Two days after Chicago activists used their cars to ram ICE vehicles, box them in, and even try to run down agents after they’d exited their trapped vehicle, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order creating “ICE-free zones” from which federal immigration agents would be prohibited from operating.
At the Monday signing ceremony, the Marxist mayor said he was acting to “rein in this out of control administration. This means that city property and unwilling private businesses will no longer serve as staging grounds for these raids.
“The Trump administration must end the war on Chicago,” Johnson demanded. “The Trump administration must end this war against Americans. The Trump administration must end its attempt to dismantle our democracy.”
Johnson added a new claim to his repertoire: the “extreme right” still refuses to accept the outcome of the Civil War.
“They have repeatedly called for a rematch, but in the coming weeks, we will use this opportunity to build greater resistance,” he insisted. “Chicagoans are clear that militarizing our troops in our city as justification to further escalate a war in Chicago will not be tolerated.”
“The right wing in this country wants a rematch of the Civil War.”
Considering that the “right wing,” which fought to abolish slavery, won the Civil War, why in the world would we want a rematch?
Finally, Johnson threatened legal action if the Trump administration violates his order. He warned Trump to leave Chicago “the freak alone.”
His rhetoric only reinforced the reasons why Johnson’s approval once fell into the single digits and remains dangerously low to this day.
At any rate, Johnson needn’t have bothered. While I’m not a lawyer, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution makes it pretty clear that when a conflict arises, federal law overrides any conflicting state or local regulations.
The White House’s Rapid Response 47 account on X swiftly denounced Johnson’s new executive order, labeling it “SICK” and charging that he was “aiding and abetting criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, traffickers, and gang members.”
Separately, Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker filed a lawsuit Monday attempting to block the Trump administration’s deployment of 400 National Guard troops to the state.
Their efforts, coming after another bloody weekend in the Windy City that saw 30 shootings result in five deaths, will ultimately fail because the law is not on their side: “10 U.S. Code Section 252 authorizes the President to deploy U.S. armed forces and state militia when unlawful obstructions, rebellion, or other disturbances make it impossible to enforce federal laws through the ordinary court system. This provision allows the President to use federal military force to enforce federal law or suppress insurrections even without a request from the affected state’s governor or legislature.”
It might surprise Pritzker, Johnson, and other blue state officials in the U.S. to find that the vast majority of Americans support the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
A recent poll found that 78% of Americans surveyed support deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes. And 56% support deporting all immigrants who are here illegally.
Yet they continue to cater to the far-left wing of their base, which demands resistance to Trump at every turn and views every undocumented immigrant as a future Democratic voter. And because they have the full support of the legacy media, Democrats largely get away with their hyperbole.
On Monday afternoon, CNN anchor Boris Sanchez seemed to forget he was speaking with one of the Trump administration’s most unflinching figures and attempted to press a familiar Democratic talking point. He was swiftly and decisively swatted down by the inimitable White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Sanchez asks what “if a Democratic president someday calls the National Guard to a red state over what they see as open rebellion, but is what amounts to a demonstration that gets rowdy?”
Miller chuckles before unleashing a punishing, but well-deserved rebuttal on the hapless journalist.
They’re [demonstrators] posting pictures of their [federal agent’s] kids because it’s a ‘demonstration?’ They have a sniper on top of a building firing a high caliber rifle at an ICE facility because it’s a ‘demonstration?’ And they are engaged with vehicle ramming attacks because its a ‘demonstration?’
Sanchez chimes in, “But National Guard isn’t being sent to Dallas, Texas, where that sniper was.”
Miller replied:
Wow, you walked right into that one. Because the Dallas police department and the governor of Texas have RESPONDED to EVERY call for assistance and help.They gave a stand down order in Chicago and they gave a stand down order in Portland! Do you realize that there’s 11,000 federal law enforcement officers in Oregon? That’s larger than the size of the FBI.Local and state police are resourced to deal with this kind of riotous assembly. But they have refused. They’ve been given a stand down order.
Sanchez interrupts to note that some activists have been arrested. Miller ignores him and continues.
“So, we need to use National Guard and federal troops to fill in that breach,” Miller says. “We literally have the 911 audio of the stand down order in Chicago and we have documented inside of DHS every single un-responded to 911 call over the recent weeks and months.”
Say what you will about Stephen Miller, he knows how to win an argument. But he didn’t prevail in that exchange solely because of his formidable debating skills — he won because the Left’s position, rooted in a refusal to uphold America’s own immigration laws, is simply indefensible.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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