ll do anything necessary to stop crime. We want to stop crime. Please detain 1,162 people, please,” Trump said. “But in each case the detainer was denied.”
During an immigration rally in September, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot openly called ICE “racist” and “xenophobic.” She has steadfastly refused to allow police to respect ICE detainer requests. A recent internal police memo even instructs officers to leave the scene rather than assist ICE officers with any immigration-related arrest.
“Effective immediately, a CPD (Chicago Police Department) supervisor is required to respond to all requests for assistance from Department of Homeland Security Personnel,” the memo reads. “If the request is to assist with an immigration arrest or detention, CPD personnel will leave the scene as directed by the CPD supervisor.”
Trump took Chicago’s Superintendent of Police Eddie Johnson to task for his role in the department’s non-compliance in immigration matters. “People like Johnson put criminals and illegal aliens before the City of Chicago, and those are his values, and frankly those values to me are a disgrace. I will never put the needs of illegal criminals before I put the needs of law-abiding citizens. It’s very simple to me.”
“So, when Eddie Johnson and many other people from lots of other regions and areas support sanctuary cities, it’s really, in my opinion, a betrayal of their oath to the shield, and a violation of his duty to serve and protect,” the president said. “The courageous police officers of Chicago … they could solve this problem very quickly.”
Johnson, who is a host at the event, was not in attendance at Trump’s speech, saying the “values of the people of Chicago are more important” than anything the president might say.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stood up for Johnson, responding to the president’s remarks on Twitter. “President Trump knows as much about policing as he does running a fair and transparent government. I stand by the Superintendent for living up to the values of this great city and its residents.”
In a subsequent tweet, the mayor poked at the president’s impeachment situation, “Rather than belittle Chicago’s communities with hateful and dishonest rhetoric, he needs to go back to D.C. and face his fate.”
The president’s rhetoric was definitely charged and perhaps a little bit angry. “The people of Chicago — the people want this. And with the families of Chicago, not the criminals and gang members that are here illegally. And not the stupid politicians who have no idea what they’re doing,” Trump said. At one point, he declared that Afghanistan was a safer place than the Windy City. But he wasn’t wrong about Chicago’s complicity in illegal immigration.
City leaders like Lightfoot and Johnson are not looking out for the interests of their citizens. Instead, they are taking their marching orders from the Deep State and globalist entities which are engaging in an end run around the White House. Globalists, the United Nations, and the Council on Foreign Relations keep telling Americans that we need to take more immigrants into America and not in a piecemeal way. They are talking about mass migration in waves.
By refusing to cooperate with immigration law, sanctuary cities such as Chicago are doing the bidding of globalists to the detriment of their own citizens. And it’s shameful.
Image of Donald Trump: Screenshot of video from FOX 10 Phoenix
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected].
