Tensions between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the various sanctuary city governments against which it is constantly fighting have ratcheted up yet again as the agency and its federal allies crack down on the chaos and fraud in Minneapolis, and as it does that, it is feuding with other sanctuary city mayors who have used the events in their cities and Minneapolis to attack ICE.
Amongst those who have attacked ICE for its efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and other problems was Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who ridiculously blamed ICE and Border Patrol, led by Commander Gregory Bovino, for Chicago experiencing yet another crime filled summer.
As background, a recent analysis found that the summer of 2025 was Chicago’s safest summer in six decades, with “only” 123 murders occurring between June and August of 2025. However, while homicide was down in Chicago as in other cities, the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab found that Chicago still saw elevated levels of violent crime to other cities globally.
Johnson took the opportunity to blame the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the elevated crime, claiming that Chicago was on the right track until DHS started “Operation Midway Blitz” around the first week of September, arguing that it led to an increase in the crime rate.
Specifically, as Fox News Digital reported, Mayor Johnson insisted that Chicago was doing great and that ICE was responsible for the city’s elevated crime rate, saying, “Chicago had the safest summer since 1965 before Bovino stepped foot in our city. Where ICE was most active, crime went up.”
Firing back at Mayor Johnson in a statement on the matter to Fox News Digital, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin went nuclear on him, declaring that the sanctuary city mayor is continuing to “demonize our law enforcement, who are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them.”
Further, she noted that the sanctuary city of Chicago has allowed chaos and anarchy to disrupt ICE operations in the city, whereas other jurisdictions have been exceedingly helpful. She snapped, “The danger and violence our law enforcement has faced in sanctuary cities like Chicago, compared to jurisdictions like Florida, is night and day.”
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Still not done, she further noted that Mayor Johnson and other sanctuary city officials are empowering the worst sorts of people, snapping, “He should turn down the rhetoric and work with DHS to prevent more innocent American deaths at the hands of gang members, murderers, drug traffickers, and r*pists who have no right to be in this country.”
That wasn’t all. CNN analyst David Axelrod, trying to attack DHS as well and back up Mayor Johnson in a post on X, said, “In Chicago, the trail of misrepresentations by DHS was so long, an exasperated federal judge declared ‘it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything’ they represent as fact. That pattern continues in Minneapolis.”
Commander Bovino, skewering him in response, snapped, referencing the matter of crime broached by Mayor Johnson and the woke journalist, “The double digit decreases in violent crime in Chicago speak the truth your after. Taking violent illegal aliens off the streets by the thousands seems to bother those who choose illegal aliens over American citizens.”
Watch Mayor Johnson attack Commander Bovino here:
Featured image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti-ICE_protest_at_the_Broadview_USCIS_Processing_Center_9_19_2025_20250919_4089_(54797754952).jpg