Chicagos

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday signed an executive order that demands President Donald Trump end “his threats to deploy the National Guard” to his city.

The “Protecting Chicago Initiative” is in response to a “credible threat” that troops will be deployed in a few days, and directs the city to pursue all legal and legislative avenues stop stop the deployment.

“I do not take this executive action lightly,” Johnson said during a signing in the mayor’s ceremonial office, said. “I would’ve preferred to work more collaboratively to pass legislation … but unfortunately we do not have the luxury of time. We have received credible reports that we have days, not weeks, before our city sees some kind of militarized activity by the federal government.”

In addition, the order affirms that Chicago police will remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency. Earlier this month, when Trump deployed troops to Washington, D.C., the Trump administration took over the police department.

“We do not want military checkpoints or armored vehicles on our streets and we do not want to see families ripped apart,” Johnson said. “We will take any action necessary to protect the rights of all Chicagoans.”

Federal law enforcement and U.S. Armed Forces in the order are told to abide by municipal laws, including not concealing their identities, using body cameras when interacting with a member of the public and displaying which agency they are with, including their last name and badge number.

“This executive order makes it emphatically clear this president is not going to come in and deputize our police department,” Johnson said. “We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want families ripped apart. … And I don’t take orders from the federal government.”

The Naval Station Great Lakes, about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago in North Chicago, confirmed that it is preparing to host federal immigration agents. The base, which is the largest military installation in the state, is planning to host more than 200 federal agents from Tuesday to Sept. 30.

Johnson has set Friday as the arrival date.

The Naval base is in Lake County, north of Cook County.

Esiah Campos, the county’s Board Commissioner and Navy corpsman who finished his training at Naval Station Great Lakes in 2020, urged state legislators Friday to ban law enforcement from using masks statewide. Also for Lake County mayors to reaffirm their commitment not to assist ICE.

“It hurts to see the base I drilled out of to house ICE and Homeland Security agents to terrorize our people,” Campos said at a Friday news conference with other legislators and community groups in North Chicago’s Veterans Memorial Park. “This is not a time for platitudes. Now is a time for action.”

Since 1985 Chicago has been a sanctuary city, which limits local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer has told Trump the federal response is not needed, considering crime has fallen significantly.

On Tuesday, he posted on X: “If Trump wants to get to Chicago, he’s going to have to go through us. And we’re not backing down.”

During a news conference in Chicago on Thursday, he said: “Donald Trump is exactly the kind of person that our founders warned us about. He cozies up to dictators like Putin because he idolizes them. His actions are dangerous and un-American.

Trump has said he would tackle crime next in Chicago after deploying personnel to the nation’s capital, which is a federal jurisdiction.

“We’re going to make our cities very, very safe,” Trump said on Aug. 22. “Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough.”

“No, Donald. You can’t do whatever you want,” the governor responded to the president on X.

Through late August, Chicago had 266 homicides in 2025, according to the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Midwest city is “about 25% below where they were in the first half of 2019,” Ernesto Lopez, a senior research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, told the Chicago Sun Times.

In 2024, there were 581 murders in Chicago with 621 in 2023 in a city of 2.7 million people.

The top homicide rate is in Memphis, Tenn., with 409 per 100,000 for a total of 372 in 2023. Chicago wasn’t even in the top 15 with 29.7 per 100,000.

The drop in homicides in Chicago from 2019 to 2025 was significantly larger than the national average.

Chicago’s highest concentrations of crime is in neighborhoods on the South and West sides, and not downtown.

The governor showed off parts of the city this week, including where crime dropped.

Pope Leo XIV is a huge Chicago White Sox fan.

It’s a good thing too — otherwise the event being thrown in his honor at the team’s home stadium this weekend might be a little awkward.

While the White Sox play the Rangers in Texas on Saturday afternoon, the Archdiocese of Chicago will be at Rate Field celebrating the new leader of the Catholic Church — who was born and raised on the city’s South Side — with a Mass by Chicago Archbishop Blase J. Cupich and other festivities.

While the man once known as Robert Prevost won’t be there in person, he will appear in what event organizers describe as “a video message from Pope Leo XIV to the young people of the world.”

Leo will also be represented in mural form. The White Sox unveiled a graphic installation featuring his likeness on a concourse wall before a May 19 game against the Seattle Mariners, less than two weeks after Leo was selected as the first U.S.-born pope. He replaced Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at age 88.

The Chicago White Sox have commemorated the fandom of Pope Leo XIV with a graphic installation at Rate Field.

(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

The graphic was installed next to Section 140, where Leo sat in Row 19, Seat 2 for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Houston Astros. As remarkable as it might sound, there is footage from Fox’s national broadcast of that Oct. 22, that shows the man then-known as Father Bob in the stands at the stadium then-known as U.S. Cellular Field.

Hosting a World Series game for the first time since 1959, the White Sox led by two runs with one out in the top of the ninth inning. Chicago closer Bobby Jenks had just thrown a 95-mph fastball past Houston’s Adam Everett for an 0-1 count and was preparing for his next pitch.

That’s when the camera panned to a nervous-looking Father Bob, who appears to be wearing a team jacket over a team jersey.

Viewers never got to see the future pope’s reaction to what happens next, but he must have been ecstatic as Jenks strikes out Everett in two more pitches for a 5-3 Chicago win. The White Sox would go on to sweep the Astros for their first World Series win since 1917.

“That was his thing. He liked to get out and go to a game once in a while,” Louis Prevost told the Chicago Tribune of his brother, the future pope. “Eat a hot dog. Have some pizza. Like any other guy in Chicago on the South Side.”

His favorite team may have fallen on harder times since then — the White Sox are an American League-worst 23-45 and 20.5 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers in the Central Division — but Leo is still willing to put his fandom on display for the world to see.

On Wednesday, he wore a White Sox hat along with his traditional papal cassock while blessing newly married couples in St. Peter’s Square outside the Vatican.

Kelly and Gary DeStefano, who live in Haverhill, Mass., and are Boston Red Sox fans, gave him the hat. Kelly DeStefano told Boston.com they were just trying to get the new pope’s attention.

“I just wanted to make sure everyone at home knew that we did not turn on our team,” she told Boston.com. “It was all in joke and good fun.”

Chicago White Sox fans dress up like fellow White Sox fan Pope Leo XIV to watch a game against the Cubs on May 17 at Wrigley Field.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

It worked, with Boston.com reporting that Leo gave the couple a good-natured ribbing once he found out where they are from.

“You’re going to get in trouble for this,” he told them, in a video of the meeting.

“Don’t tell anyone in Massachusetts,” Kelly DeStefano replied.

While Leo might be a little too busy to attend a game anytime soon, White Sox executive vice president, chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said last month that the pope is welcome to return to Rate Field whenever he wants.

“He has an open invite to throw out a first pitch,” Boyer said. “Heck, maybe we’ll let him get an at-bat.”