{"id":213220,"date":"2025-09-09T16:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213220\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T16:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:11:10","slug":"chicago-faith-leaders-speak-out-against-idea-sending-federal-troops-to-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213220\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago faith leaders speak out against idea sending federal troops to city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faith leaders gathered on Chicago’s West Side Tuesday morning to speak in opposition of the possible deployment of federal troops<\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramps up immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has said National Guard troops could also be coming soon.<\/p>\n

It is suggestion to which some pastors, rabbis, and other faith leaders are strongly opposed. They stated as much on Monday morning at the Columbus Park Refectory, at 5701 W. Jackson Blvd. in Columbus Park in Chicago’s South Austin neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Pastor Cy Fields said deploying troops in Chicago would be a violation of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

“We believe that that’s not how you solve problems, by being a military bully in the city of Chicago,” he said.<\/p>\n

Fields also expressed concern that any kind of use of federal troops to fight crime would target Black and brown neighborhoods \u2014 where there is already a long history of abuses of power by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

“Send resources,” he said. “Why troops? We need that a lot more than we need troops on the ground.”<\/p>\n

Rabbi Max Weiss of Oak Park Temple said troops are trained for war, and are supposed to represent American interests abroad and protect the country.<\/p>\n

“What are we doing here?” Weiss said. “We’re trying to send troops into Chicago to protect Americans from Americans?”<\/p>\n

Dr. Walter McCray, pastor of the Greater Union Baptist Church, likewise said sending troops into Chicago would be a crime.<\/p>\n

“You don’t solve crime by doing a crime. It will be shown that it is unconstitutional,” McCray said. “What Trump is doing is bypassing the governors of state who have the authority to invite the National Guard in to help out in local situations \u2014 Trump has violated that. What is going on these days is anti-democracy.”<\/p>\n

David Cherry, president of The Leaders Network, took President Trump to task for a social media post that appeared to\u00a0threaten to send troops to Chicago for a widespread immigration crackdown.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a\u00a0post on Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday, the president shared a screenshot<\/a> that reads “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning …’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The AI-generated image appears to parody the movie “Apocalypse Now.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“To target this city, to put out a statement saying that Chicago is about to find out what ‘Department of War’ means?” said Cherry. “It’s outrageous to have an American president threaten fellow Americans in such a manner.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, border czar Tom Homan claimed the president’s words “are being taken out of context.”<\/p>\n

“When I say we’re going to war, we’re going to war the criminal cartels. We’re going to war with illegal aliens, public safety threats that rape children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans,” Homan told CNN on “State of the Union” on Sunday. “<\/p>\n

Talk of sending National Guard troops to Chicago has been in the headlines for more than two weeks, but the Trump administration has gone back and forth on the issue.<\/p>\n

Last week, Vice President JD Vance said the federal government had “no immediate plans”<\/a> to send National Guard forces to Chicago. The day before, President Trump told reporters<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday that “we’re going in” to Chicago, but “I didn’t say when.” <\/p>\n

The comments came weeks after Mr. Trump deployed Guard forces to the streets of Washington, D.C., as part of a controversial anti-crime push, and suggested during that time that Chicago could be next.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Trump administration has launched an immigration crackdown involving ICE agents. The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that it was moving forward with an effort dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.<\/p>\n

“This ICE operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American Streets,” the department said in a statement Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the operation “will target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago.”<\/p>\n

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city “received no notice of any enhanced immigration action” ahead of the announcement.<\/p>\n

Adam Harrington<\/a><\/p>\n

Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS Chicago, where he first arrived in January 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faith leaders gathered on Chicago’s West Side Tuesday morning to speak in opposition of the possible deployment of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":213221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,69,5386,1818,31297,54380,2065,8437],"class_list":{"0":"post-213220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-national-guard-of-the-united-states","13":"tag-south-austin","14":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","15":"tag-west-side"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115175219865789892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}