Aug. 27 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump's threat to send federal agents to Chicago ostensibly to fight crime is moving forward with agents arriving Sept. 2, and Chicagoans are speaking out for and against the move.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be housed at Naval Station Great Lakes near North Chicago from Sept. 2-30, according to an email Monday from Navy Capt. Stephen Yargosz to his leadership team, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
"These operations are similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer. Same DHS team," wrote Yargosz, the commanding officer of Naval Station Great Lakes. "... This morning I received a call that there is the potential to also support National Guard units. Not many details on this right now. Mainly a lot of concerns and questions," the paper reported the email said.
Though the president has been threatening to send National Guard troops to the Windy City, saying, "I have the right to do anything I want," experts have said that federal troops are not legally allowed to act as police.
"He doesn't have the authority under the law to send in the Guard, a federalized Guard, to perform law enforcement duty," said retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Richard Hayes, former adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard to CBS News.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker responded to the president on X, "No, Donald. You can't do whatever you want."
But Chicago businessman and former mayoral candidate Dr. Willie Wilson has urged Trump to send the National Guard to Chicago. He said communities on the city's south and west sides are "under siege" from shootings, assaults, and robberies. He mentioned last weekend's reported 27 people shot, six of them killed.
"We must do something different to save lives," Wilson said in a statement. "I disagree with President Trump on a number of issues, but on bringing the National Guard in to save lives we agree."
Immigrant advocacy activists stood together at Federal Plaza in Chicago saying deploying troops would intimidate residents and create fear, not safety, CBS News reported.
"Chicago is going to be clear to this president, who tries to identify ways to be able to silence us, to silence dissent. But the attacks on Chicago and Illinois are not about safety and security, we know that. They're about trying to terrorize the resistance," U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., said.
Like Washington, D.C., where Trump has already deployed agents and troops, crime in Chicago has dropped in recent years, the Chicago Tribune reported. Crime spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, but is now dropping for the fourth consecutive year, which mirrors a national crime decline.
Through late August, Chicago had 266 homicides in 2025, according to the Chicago Police Department, the Tribune reported. That's a 32% decline from the same period in 2024. Total shooting incidents are down 36%. Reports of robberies, batteries, burglaries and car thefts are all down by double-digit percentages.
Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other Democrats are pushing back, promising to fight the move in court.
"This is not about fighting crime," Pritzker said. "This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals."
Northwestern University Professor Paul Gowder, who studies constitutional law, said the federal government doesn't have the authority to fight local crime.
"The federal government just doesn't have the power to go running around making criminal law for day-to-day street crime in the states," he said. "Fundamentally, the structure of federalism that we have allocates day-to-day crime control to the states. Not to the federal government. Full stop.
"This idea that it's the job of the federal government to step in if states decline to control carjackings or whatever is just not how our constitution works," Gowder said. "This is not squishy liberal stuff here."