City property — including parking lots next to Chicago public schools, libraries, parks and city buildings — cannot be used as staging grounds for raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, under an executive order signed Monday aimed at what Mayor Brandon Johnson called President Donald Trump’s “forceful display of tyranny.”
It’s the latest of three executive orders that Johnson has signed in what so far has been a failed attempt to stop or slow the deportation campaign that has sowed fear and chaos in the Chicago area and at times triggered clashes between protesters and ICE agents in the city and suburbs.
Over the weekend, Trump ordered hundreds of National Guard troops, including 300 from Illinois and 400 from Texas, to assist in his deportation campaign in Chicago and other cities.
Illinois and Chicago responded Monday with a lawsuit aimed at blocking what Gov. JB Pritzker called the “Trump invasion.” The lawsuit follows a ruling Sunday night by a federal judge in Oregon barring Trump from deploying federalized members of any National Guard under the president’s command to that state.
Johnson’s latest executive order prohibits “city-owned and city-controlled parking lots, garages and vacant lots” from being used as “staging areas” or “operations bases for civil immigrant enforcement activities,” including “surveillance or logistical coordination.”
“Our school parking lots are not for ICE to load their weapons,” Johnson said. “They are for Chicagoans who drop their kids off to learn. Our libraries are not for ICE to prepare for raids. 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.
“This executive order is a step toward accountability. In the coming days and weeks, we may be pushed, if not forced, to take even more dramatic action if this administration continues to escalate and provoke our people.”
Private businesses, property owners, tenants and “community institutions” that choose to join the city in protecting their property from “civil immigration enforcement” will be provided with official signs designed and distributed at city expense.
The signs will clearly state that “no law enforcement official may enter for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement and that the property not be used as a staging area, processing location or operations base” for ICE, according to the city.
“By extending this protection beyond city land, the order builds a broad civic shield that limits the reach of harmful enforcement practices,” the mayor said.
Johnson’s previous executive order barring ICE agents from wearing masks during the deportation campaign has been ignored by the agency. At a news conference Monday, the mayor was asked what would happen if ICE ignores his latest order.
“If the federal government violates this executive order, we will take them to court,” he said.
The Trump administration issued a statement Monday denouncing Johnson’s designation of “ICE-free zones,” claiming the mayor is “shielding the most depraved, violent criminals from justice…” The White House statement then listed eight individuals recently detained by ICE agents as examples, but in all but one of those cases, the individuals cited had indeed faced justice and had been convicted of their crimes.
Johnson used some of his harshest rhetoric yet to describe and condemn Trump’s immigration blitz that has inflicted chaos on parts of Chicago.
It has included a brazen early morning raid on a South Shore apartment building that ICE claimed had become the turf of a violent Venezuelan gang; the shooting death of a man fleeing arrest in Franklin Park after being accused of dragging an agent with his car; and the shooting of a Brighton Park demonstrator charged with felony assault after ICE accused the woman of ramming her vehicle into a vehicle driven by federal agents.
“Here’s my message to the immigrant community. It’s the message that I have for all of Chicago: We will use every single tool that is available to us to protect the dignity and the sanctity of our humanity,” Johnson said. “I’m calling on this president to leave us the freak alone.”
The mayor also called on Congress to stand up to Trump and do something to prevent what he called this “rogue, reckless group of heavily armed” federal agents from “roaming through our city.”
“If we allow this to continue unchecked, it’ll be too late,” the mayor said. “If Congress will not check this administration, then Chicago will.”