Johnson, Pritzker Untethered form Reality; Chicago Wants ICE

The political truism that citizens get the government they deserve is on full display in Chicago. Interpreted, the truism means that voters choose their leaders, and if conditions do not turn out as they had hoped, they should have been more cautious before casting their ballots.

Before Chicago elected Brandon Johnson, Windy City residents felt relief that, after four tumultuous years, the deeply unpopular Lori Lightfoot would be out of office. Lightfoot faced searing criticism about rising crime rates and her inept handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The incumbent was so disliked that she lost her 2023 re-nomination bid. No one could possibly have imagined that her replacement, Johnson, would be less effective and less popular, currently polling at about 6% favorability, while being actively and unabashedly pro-crime.

Last month, Johnson shocked residents with his alarming statement: "The fact of the matter is, we are driving violence down in this city, and we're using every single resource that's available to us. Jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities."

Johnson lied; Chicago violence is not down. During the weekend of October 3–October 5, over a three-day span in Chicago, the grim results included 29 gunshot casualties and four murders, according to the city's police department. The victims include a 16-year-old with a gunshot wound from a drive-by shooting, a 62-year-old man and 23-year-old woman both shot in the legs while sitting in a garage, and a 33-year-old man shot twice in the chest by an unidentified male after an argument. The victim died from his injuries. To date, no arrests have been made.

The ominous weekend statistics come as crime spikes higher and Johnson goes further off the rails. Through 2024, 573 Chicagoans were gun violence victims; in 2025, exclusive of self-defense killings, 331 people have been slain, mostly young, black, and male.

But the list of Johnson's failures is as long as his arm—whether it's axing ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection system that uses acoustic sensor microphones placed in designated areas to identify and locate gunfire and notify police within 60 seconds, and doing it so ineptly it cost the city millions of dollars; his preposterous symbolic vote that called for an immediate Gaza cease-fire, a feeble public relations effort that as mayor of a Midwestern American city is far outside his responsibility; or creating a $4.1 million "slave reparations" task force into the Land of Lincoln.

Johnson's latest fiasco has confounded not only Chicago but the legal community nationwide. Recently, Johnson signed a ridiculous executive order creating "ICE-Free Zones" to ban federal agents from using city-owned property and the property of unwilling private owners as staging areas for immigration enforcement. The federal government has its own jurisdictional authority and can enter city and private property in pursuit of lawful operations. In terms of "staging" operations, the Constitution, not Johnson, protects citizens from having their property seized or used for quartering troops.

Most importantly, the City of Chicago cannot arrest federal officers who are conducting legitimate operations, a point that Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling noted when he said that CPD officers will not arrest federal law enforcement just "because someone deems what they are doing is illegal." Legalities are unimportant to Johnson, who said, "We're going to see people in court. As far as other authority that allows us to be able to enforce this ordinance, we're exploring."

The federal government has the right to enforce immigration laws and to deport illegal aliens, a crystal-clear legal fact. Congress passed such laws, and if politicians like Johnson and Governor J.B. Pritzker oppose them, they can seek to rescind deportation laws through Congress—democracy as it is truly defined.

Johnson should take a break from his chest-pounding bravado to speak with Chicago's black residents. Most expressed outrage that Johnson stood idly by as Antifa and other local thugs attacked federal officials. As black residents applauded ICE officers as they went about their jobs removing criminals from the city , the officials responded, "We work for you," a statement neither the delusional Johnson nor Pritzker can honestly make.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org