Trump Calls for Chicago Mayor and Illinois Governor to be Jailed

President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for jailing the mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois in an escalation of his extraordinary attacks on political opponents.

“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump posted on social media. “My goal is very simple. STOP CRIME IN AMERICA!”

Neither Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson nor Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

Trump’s call to imprison the two prominent opponents of his immigration crackdown comes as another high-profile political rival, former FBI Director James Comey, was due to appear in court to face criminal charges that have been widely criticised as flimsy.

Trump’s government has targeted Democratic-run cities around the nation for raids on migrants, often conducted by masked, plain clothes agents.

The crackdown fulfils a key promise made by Trump in his election victory last year, where he described the United States as under attack by waves of foreign “criminals”.

A parallel anti-crime campaign has been conducted by the military in the cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington.

Opponents describe the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and military deployments as a bid by Trump to assert authoritarian powers and to sow chaos by provoking a response.

There has been especially strong pushback in Chicago, a Democratic electoral stronghold, where 200 National Guard soldiers sent from Texas arrived late on Tuesday against the wishes of local leaders.

Mayor Johnson announced “ICE-free zones” where city-owned property would be declared off-limits to federal authorities.

Johnson accused Republicans of wanting “a rematch of the Civil War”.

“What we have going on right now is literally domestic terrorism in Chicago,” said Todd Blanche, the No 2 Justice Department official.

Illinois Governor Pritzker, seen as a potential Democratic candidate in the 2028 presidential election, has become one of Trump’s most fiery critics.

He has said he wants prosecutors to investigate the legality of ICE activities in Chicago, and says Trump is motivated by wanting to “punish his political enemies”.

Trump has faced other setbacks.

A federal judge in Oregon blocked Trump’s bid to deploy troops in Portland, saying his descriptions of an emergency there were false and that the US was a “nation of constitutional law, not martial law”.

Trump said he could invoke the rarely used Insurrection Act to force deployments of troops around the country if courts or local officials were “holding us up”.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found most Americans oppose the deployment of troops without an external threat.