DOJ vows to push immigration enforcement in Chicago, other sanctuary cities​on January 23, 2025 at 7:06 am

President Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up its efforts to find and deport undocumented immigrants in Chicago. A new directive could lead to the mayor and other local officials possibly facing arrest due to sanctuary city laws.   

U.S. Attorneys Offices have been directed to “investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution.”

On Wednesday, after an event at the Chicago Cultural Center, Mayor Brandon Johnson ignored questions from reporters, making a door-slamming exit.

Alderman Ray Lopez, who fought to modify the sanctuary city law to allow police to work with ICE in deporting violent criminals, said this is a warning shot.

“Trump is going to be president for four years,” Ald. Lopez said. “We better figure it out and figure it out fast, because otherwise there will be hell to pay from this federal administration on the city of Chicago.”

The DOJ has also formed a new special task force and reassigned personnel to various cities across the country, with Chicago a likely destination. Another working group is tasked with challenging in court sanctuary laws that impede immigration initiatives.

READ ALSO | Federal authorities have identified dozens of targets for deportation in Chicago area, sources say

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the Constitution forbids the federal government from compelling states to take immigration actions, but he still anticipates the Trust Act will be challenged in court.

“We should certainly worry about having to go to court, given that the Department of Justice has just been weaponized to try to do something that district courts have already already said violates the 10th Amendment,” Raoul said.

Attorney General Raoul made it clear his office does work with the feds on criminal matters regularly and nothing in the Trust Act, the state’s sanctuary law, prohibits cooperating in criminal immigration matters, just civil ones.

With schools and churches no longer off limits for ICE agents, the community pushback is also growing.

“And this is not going to intimidate us,” 25th Ward Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez said. “We are working to reinforce our laws, to protect our neighbors from a real, in my opinion, dictatorial way of conducting business in the White House.”

The pastor said the vast majority of his parish is made up of immigrants.

On Tuesday, The Trump administration authorized federal immigration authorities to target schools and churches, revoking a policy that barred arrests in “sensitive” areas, the Department of Homeland Security said.

“We’re getting them out of the country. We just started that, we’re getting them out of the country and they’re going to be gotten out of the country fast,” Trump said.

On Wednesday, thousands of CPS students are returning to classes after a long four-day weekend.

READ ALSO | Trump authorizes ICE to target schools and churches as mass deportation fears grow in Chicago

Erin, a CPS teacher and Chicago Teachers Union delegate for her school, said teachers have been preparing for changes to immigration policy.

“I think that it’s rather disgusting and shameful that he’s decided to target children, or you know, people that seek refuge in churches. And I think a lot of educators feel similarly, which is why a lot of them have decided to start or join sanctuary teams at their school,” Erin said.

Erin said the so-called “sanctuary team” at her school includes nearly a dozen teachers. The CTU says theses teams are an effort to make sure educators know what to do in case of a raid.

“We started attending know your rights training so that we could know how to defend ourselves and our students, if anyone tries to, if ice tries to communicate with us or potentially detain somebody,” Erin said.

In a statement to ABC7, CPS says it “does not plan to share private student-level information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement except in the rare case where there is a court order or consent from a parent or guardian. We remain committed to ensuring that our schools remain the safest places for all students.”

This comes after Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez reminded families all CPS schools are safe havens amid possible mass deportation plans in Chicago.

SEE ALSO | Resources available to undocumented individuals who may be impacted by Trump’s immigration plan

“I want our families to feel confident they can send their children to school; we are not going to interact with ICE,” Martinez said.

The CTU issued a statement Tuesday, saying, in part, that Trump “has decided to make the City of Chicago the opening scene for his mass deportation horror film” and called on Martinez to take more action to ensure student safety.

In a lengthy statement Monday, Chicago police said, in part, “The Chicago Police Department does not assist federal immigration authorities with enforcement action solely based on immigration status. Additionally, CPD does not document immigration status and does not share such information with federal authorities.”

Chicago police ended that statement by making clear they will not intervene in immigration enforcement, but they will continue to enforce the law if a crime occurs, regardless of citizenship status.

But that enforcement could be for something like a traffic violation, and while the promised raids have not yet materialized in Chicago, the immigrant community here is on edge.

Border Czar Tom Homan appeared on Fox Business on Tuesday.

“The president’s been clear. That right out of the gate we’re looking for public safety threats. ICE agents are out there doing that now,” Homan said.

