On Monday, President Donald Trump said he plans to send law enforcement to more U.S. cities amidst the current federal lockdown on Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Ore.
Trump mentioned New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland as cities where federal agents should be deployed, noting that the cities’ mayors were all “liberal Democrats.”
Faith leaders in Chicago — a city with a large Black population totaling to about 30 percent according to the latest statistics from the United States Census Bureau — condemn Trump’s plan.
“Donald Trump’s threat to deploy federal officers to Chicago is a clear indication he is infected with COVID-1619, America’s oldest untreated disease, better known as racism,” Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, told Sojourners. “As a community, we will resist such unconstitutional action by any morally rooted means we deem necessary. We are a city of grit, grind and resistance, unafraid to speak truth to power; don’t get in the ring with people from the Chi if you don’t want to witness a community organized to
The Chicago Tribune reported that the Department of Homeland Security plans to deploy around 150 agents to the city this week after local police escalated a protest at the Christopher Columbus monument in Grant Park on Friday.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — well-known for blasting Trump on Twitter — objected to federal troops. After acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said he would send federal agents to U.S. cities “whether they like it or not,” Lightfoot appeared on the MSNBC show “The ReidOut.”
“Our democracy is at stake and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let anybody, even if their name is Mr. President, bring those kind of troops to our city and try to take off our residents,” Lightfoot said. “If they try it, I’m going to use every tool at my disposal to stop them. We’re not going to have tyranny in Chicago.”
Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, has been criticized for rejecting demands to defund the Chicago Police Department, which currently has a budget of $1.7 billion. On Tuesday, Lightfoot announced that Trump will not send “troops” to Chicago but will instead bolster federal agencies that work with the police and U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch, Jr. Chicago’s mayor welcomed the agents but warned that her administration will remain vigilant.
The city of Portland has been unconstitutionally occupied for the past week. Secret Homeland Security police forces used tear gas to defend federal buildings and took activists into custody without explanation as a crackdown on protests against police brutality and systematic racism.
State and local leaders in Oregon, as well as members of Congress, called for Trump to remove the forces after videos showed unidentified federal agents rounding up people and taking them away in black minivans.
“They grab a lot of people and jail the leaders. These are anarchists,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Despite national outcry over the tactics, Homeland Security officials on Monday said they would not back down or apologize.The state of Oregon and the American Civil Liberties Union have sued the Trump administration for unlawfully detaining residents.
“The tactics that the Trump administration are using on the streets of Portland are abhorrent,” the city’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, told CNN . “People are being literally scooped off the street into unmarked vans, rental cars, apparently. They are being denied probable cause. And they are denied due process. They don’t even know who’s pulling them into the vans. The people aren’t identifying themselves. And, as far as I can see, this is completely unconstitutional.”
Faith leaders in the locations Trump mentioned — all cities with historically large Black populations — have voiced concerns about their communities being turned into Portland.
In Philadelphia — 44 percent Black — Rev. Dr. Leslie Callahan of St.Paul’s Baptist Church told Sojourners that Trump’s administration has demonstrated an unwillingness and incompetence in providing federal coordination and assistance amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
“The fact that he is inventing occasions to deploy troops and divert resources reveals his fascist and authoritarian tendencies, and represents a pathetic attempt to make news to detract from his failures, which led to 150 thousand coronavirus deaths,” the pastor said. “We didn’t ask for a stunt. We didn’t ask for troops. We asked for PPE, testing capacity and a plan to suppress the virus. Since the President made it clear that he doesn’t care to govern, we’ll continue to work with our people for the well-being of our community.”
Rev. Dr. Mark Kelly Tyler, senior pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, said the country is “reaping what we’ve sown” when it comes to Trump’s foreign policy and treatment of immigrants. “We are seeing in real time the wisdom and warning of Dr. King that if we allow injustice to live in one place, it will ultimately also hunt us down in our own place,” Tyler said. “We must not allow this to continue. We must resist and continue to push back. We must stand in solidarity with protesters in Portland, in Chicago, and Louisville, all of whom are being mistreated right now.”
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