Chicago organizers say city needs support, not politicalization by Trump: ‘This is not a serious solution’

 

 

For months, Donald Trump and his administration have cited violent crime to justify expanding ICE operations and threatening to deploy the National Guard in so-called “blue cities” — first Los Angeles, then Washington, D.C., and most recently Chicago.

But people who work daily to reduce violence say these tactics miss the root issues. They worry that more law enforcement only intensifies surveillance and harassment in neighborhoods already overpoliced.

“He doesn't mean well for our community,” says Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, a nonprofit serving those most at risk of being shot or shooting someone themselves. “Yes, there’s a lot of violence, and it’s because of decades of policy failures. If you want to go after violence, invest in cities — don’t just send in the National Guard.”

Gross has spent more than 30 years in violence prevention. Over time, he’s heard many Chicagoans call for more police or even National Guard deployment — driven by desperation over years of violence and poverty that seem unaddressed under both Republican and Democratic administrations. But Gross argues that such displays of force are not solutions. “We deal with grief daily. We see death daily. This is not a serious solution.”

Last year, Chicago recorded 574 homicides, mostly from gunshots — a rate of roughly 17 per 100,000 people. That’s lower than many cities in red states: for example, Birmingham, Alabama and Shreveport, Louisiana had rates of about 59 and 41 per 100,000, respectively. Yet Chicago’s high profile in media coverage is being used to normalize military-style force and increased law enforcement in areas already heavily policed and watched, warns Ethan Ucker of Stick Talk, a nonprofit that works with youth gun carrying through a harm reduction approach.

“Those narratives are strategically deployed to justify state violence,” Ucker said. “I worry criminalization is accelerating. But that won’t stop when the National Guard leaves. It’s ongoing.”

Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, leader of Live Free Illinois, a coalition of faith-based organizations pushing for criminal justice reform and compassionate public safety, argues that if President Trump really wanted to reduce harm, there would be emphasis on improving crime clearance rates, investing in victim support, and tightening control over gun trafficking.

“We’ve asked for more community-based resources,” she said. “We’ve asked for better clearance rates. Completely ignoring those is immoral and not about protecting citizens.”

Bates-Chamberlain, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side and has spent over ten years work­ing in violence prevention, acknowledges that there can be more than one truth in the conversation on crime. While Chicago’s leadership reports a more than 30% drop in homicides so far in 2025, there were still nearly 200 people killed by the end of June — plus many more wounded.

“The numbers are down, yet communities are still feeling the impact,” she notes.

But sending more law enforcement into the streets won’t heal the grief, the trauma, or the systemic neglect.

“He’s politicizing our pain, and that is both diabolical and despicable for the president of the United States to do,” she concludes. “This is really harmful.”