US border czar confirms imminent federal operations in sanctuary cities, including Chicago

ISTANBUL

US border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that federal authorities will carry out operations in the near future in numerous sanctuary jurisdictions – places where local laws tend to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation or prosecution, despite US federal law – with Chicago facing action as early as this week.

Questioned whether the city of Chicago should anticipate enforcement activity this week, Homan told CNN: "Absolutely."

“You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country," he said.

He stressed that non-cooperative jurisdictions constitute primary targets because they "knowingly release illegal-alien public safety threats" instead of collaborating with federal agencies.

The Trump administration has equated undocumented immigrants with public safety threats – gang members, “the worst of the worst” – but his immigration crackdown has faced strong opposition as most of the people detained do not appear to have criminal records, with some having lived in the US for many years or even decades.

Homan said that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker received notice on the administration's activities in Chicago – the state’s largest city – since "day one."

"He knows we've been there. He's failed to work with us," Homan said.

Homan's statements follow heated confrontations between Trump and Democratic officials. Pritzker responded Saturday after Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social referencing the Vietnam war movie Apocalypse Now with a message stating "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."

He also used a famous line from the movie, saying, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” with “deportations” replacing the original reference to an explosive: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

"The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man," wrote Pritzker on US social media company X.

But Trump on Sunday said, "We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our cities," seemingly trying to walk back some of his bellicose rhetoric from a day earlier.