Chicago – Chicago Mayor is challenging President Donald Trump Threat of deploying the National Guard in the city Windy to combat crime and reach the legal routes to prevent soldiers from exceeding the city.
On Friday, Trump spoke about his controversial deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC, and said that Chicago and New York City would be the next. The deployment in the capital of the nation has described as an attempt to clean the crime, but critics dismiss the measure as little more than political overreach.
“The guard is not necessary”, the mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson He told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who registered to serve our country did not register to occupy US cities.”
Johnson also pointed out the decrease in the city in murders, shootings and car theft. Chicago police crime data at the beginning of this month show that murders have dropped 31% at the same time last year, shootings have decreased by 36% and vehicle thefts have dropped by 26%.
“The things we are doing in Chicago investing in people, youth employment, mental health care, services, building more affordable houses, making sure that our detective office has all the resources it needs … That is why we are seeing the results we are experiencing at this time,” he said.
“Occupy our cities with the army, this is not how we build safe and affordable communities,” he added.
Johnson on Sunday questioned Sunday why Trump cut federal investments in the prevention of violence and reduced the budget for the supplementary and medicality nutritional assistance program if he wanted to reduce violence in large cities.
“The National Guard is not going to put food at the people’s table. The National Guard will not reduce unemployment,” said Johnson.
The mayor’s office said in a statement on Saturday that he was working with the governor and Cook Cook of Illinois, which is the Chicago home, in “evaluating all our legal options to protect the people of Chicago from the unconstitutional federal overreach.”
Edwin Yohnka, Director of Communications and Public Policies of the Illinois branch of the American Union of Civil Libertads, said Trump will face a legal challenge if the guard unfolds in Chicago without a valid reason.
“There is a higher barrier for the president to send Chicago to the National Guard [than into D.C.]because there must be a reason or must have the agreement of the governor of the state of Illinois. And clearly, from what we see, it won’t have that. You will have to articulate a reason to do it. I think that reason will be challenged by the state of Illinois, “Yohnka said in an interview.
He said that Illinois aclu will also be “attentive” on how troops, if they deploy, behave in the streets and challenge any arrest, detention or use of excessive force.
Speaking on Friday at the Oval office, Trump said he had not made any specific plan with respect to Chicago and that he had not spoken with Johnson about any display of troops.
He said, however, that people in the city “are shouting for us to come.”
“When we are ready, and we will enter and straighten Chicago, just as we did, DC Chicago is very dangerous,” he said.
On Saturday, the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, accused Trump in X of “trying to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform and continue to abuse their power to distract the pain that is causing families.”
The president of the Public Security Committee of the City Council of Chicago spoke with NBC Chicago about the need to reduce crime in the city, but said the threats of Trump’s National Guard are wrong.
“We still see an unacceptably high amount of robberies, car theft, robberies, robberies. We have work to do, but we need help that makes sense,” said Councilman Brian Hopkins. “The Federal National Guard will not make a difference in car theft in Chicago. If I really wanted to help, we are short of 2,000 police officers. Unfortunately, that is not what Trump is talking about.”
Trump has also threatened to deploy the guard in Baltimore and has attacked the governor of Maryland Wes Moore on social networks.
Moore said in a statement that Trump “would prefer to attack the largest cities in his country from behind a desk to walk the streets with the people he represents.”
Trump has been using the National Guard in an unconventional way compared to the previous presidents.
In general, the Guard is requested for crisis, including natural disasters and civil disturbances. In June, Trump deployed thousands of troops and marines on guard in Los Angeles amid protests against immigration raids, against the wishes of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.
The current DC implementation has also raised its eyebrows. Although it is promoted as a position against crime, numbers show that violent crime in the capital of the nation fell 26% compared to last year, according to DC police data.
Shaquille Brewster and Selina Guevara reported from Chicago and Marlene Lenthang from Los Angeles.
