By Illinois Review
On Tuesday during a news conference at Chicago’s City Hall, embattled Mayor Brandon Johnson – who has an approval rating of just six percent – referred to President Donald Trump as a “terrorist” for threatening to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
“Trying to force your will to break the spirit of working people in order to have a conversation, that’s terrorism,” Johnson said to a group of reporters.
“We’re not going to negotiate with terrorists.”
Just days after taking office in January, President Trump authorized federal law enforcement agencies to conduct “targeted operations” in Chicago to root out and arrest dangerous migrants who were in the U.S. illegally and taking advantage of the city’s “sanctuary city” status.
President Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan and then-Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove were also spotted in Chicago in January for the operations – as well as television personality and psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw – who was documenting the raids as an outside observer.
During a brief break during the raids, McGraw posted a video of ICE agents arresting a “convicted sex offender and internet predator from Thailand” in Chicago – proving once again that the objective of this operation was to go after the bad guys.
In a recap of the day’s events, Homan called out Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, saying,
“This governor, Gov. Pritzker and the mayor – they want to vilify the men and women of ICE. ICE saved children today. ICE saved children today. And it makes me angry the other day Gov. Pritzker went on the internet – social media saying ‘ICE was attacking our elementary school.’ He’s scaring children. He’s scaring the neighborhood and putting fear in the community.”
Homan continued,
“We’re saving children. Every sexual predator that we arrest means more safe children. So God bless the men and women of ICE.”
In addition to the migrant crisis, Chicago’s crime rates remain high, and in 2023, the city maintained its status as America’s “murder capital.”
Last week, President Trump declared in a post on Truth Social that he was going to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, posting,
“No more Sanctuary Cities! They protect the Criminals, not the Victims. They are disgracing our Country, and are being mocked all over the World. Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!”
It’s estimated that over 25,000 migrants arrived in Chicago last year, costing taxpayers more than $400 million.
