Trump blurs lines between illegal immigration and crime in National Guard deployments: NPR
As President Trump pushes for National Guard troops to patrol America’s cities, his administration has effectively blurred the lines between traditional law enforcement and immigration enforcement.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump’s National Guard deployments have blurred the lines between criminal patrols and illegal immigration enforcement. Guard troops have been sent to help with immigration enforcement, including securing federal ICE facilities and, in some cases, protecting ICE agents during raids. The White House frequently refers to undocumented immigrants as drivers of urban lawlessness, even though data shows that is not true. Here to talk all that, NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán in Chicago and NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf in DC Hello, both of you.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hi.
SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: Sergio, let’s start with you. Keep us posted on what’s been happening on the ground in Chicago over the past few days.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Well, Ailsa, the National Guard is in Illinois. Specifically, the Texas National Guard has a presence in Illinois, alongside some federalized Illinois Guard. But you won’t see them on the streets of Chicago. That’s because a federal court temporarily blocked its deployment yesterday. Today, the only place troops have been sent in Illinois so far is an ICE processing plant outside Chicago. I went there and there wasn’t much going on.
CHANG: Okay.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Last month, ICE launched a new operation here in Chicago, saying it was needed to fight crime – something state and local leaders strongly deny. Chicago faces constant crime challenges, right? — but the city’s homicide rate this summer was the lowest since 1965. But that’s what Trump has done since he appeared on the political scene — deliberately conflated these ideas of crime and illegal immigration, which has proven popular with his base and helped build support for his unprecedented crackdown on immigrants — those in the country illegally and, in some cases, people who are residents Americans or have visas.
CHANG: Okay. Well, Kat, you’ve been following these various National Guard deployments or threats of deployment over the last few weeks.
LONSDORF: Yeah.
CHANG: Can you just talk about the broader pattern you see here?
LONSDORF: Yeah. I mean, Trump’s conflation of crime and illegal immigration has been at the center of many of these deployments. We first saw it in June, when Trump federalized the California National Guard against the wishes of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Trump did this to quell protests in Los Angeles in response to immigration and deportation raids in the city. Also in this case, the Guard was sent to protect federal facilities and personnel from ICE. And that’s the same reasoning Trump gave for federalizing the Guard in Oregon as well, even though the federal courts have stopped that move as well.
Experts we spoke with say these National Guard deployments and the administration’s immigration tactics are currently closely intertwined. This is Benjamin Farley of the National Immigration Law Center, who advocates for immigrants’ rights.
BENJAMIN FARLEY: Using an aggressive and rather heavy-handed approach to immigration control, generating a much-anticipated reaction, and then letting that reaction serve as a pretext for the deployment of armed forces.
LONSDORF: And, you know, legally speaking, when the National Guard is federalized, which is the case in all these Democratic states where the governors have been reluctant, it can’t enforce state laws unless the governors say so.
CHANG: That’s right. And let’s be very clear here. Even if the president says that these troops will help fight crime in these different places, remember that the National Guard cannot make arrests. They can’t, for example, partner with local law enforcement to fight crime, right?
LONSDORF: That’s true. But they can help enforce immigration laws even if they still can’t make arrests because it’s federal. Here’s how Scott R. Anderson of the nonpartisan Brookings Institution explained it.
SCOTT R ANDERSON: He’s trying to get them to agree to do a larger mission. But in the meantime, he’s focused on immigration law, because that’s what he has the legal authority to do.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: And Ailsa, there’s something else that’s important here. It was Texas Governor Greg Abbott who sent his National Guard troops to Illinois at Trump’s request. And the Texas Guard, unlike other guards in the state, has been involved in immigration operations. Abbott sent troops to the Texas-Mexico border to push back migrants as part of a multibillion-dollar effort called Operation Lone Star. I mean, there’s footage of soldiers using tear gas on a group of Venezuelan migrants at the border in 2024. So Texas guards have already done immigration-related work, and that could impact how they operate if they’re allowed to patrol the streets here in Illinois.
CHANG: But what about in places like Memphis, where the governor has approved the use of the National Guard, or in the case of Washington, D.C., where the guard is technically under the control of the president? How does all of this fit in here?
LONSDORF: Yes, in Washington, D.C. and Memphis, Trump sent various federal agencies and National Guard troops to fight crime. And federal law enforcement made numerous arrests in both locations, but a significant portion of them were immigration-related. I spoke with Maria Oceja. She’s in Memphis. She is a community organizer and immigration advocate there. She says that while others in the city may have focused on Trump’s message about fighting crime, immigrant communities were skeptical.
MARIA OCEJA: We’ve been following the messages that are coming from the White House, and so we’re not fooled by this language of “oh, we’re only going to Memphis to fight crime.”
LONSDORF: She says there’s been a lot of confusion and fear in the community there. The guard’s actual role in immigration control during these deployments remains unclear. Again, they cannot legally make arrests. In Washington DC, they mainly clean the streets and guard federal buildings.
CHANG: Okay. Well, Sergio, I know you’ve been talking to people in Chicago all week. What have you heard from them?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Yes. I mean, a lot of American-born residents tell us they’re angry. They don’t want the National Guard or federal immigration agents in their communities, particularly because their tactics have become more aggressive, leading to the arrest of some U.S. citizens. And for undocumented immigrants, the terror is real. I spoke to Jackson(ph), a Venezuelan immigrant who didn’t want us to use his last name because of his legal status.
JACKSON: (speaking Spanish).
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: He says it’s already scary and difficult to live in a city where you don’t know if the masked person stopping you is ICE or someone pretending to be. And with the National Guard in town, Jackson says it will be even worse.
CHANG: That’s NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltran in Chicago and Kat Lonsdorf in DC. Thank you both.
LONSDORF: Thank you, Ailsa.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRAN: You’re welcome.
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