With Department of Homeland Security agents preparing to assemble in Chicago for an expected crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration is starting down a dangerous road. Its incursion into Chicago may begin with pursuing undocumented immigrants, but with its threat to also deploy National Guard troops or active-duty military to combat crime more broadly in the city — over the objections of Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — the administration risks provoking large-scale civil unrest.
I have studied democracies’ military occupations of regions within their national borders, focusing on cases that existed in or started after 1980: Britain and Northern Ireland, Spain and the Basques and others. These occupations occurred for a range of reasons, and often started out suppressing violence, but they ended up provoking or exacerbating widespread civil unrest, political violence and terrorism.
There are, of course, many ways in which a de facto military occupation of Chicago would differ from these cases, but the general lessons I’ve learned remain applicable: Occupying forces rarely, if ever, call their activities an occupation, but they are widely perceived as such by the local population. Occupation often lasts longer than expected and leads to involvement beyond its original stated purpose. Protests happen. Suppression of protests happens. The occupying forces must withdraw in disgrace or double down in hopes of pacifying the uprising. Things usually escalate.
This kind of exercise of military force, regardless of the legitimacy of its aims, inevitably intrudes on the political rights and economic livelihoods of ordinary people. Even if an occupation starts out with apparent success, it typically leads to chaos and generates defiance in the local community.
There is reason to worry that Chicago is poised to head down a broadly similar path.
For one thing, many of its residents oppose the presence of federal forces. In June and July my research center, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, conducted a representative survey of more than 1,100 residents of Chicago to gauge their attitudes on federal military deployment to U.S. cities. Sixty percent said they did not “approve of the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations.” Twenty-eight percent said they “would attend a protest against the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants, even if it became violent.” Thirty percent agreed that “immigrants targeted by the Trump administration for deportation are justified in using force to defend themselves.” Thirty-seven percent agreed that “the use of force is justified to remove Donald Trump from the presidency.”
In a city that has more than 2.5 million residents, those percentages represent significant numbers of people willing to endorse or participate in violent resistance.
In addition, to achieve the administration’s stated objective of drastically and lastingly reducing illegal immigration and other crime, a deployment of federal forces would have to be very large and last many months. Consider that there are, by some estimates, nearly 200,000 undocumented immigrants in Chicago. It takes time and effort to deport people: Across the United States, by August, federal forces were deporting not even 1,500 undocumented immigrants a day. So removing just the 71,000 people with pending cases in immigration court who reside in Cook County (for which Chicago is the county seat) would be an enormous undertaking, requiring many thousands of agents and taking many months — and involving invasive operations throughout the city.
Suppressing crime more broadly in a lasting way would, of course, require even more resources and time and be similarly invasive. The longer federal forces stay and the more expansive their operations, the more the local community will perceive a loss of political power to determine its future. This perception would be exacerbated in Chicago because of the approaching state elections in 2026, which many perceive Mr. Trump as trying to influence through these actions. Note, for example, that Mr. Trump spoke of the need to “liberate” Chicago in a fund-raising email on Wednesday.
This is a Chicago story, but it is also a national story. If the administration proceeds as expected, Chicago will be the third major American city governed by members of Mr. Trump’s political opposition to be subjected this year to the presence of military force, after Los Angeles in June and Washington last month. Other blue cities and states may reasonably fear that they will be next. Mr. Trump is threatening to radicalize our nation’s politics in a way not seen in our lifetimes.
It is not too late. The federal government can still reverse course, limiting its policing efforts in Chicago to illegal immigration, limiting its deportations to convicted criminals and working with — not independently of — local law enforcement. I fervently hope Mr. Trump reconsiders.
Robert A. Pape (@ProfessorPape) is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post Chicago Could Be a Powder Keg appeared first on New York Times.
