NOTE: Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling is set to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. CT. Coverage of the address will appear live in the player above as it begins.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was signing an executive order Monday aimed at limiting where federal agents can gather in the city, prohibiting them from using certain city-owned spaces for immigration enforcement activities.
The order, which is set to take effect immediately, will prohibit federal immigration authorities from using “city-owned or controlled parking lots, vacant lots, and garages as staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases for civil immigration enforcement activities,” it states.
“In recent weeks, federal agents used several City-owned properties—including parking lots near Harrison and Kedzie, and a vacant lot at 46th and Damen—as staging sites for immigration enforcement,” the mayor’s office said in a release about the order. “Such use of City property undermines community trust and runs counter to Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, which ensures that all residents—regardless of immigration status—can live, work, and seek services without fear.”
A “staging area” was defined in the order as “any location used to assemble, mobilize, or deploy personnel, vehicles, or equipment for immigration enforcement operations.”
“We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city that are not accountable to the people of Chicago. Their actions put all Chicagoans at risk,” Johnson said while announcing the executive order.
He described the order as creating “ICE-free zones.”
“Our school parking lots are not for ICE to load their weapons, they are for Chicagoans who drop their kids off to learn. Our libraries are not for ICE to prepare for a raid, they’re for Chicagoans to read and relax. Our parks are not for ICE to set up checkpoints, they are for Chicagoans to play and enjoy,” Johnson said.
In a statement, the White House called Johnson’s order “a disgusting betrayal of every law-abiding citizen.”
“Johnson’s pathetic excuse that enforcing our nation’s immigration laws somehow “undermines community trust” exposes his true loyalty: to criminal illegal alien predators, not the terrified families of Chicago,” the statement read. “Shielding the most depraved, violent criminal illegal aliens from justice is not only an insult to every Chicagoan, it’s also a dangerous intensification of Democrats’ lunatic ‘sanctuary’ agenda where criminal illegals come before American citizens.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker will hold a press conference Monday to address President Trump ordering hundreds of Texas National Guard members to Illinois, calling the move a “Trump Invasion.”
The order comes just after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who will also hold a press conference at 2 p.m. CT Monday, announced over the weekend that President Donald Trump plans to deploy hundreds of members of the National Guard to Illinois and other states.
Johnson wrote on social media over the weekend that “…National Guard troops from Texas will only serve to further escalate the Trump administration’s reckless and unconstitutional attack on our city…”
“Last week revealed the true face of the administration’s immigration enforcement in our city, and the entire world was able to witness that,” Johnson said during an address Monday, adding “If Congress won’t check this administration then Chicago will.”
Pritzker and Johnson have long opposed calling up National Guard members for law enforcement purposes, which Trump has repeatedly threatened in recent months.
Pritzker said Trump’s Department of Defense gave him what he called “an ultimatum” to either call up National Guard members or to have those members nationalized.
“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Pritzker’s statement said. “It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”
The Department of Homeland Security last week requested up to 100 troops to be deployed to Illinois to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assets and agents, the governor’s office said.
In a memo obtained through a court filing and signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard will be deployed in Chicago and Portland “for up to 60 days with the potential for an extension.”
“On October 4, 2025, the President determined that violent incidents, as well as the credible threat of continued violence, are impeding the execution of the laws of the United States in Illinois, Oregon, and other locations throughout the United States,” the memo read in part.
Along with the deployment of Texas troops, Trump is calling at least 300 Illinois National Guard members into service to protect federal buildings in the state, according to a copy of a Pentagon memo first reported by the Chicago Tribune and shared with NBC News by an Illinois official.
President Trump’s administration plans to federalize the National Guard in Illinois, drawing pushback and questions about legality. Randy Gyllenhaal has more.
Trump has said he believes he has the authority to send the National Guard to Chicago despite a California court ruling he overstepped his authority in sending members to Los Angeles during protests and unrest there earlier this year. A federal judge late Sunday also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard units to Oregon following a legal whirlwind.
The president had previously indicated a desire to send the National Guard to Chicago and multiple other cities, but later backtracked on the idea, saying that Pritzker and other officials would have to ask for such assistance.
“We could straighten out Chicago — all they have to do is ask us,” he told reporters. “I want to go into Chicago, and I have this incompetent governor who doesn’t want us.”
Pritzker has opposed such a move, and has insisted that he would not request such assistance.
“He wants to set into the fact pattern that the governor called him to ask for help. Why? Because he’s going to end up in court,” Pritzker said. “He’s going to end up in court, and that will be a fact that they will use in court. That the governor called to ask for help, and I’m sorry I’m not going to provide him with evidence to support his desire to have the court rule in his favor. I’m just not going to do that.”
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