Trump Threatens to Jail Chicago Mayor and Illinois Governor for Opposing His ICE Immigration Raids

Donald Trump has an obsession with the idea of jailing his political opponents. Most recently has threatened to jail Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. His pretext is the need to “protect” ICE agents, which reminds us that part of the purpose of ICE is to serve as Trump’s goon squad to intimidate and arrest opposition politicians.

The New York Times provides a summary:

President Trump said on Wednesday that Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago should be jailed, escalating his campaign of retribution against those he sees as his political foes.

Both Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Johnson are Democrats who have opposed Mr. Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the Chicago area and have criticized the aggressive way in which the Trump administration has carried out immigration raids. Mr. Johnson has signed an executive order to establish “ICE-free zones” in Chicago to prevent federal agents from staging operations.

“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.

Trump did not describe any crimes committed by his targets or any legal rationale for arresting them. We could write this off as meaningless bluster—except for the fact that Trump now has an established record of demanding that the Department of Justice prosecute his enemies without any legal basis or justification.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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