Earlier this week throughout a speech to army leaders at a summit in Quantico, Va., President Trump declared his intention to make use of Democratic-run cities as “training grounds” for U.S. troops.
“San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe locations. And we’re going to straighten them out one after the other,” Trump stated. “That is going to be a significant half for among the folks on this room. That’s a conflict too. It’s a conflict from inside.”
This comes as no shock to these of us representing American cities — Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Chicago — who’re already being terrorized by federal armed forces patrolling our streets. Final month, a federal decide reaffirmed what we already know: Setting the military on American cities is a violation of the legal guidelines of this nation and the rights of its folks. And but, whether or not they’ve come within the type of an armed Nationwide Guard or masked ICE brokers, the assaults on our cities and the rights of our residents have continued.
Trump claims these actions are obligatory within the title of public security. Nonetheless, his justification, like so lots of the president’s statements, is a lie. In every of the three cities we characterize, crime has dropped dramatically inside the previous 12 months: Los Angeles is trending toward its lowest homicide rate in 60 years; violent crime in Washington is lower than it has been in decades; and Chicago noticed a 40% decline in shootings within the first half of 2025, whereas violent crime rates overall have dropped to their lowest point in a decade.
This isn’t the primary time Trump has hidden behind the lie of public security to pursue illegal and un-American actions in opposition to our folks. Regardless of his claims that the Division of Homeland Safety is rooting out violent criminals, its personal information exhibits that immigrants with no criminal record now represent the largest group in ICE detention.
These of us who’ve been on the bottom, preventing for and alongside our neighbors, have seen the impacts of this xenophobic and un-American agenda firsthand. We’ve been on the entrance strains as these with deep group ties and no prison backgrounds are arrested and rounded up, shoved into vans in entrance of their households. We’ve seen officers goal majority-Black and brown neighborhoods with racial profiling so egregious that one D.C. Justice of the Peace decide known as one unconstitutional motion “the most illegal search I have ever seen in my life.”
In Chicago, ICE’s concentrating on of Latino residents has stretched from Michigan Avenue to the western suburbs together with Franklin Park, the place their reckless techniques led to the dying of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez.
These folks weren’t a risk to our cities; a lot of them have been pillars of our communities. What’s a risk to us is a president with aspirations of dictatorship, who willfully disregards due course of and the suitable of states and cities to manipulate themselves.
Now we have seen to this point that Congress will do nothing to curb the excesses and abuses of this administration. So it’s left to us, as cities and states, to guard our personal. Throughout this time when our rights and norms are being frequently violated, we should set up new norms, of working collectively throughout metropolis and state strains to reassert our rights and shield our neighbors.
In our cities, now we have already begun this work. Los Angeles residents are exercising their rights by monitoring ICE brokers as they leave hotels and staging areas, so we all know the place they’re patrolling and who they’re concentrating on. In D.C., we’re demanding that Mayor Muriel Bowser abandon the failed strategy of appeasement, whereas additionally supporting tons of of hyper-local, community-led fast response networks. In Chicago, we’ve partnered with neighborhood fast response networks and group organizations to arrange Know Your Rights campaigns so efficient that border czar Tom Homan complained that our residents are making ICE brokers’ jobs troublesome by being “too educated” on their rights underneath the regulation.
And all three of our cities are working with one another, alongside counterparts in different cities now threatened by Trump — most just lately Portland — to share finest practices and methods for the way we will extra successfully resist this federal intrusion on our cities and on our rights as People.
As native elected officers, we will’t depend on the outdated playbook to satisfy this second — we have to struggle with each software now we have, and create new ones. We should drive extra folks to hitch fast response networks in our communities to guard our neighbors from being arrested or disappeared with out due course of. We should diminish the surveillance infrastructure from our cities that share information with ICE and different federal counterparts. We should present as much as accompany constituents to immigration court docket. We should urge our mayors and governors to steadiness our budgets with out eradicating vital help to our immigrant neighbors. And we should strategize round all of those efforts with native governments and group organizations throughout the nation, in order that we will most successfully struggle the intrusion of the federal authorities on our proper to manipulate ourselves.
Throughout a time when our norms and rights are underneath assault, native governments can’t fall again on our normal method of doing issues: Now we have to ascertain new norms. Within the absence of motion from Congress, it’s as much as native communities to strengthen the constitutional rights of our folks and to do the whole lot we will to withstand the erosion of these rights.
Hugo Soto-Martínez represents the thirteenth District on the Los Angeles Metropolis Council and is chair of its committee on civil rights and immigration. Andre Vasquez is alderperson of the fortieth Ward and chair of Chicago’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Janeese Lewis George represents Ward 4 as D.C. Councilmember.
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Concepts expressed within the piece
The authors argue that Trump’s declaration to make use of Democratic-run cities as army “coaching grounds” constitutes an unlawful and unconstitutional violation of federal regulation and residents’ rights. They contend {that a} federal decide has already dominated such army deployment in opposition to American cities illegal, but the administration continues these actions by armed Nationwide Guard and ICE brokers patrolling their streets.
The authors assert that Trump’s public security justification is essentially dishonest, pointing to dramatic crime reductions of their represented cities: Los Angeles trending towards its lowest murder fee in 60 years, Washington D.C. experiencing violent crime charges decrease than seen in many years, and Chicago witnessing a 40% decline in shootings with total violent crime at decade-low ranges. They preserve that federal enforcement actions primarily goal immigrants with out prison information fairly than addressing respectable public security considerations.
The authors characterize Trump as having dictatorial aspirations who willfully disregards due course of and the constitutional proper of states and cities to manipulate themselves. They argue that ICE operations make use of racial profiling so extreme that one D.C. Justice of the Peace decide known as it “essentially the most unlawful search I’ve ever seen,” whereas concentrating on group pillars fairly than real threats. With Congress failing to verify administrative excesses, the authors advocate for cities and states to ascertain new resistance norms by fast response networks, ICE monitoring, Know Your Rights campaigns, and inter-city coordination to guard residents and reassert native governance rights.
Completely different views on the subject
Speaker Mike Johnson defended Trump’s army deployment feedback as being “cherry-picked out of a protracted speech,” arguing that they exhibit the president’s capacity to “take crime critically” and noting that Trump has “cleaned up the crime downside” in Washington, D.C. after mobilizing the D.C. Nationwide Guard[1]. Johnson emphasised his concentrate on working the Home of Representatives fairly than Pentagon operations when pressed about army deployment appropriateness[1].
Authorized consultants and Trump administration officers argue that the deployments depend on respectable federal authority by an esoteric subsection of federal regulation that allows the president to federalize troops over state authorities objections in sure restricted circumstances[2]. The ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals has discovered that judges have to be “extremely deferential” to the president’s interpretation of details on the bottom relating to such deployments[2].
Trump defended his strategy by citing historic precedent, stating that “George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, George Bush and others all used the armed forces to maintain home order and peace”[2]. The administration maintains that Democratic-run cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco are “very unsafe locations” requiring federal intervention to “straighten them out one after the other”[1][2]. Protection officers have positioned these actions inside authorized frameworks for safeguarding federal buildings and workers, just like earlier California deployments[1].
