President Trump: ‘waging war’ on Chicago

For a self-styled “President of PEACE”, Donald Trump has been remarkably bellicose on the home front, said Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker. He has ordered hundreds of National Guard troops into what he insists are the “war-ravaged” cities of Portland and Chicago, to the outrage of the Democratic elected officials who run these places.

In response to their vocal opposition, Trump called for the governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago to be jailed. Meanwhile, federal agents working for ICE and Border Patrol are conducting increasingly aggressive raids, said Melissa Gira Grant in The New Republic. Hundreds of them recently stormed an apartment building on Chicago’s South Side, rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters and leading away “zip-tied” residents, including children. Trump is effectively “waging war” on Chicago.

Democrat leaders only have themselves to blame, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. If they had stopped people rioting outside ICE facilities in Chicago, and harassing agents there, Trump wouldn’t have had the excuse that he wanted to send in troops. It was the same story in Los Angeles. These cities invest a baffling amount of energy in defending illegal immigration, said Byron York in the Washington Examiner. Chicago is a “sanctuary city”, which means it limits or denies cooperation with federal officials in enforcing immigration law. Now, its mayor has declared parts of the city an “ICE-free zone”. Yet polls show that a majority of the public support deporting illegal migrants. By enforcing federal law, “Trump is doing what most people want”.

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There have been some protests outside ICE facilities, said Kimberly Atkins Stohr in The Boston Globe, but we’re talking crowds of dozens, not thousands. Local officials have been in no danger of being overwhelmed. Trump is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act if legal challenges obstruct troop deployments. But that law is meant only to suppress “rebellion” that local law enforcement can’t handle. In recent history, it has only been invoked once, in 1992, when California’s governor requested military help to quell the LA riots. Ultimately, “Trump wants a war”, and only the Supreme Court can stop him militarising our cities. Given that it has already granted him immunity from actions taken in office, I doubt it will “stand up to him now”.