Gov. JB Pritzker said the number of people targeted – those with criminal records – might be much higher than initially believed.

“They’ve not communicated with us, so we don’t know when exactly those enforcement actions might take place. We have heard that they’re targeting as many as 2,000 people initially in the city of Chicago alone,” Pritzker said.

Full CPD statement:
“In accordance with the City of Chicago’s Municipal Code, which includes the Welcoming City Ordinance, the Chicago Police Department does not assist federal immigration authorities with enforcement action solely based on immigration status. Additionally, CPD does not document immigration status and does not share such information with federal authorities.

CPD is prohibited by the Welcoming City Ordinance from participating in civil immigration enforcement operations or assist in the civil enforcement of federal immigration law. CPD’s Responding to Incidents Involving Citizenship Status policy also states that if the Department receives a request from an immigration agency to provide assistance with a civil immigration enforcement operation, a supervisor will respond to the scene. If the request is to assist in the enforcement of civil immigration law, the supervisor will decline the request. If the request is unrelated to civil immigration law, appropriate police action will be taken. The Responding to Incidents Involving Citizenship Status policy was recently revised to require a supervisor of higher rank (a Watch Operations Lieutenant or Street Deputy) respond to the scenes of these requests, in addition to the previously required supervisor from the district of occurrence.

To be clear, the Chicago Police Department will not assist or intervene in civil immigration enforcement in accordance with the City of Chicago Municipal Code. As always, we will continue to enforce the law if a crime occurs, regardless of the citizenship status of those involved.”

Full CPS statement:
“Chicago Public Schools remains committed to protecting the rights of all students to a free public education, regardless of their immigration status or the immigration status of their family. While the District understands there is an executive order to rescind language about “sensitive locations,” including schools, and ICE arrests, CPS does not plan to share private student-level information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) except in the rare case where there is a court order or consent from a parent or guardian. We remain committed to ensuring that our schools remain the safest places for all students and that the focus remains on providing a high quality pre-K-12 education.”

Full CTU statement:
“Today, the Chicago Public Schools are staring down a real threat. According to reporting from various sources, our newly-minted U.S. President has decided to make the City of Chicago the opening scene for his mass deportation horror film -an attempt to use the power of the White House to rip apart families, disrupt communities and potentially try to violate the safest places in our neighborhoods, public schools.

Here is the reality: Donald Trump told everyone who he would be when he returned to the White House. Anyone in a leadership position not doing everything in their power to prepare and respond is doing a disservice to the communities they serve. This reality should cause our CEO, Pedro Martinez, to get busy ensuring that our city’s public schools are safe for our vulnerable immigrant students, parents and educators and taking action to safeguard Black history, gender equality, the recruitment of Black teachers, and the other pieces of Chicago’s education system that we know are in the crosshairs of this new administration.
A couple of years ago, the CTU fought for and won sanctuary policies at CPS to make sure our students can learn in a safe environment regardless of their immigration status. Because of our last contract, there are protocols to prevent ICE officers from having free access to our school buildings, to activate legal responses, and to protect our students’ rights-we need our CEO to enforce our contract with implementation and training protocols that help keep our students and their families safe.

CPS has sent out an email on the topic but has not provided training to our members. We are concerned that CPS and CEO Pedro Martinez have violated our agreement to conduct joint training to address these circumstances. Section 46.7.6 of our agreement requires CPS to collaborate with CTU to design and implement district-wide training, beginning in 2019, to protect school communities from unauthorized ICE agent entry into school buildings. Unfortunately, despite our requests and efforts, this need has not been met and we have sent recent communications to the CEO to comply with CPS’ contractual commitments.
Despite not receiving training from the district, we are preparing our members to create ‘sanctuary teams’ and working in each school to ensure educators know what to do in case of a raid and are prepared to protect our students and their rights. Students should know that one of the safest places they can be is at their school.”

And that is why we will continue to push our CEO to work with us to ensure that our schools are safe and welcoming places for all of our students. Sanctuary and safety includes fully staffing our schools with guidance counselors, social workers, librarians and a high-quality school day, one that will bring joy, affirmation, and academic success.”

ABC News contributed to this report.

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 President Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up its efforts to find and deport undocumented immigrants in Chicago. A new directive could lead to the mayor and other local officials possibly facing arrest due to sanctuary city laws.