President Trump has sent federal agents and troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and he has vowed to send them to Chicago and other cities.
The president and his supporters see the influx of agents and soldiers as a means to curb crime and crack down on illegal immigration. Critics say Mr. Trump is using the deployments to punish Democratic-led cities and spread fear in immigrant communities. The move has prompted lawsuits, demonstrations and a scramble among local officials to respond.
Here’s how the federal presence on the streets has unfolded so far in some cities, and here’s how it may soon play out elsewhere.
Chicago
The Trump administration is making plans for escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants, using hundreds of federal agents who are being sent to the Chicago area. They are expected to use a naval base outside of the city as a staging area for operations. Local officials and immigrant advocacy groups are on high alert, reminding residents of their rights and urging caution.
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois said he believes the Trump administration is timing its crackdown to coincide with the city’s traditionally expansive Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which begin this weekend.
Whether Mr. Trump will send the National Guard into Chicago is murky.
In Washington, D.C., the president deployed the National Guard as part of his security takeover there. But Washington is a federal district and not a state, and governors normally have control of their state Guard troops. Mr. Trump bypassed state control in California, where he federalized National Guard troops and sent them to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom. In Illinois, however, there has been no civil unrest in Chicago that might require National Guard assistance.
For weeks, Illinois officials have loudly objected to the Trump administration’s rumored plans, holding news conferences and rallies to make their position clear: They do not want the military in Chicago.
“There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops,” Mr. Pritzker said, standing alongside other elected officials, including Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago and Kwame Raoul, the state’s attorney general. “He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole, and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans, too.”
Mr. Johnson issued an order saying that the city would pursue “all available legal and legislative avenues” to resist actions by the federal government “that violate the rights of the City and its residents, including the Constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and protest and the right to due process.”
Advocacy groups are making plans to stage protests in opposition to any escalated immigration arrests, or the potential presence of the National Guard.
Los Angeles
Federal immigration agents carried out large-scale immigration raids in the Los Angeles area on June 6, including one at a clothing wholesaler in downtown Los Angeles that led to the arrests of dozens of people.
Since the raids began, more than 5,000 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Some of those arrested had criminal records with charges such as drug trafficking, murder and assault. But in many other cases, those caught up in the raids and detained have been immigrants who had no prior criminal charges, or who were U.S. citizens or had legal status.
The raids have been met with backlash from local leaders and residents. Federal immigration agencies, including the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have said that agents are conducting targeted operations. But videos of many raids taken by bystanders and activists and posted on social media have shown agents chasing down people seemingly at random at Home Depot parking lots, carwashes and other workplaces.
At least two people have died after trying to flee immigration agents in Southern California. One man died in July after falling more than 30 feet from a greenhouse at a cannabis farm during a raid in Ventura County. In August, another man died after being struck by a vehicle while running onto a freeway near Los Angeles as he was trying to flee agents at a Home Depot.
Protests immediately erupted in Los Angeles on the first day of widespread immigration raids in June. The protests spread from downtown Los Angeles to Compton and across the region.
The protests prompted President Trump to send thousands of National Guard members into Los Angeles. Many of those soldiers have since been withdrawn, but about 300 remain. The deployment has cost taxpayers nearly $120 million so far, Mr. Newsom said.
The raids, protests and military presence have led to several legal battles.
One lawsuit was filed against the federal government over the Guard deployment. Another was filed against the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of stopping people based on the color of their skin. That lawsuit prompted a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order, barring agents from making indiscriminate stops. The ruling was upheld by an appeals court.
The operations in Los Angeles have been led by Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol chief known for confrontational tactics and aggressive raids. It was unclear if Mr. Bovino would join the immigration crackdown in Chicago, but in a video posted on Tuesday on social media, Mr. Bovino suggested that Border Patrol officers were headed to a new city.
“We’re going to trade these palm trees,” he said, “for some skyscrapers, and the mission continues.”
Washington, D.C.
President Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington in August in an effort to crack down on crime, despite figures that indicated a recent drop in crime rates in the area.
In two weeks, federal agents arrested about 1,000 people. A New York Times review of the arrests found that the operation appeared to be more of a dragnet than a targeted effort. In addition to those arrests, agents also arrested more than 400 other people who were believed to be undocumented in a three-week time frame.
The deployment in Washington has drawn fierce criticism from local leaders. City leaders sued the federal government over the deployment of the National Guard.
New Orleans
Mr. Trump has floated the idea of sending the National Guard to New Orleans. During a news conference in September, Mr. Trump said his administration was determining whether to send troops to Chicago or New Orleans.
New Orleans, Mr. Trump said, is a city in a state with a “a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite tough?”
Mr. Landry, a Republican, welcomed the idea of troops coming to New Orleans. Last year, he helped create a special unit of the Louisiana State Police to focus on public safety in New Orleans. Recent data has shown that New Orleans has recorded a drop in violent crimes this year.
Other Cities
The Trump administration has also suggested sending the National Guard or a surge of immigration agents to other cities, including Baltimore and Boston.
Mr. Trump has said he had an “obligation to protect this country, and that includes Baltimore,” adding that the city is a “very unsafe place.”
The Trump administration has also threatened to send immigration agents to Boston. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the city over its sanctuary policies. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said in a statement that Boston was “among the worst sanctuary offenders in America.”
Mr. Trump has also said New York City and Portland, Ore., could potentially see federal agents or troops in the coming weeks or months. In Georgia, the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican, was working to activate the National Guard to help with administrative support for ICE operations.
Many local leaders in Boston, Baltimore and other Democratic-led cities Mr. Trump has mentioned have pushed back on the possibility of troops being sent to their cities. After the Justice Department filed its lawsuit against Boston, the city’s mayor, Michelle Wu, said the Trump administration was “intent on attacking our community to advance their own authoritarian agenda.”
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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