In an exclusive interview, a Chicago priest and longtime social justice advocate who has spent years confronting gang-related gun violence is pushing back on the Trump administration’s portrayal of the city — and warning that residents pushed to desperation may feel driven toward what he calls a “bloody revolution.”
Scores of Chicago residents have voiced anger over the Trump administration’s depiction of their city as a chaotic war zone and have fiercely opposed its aggressive approaches on crime and immigration.
Top Illinois officials, including Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to militarize Chicago and rejected his claims that the city is overwhelmed by violence, noting that crime has trended downward in recent years. The dispute has fueled a sustained clash between the administration and state leaders, which intensified after Trump threatened to jail both Pritzker and Johnson.
In late August, Johnson signed a preemptive executive order aimed at blocking any potential deployment of federal troops to Chicago, declaring, “We do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city.”
Trump eventually followed through in October, escalating tensions after a wave of increasingly confrontational anti-ICE demonstrations at Chicago’s Broadview ICE facility and other locations in the city. Those protests drew hundreds of demonstrators, and several dozen people have been arrested or injured amid clashes with police that activists say involved tear gas, pepperballs and other crowd-control weapons.
The confrontations have unfolded alongside a surge in ICE raids across the heavily immigrant city under Operation Midway Blitz. Roughly 300 Illinois National Guard members remain stationed in Chicago while legal battles continue over Trump’s authority to deploy them.
Among the most prominent local critics of the administration’s approach is Rev. Michael L. Pfleger, leader of one of Chicago’s largest Catholic congregations, The Faith Community of Saint Sabina.
Pfleger, a high-profile community organizer and anti-violence advocate, went viral after publicly condemning Trump’s decision to send troops to Chicago in October, turning the focus back on the administration and arguing that its policies — rather than solving the problem — are helping fuel the very violence it claims to be fighting.
