With federal agents reportedly set to use the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago as their jumping-off point for an upcoming blitz in Chicago, immigrant advocates gathered nearby Friday to urge people to prepare for the looming threat.

Leaders from Chicago, North Chicago and Lake County rejected President Donald Trump’s planned operation and argued Illinois’ legal safeguards provide a measure of protection and reassurance for immigrant communities.

“No tengan miedo, organícense,” said Carlos Alvarez, with Tierra and Libertad, a pro-immigrant group that provides resources to community members on the North Side of Chicago. “Don’t be afraid, but organize.”

And Grisell Rodriguez of Illinois Workers in Action said her group has been working to get rapid response teams ready to provide guidance and help to families that could be impacted by raids.

While details of the scale and scope remain uncertain, immigrant communities are bracing for an impact similar to Los Angeles earlier this summer, when there were large-scale raids on workplaces, and street vendors and day laborers were grabbed by federal agents.

“Stand with us and mobilize with us,” Rodriguez said, calling on elected officials and others to help spread of awareness of the potential raids and ways in which they can protect themselves.

Mayor Brandon Johnson decried Trump as inhumane Thursday evening following the reports of the major immigration sweep starting imminently.

Speaking at a North Side town hall, the mayor again warned it would be “unconstitutional” and “illegal” for the federal government to send troops to patrol the city’s streets and vowed to uphold Chicago’s longstanding sanctuary city policy for immigrants.

“The city of Chicago is emphatically clear that we do not want our streets occupied by federal troops,” Johnson said. “Unless there’s a warrant, these federal agents do not have the right and the authority to bullguard their way through our institutions, and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that we stand up to tyranny.”

The mayor’s comments were echoed in large part on Friday by Gov. JB Pritzker, who said “they’ve tried this before” to news about Trump’s apparent plans to send an influx of federal immigration agents to Chicago. Pritzker recalled how earlier this year U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents went on mass deportation missions in Chicago and let TV’s “Dr. Phil” tag along.

“I mean, is that a serious endeavor?” Pritzker said before an audience in an elementary school gymnasium in the south suburbs. “But it is a serious endeavor because they were literally scaring the heck out of people in Little Village, in Pilsen, and other places in the city of Chicago, in the state of Illinois. So, it is a very serious matter. But they apparently think this is some kind of reality TV show.”

The latest reports note that federal officials might be housed at the naval base in North Chicago, more than 35 miles north of downtown Chicago.

“And so the intentions here are clear, again, nothing to do with actually enforcing the law. Nothing to do with actually keeping the peace. They want to inflame something,” Pritzker said before alluding to reports in Los Angeles of federal agents with masks “grabbing people off the streets and throwing them in the back of a van.”

Pritzker said federal immigration agents, such as ICE agents, have a legal right to do their jobs in Chicago “but we don’t appreciate when they mistreat our residents, when they go after people who, many of whom have been here for decades, many of whom are taxpayers and workers.”

Pritzker also said he hasn’t heard from Washington about any intention of the federal government to send an influx of federal law enforcement or National Guardsmen to Chicago. He also made clear that he respects the work of the National Guard but that they’re trained for war, not civilian law enforcement duties.

“I know members of the National Guard. They don’t want to do law enforcement on the streets. This is not the job they signed up for when they went into the National Guard,” Pritzker said. “So if it happens that they end up here, we should all be respectful of them. They are following orders. That’s what they’re supposed to do. They can be court-martialed if they don’t follow orders.”

On Thursday evening, Johnson made his comments at a Rogers Park church hours after a New York Times article reported the White House was planning major immigration raids in Chicago that would entail staging more than 200 federal agents at the naval base. The team would begin touching down next Tuesday and stay for a month, per an internal memo cited by the news outlet.

For the past week, Trump’s shifting, but hostile, remarks threatening to send federal troops to Chicago next amid an ongoing, controversial deployment of about 2,000 National Guard members in Washington, D.C., have sent Illinois leaders into a frenzy. Thursday’s report confirming use of the Naval Station Great Lakes for immigration agents added further reason to believe the White House hopes to involve the military in a possible Chicago crackdown.

The mayor’s office also released a statement Thursday evening saying the possible operation was “deeply concerning” and resembled a similar strategy used in Los Angeles, where roiling protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were met with a military response.

“We reject any attempts that put Chicagoans in danger as a means of furthering the President’s political ends,” the Johnson statement read. “In the event of enhanced immigration enforcement in Chicago, we will continue to issue guidance to all City departments and ensure that Chicagoans know their rights.”

Earlier Thursday morning, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling told reporters he will not direct his officers to obstruct a potential federal crackdown on the streets but expressed hope that some communication with his department could lower tensions in a city already on edge. But he maintained Police Department protocol is hard to anticipate without communication from the National Guard or other military agencies, and that the situation could “change on a dime.”

Originally Published: August 29, 2025 at 2:15 PM CDT