Send in the troops to Chicago? For Portage Park resident John Trotti, the answer is clear.
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” the 41-year-old said. “I think it’s a misuse of the resources that the military has and the authority that they have over what a state can and can’t do.”
Trotti was among several Northwest Side residents Sunday who rejected President Donald Trump’s plan to send the National Guard into the city next month as part of his monthslong campaign against immigration, homelessness and crime.
On Friday, Trump said his administration was considering federal intervention in Chicago, similar to the National Guard troops he deployed in Washington, D.C. Then Saturday, The Washington Post reported, citing officials familiar with the matter, that the Pentagon has been planning a military intervention in Chicago for weeks. When asked to confirm that troops would be sent to Chicago, a Pentagon spokesperson said: “We won’t speculate on further operations.”
“The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” the spokesperson said Sunday in an email.
Henry Thompson, who’s lived in Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood for two years, feared the plan could cause more harm than good.
“I don’t want to feel like I’m in a militarized city,” Thompson said. “They’re not trained to do police work, so I don’t think it will make the city safer. If anything, with protests that it’s going to provoke, with the distress that it can provoke, someone could get hurt that didn’t need to.”
Local officials prepare for ‘unconstitutional military deployments’
Federal troops are normally only deployed in a state because of a major disruption or disaster, and it’s typically a collaborative decision between the president and the governor, said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday said there was no emergency in Chicago that would warrant federalizing the Illinois National Guard and deploying the National Guard from other states.
Sending in National Guard troops would undermine Chicago and Illinois law enforcement and the state’s existing partnerships with federal agencies like the FBI and the ATF, Raoul added.
“It’s disingenuous and performative. If there were sincere concerns about crime, there wouldn’t be disinvestment in community violence funding and funding for victims of crime,” Raoul told the Sun-Times Sunday.
Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was working closely with local officials to prepare for “any potential unconstitutional military deployments to Chicago.”
“The Governor, the Cook County Board President, and I are in complete alignment: Chicago is not calling for a military occupation of our city. We are currently evaluating all of our legal options to protect the people of Chicago from unconstitutional federal overreach,” Johnson said.
Crime in Chicago decreasing
The number of killings in Chicago, as in many other major U.S. cities, has dropped significantly since rising during the pandemic. The number of homicides in a year is down about 50% so far for 2025, from about 500 to around 250, since 2021, according to Chicago police data.
The number of reported shootings in Chicago has dropped by about 57% in the past four years, according to the Chicago Police Department.
Thompson, 36, said that if the federal government wants to make the city safer, it should provide funds to hire more detectives to solve crimes.
Caroline, a Portage Park resident of more than 20 years, also said she’d feel less safe with military in the city. She asked to only be identified by her first name, fearing retaliation for speaking out.
“It enrages me, there’s no reason for the military to be here,” she said. If they do show, she hopes “these guys know what’s right and wrong and what they’re supposed to be defending, which is our Constitution.”
Trotti, 41, thinks Trump’s real goal is to silence dissent in Democrat-led cities, like Chicago, and make it appear like a dangerous place by creating a “spectacle.” He also thinks Trump is holding a grudge against Chicago because residents have protested his past visits.
“Chicago has always been a place that stands up to him and he is very insecure that Chicagoans speak their minds against him,” Trotti said. “I am not naive that there is crime in the city, but I know that it’s always been used as a talking point to keep people in other locations scared about Chicago. It’s a story to make people believe exaggerated things about this city.”