President Donald Trump bills his deployment of the National Guard as an attack on rampant crime in lawless Democrat-run cities. But the White House’s decision to push the legal limits of the president’s power also has a lot to do with immigration.
The effort to blur the lines between policing, the military and immigration enforcement in cities from Los Angeles to Washington serves dual purposes for the administration, according to former and current administration officials, people close to the White House and legal experts.
The additional law enforcement serves as a force multiplier for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and allows Trump and Republicans to reiterate talking points around crime and illegal immigration — issues the president has long conflated and plans to carry through the midterms.
“They’re not doing this willy-nilly. It was kind of a test pilot in both LA and D.C. And now they’re going to take it national,” said a person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking. “There’s no doubt in my mind, it’s a winning issue for folks.”
In Los Angeles, it was widespread immigration raids that spurred unrest and protests, leading to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to a Democratic-led city. The National Guard’s presence in Washington in recent weeks — which presaged the president’s nationwide crime messaging blitz — has come with increased cooperation between DC police and federal immigration authorities, with ICE agents joining police patrols. And as Trump has floated new cities for his crime clampdown — from Chicago to New Orleans — the administration is planning to “flood” those so-called sanctuary cities with immigration agents.
Border czar Tom Homan told reporters at the White House Wednesday that Trump’s focus on New Orleans crime was also about immigration enforcement.
“The president said weeks ago, I said weeks ago, that with sanctuary cities, how are we going to address it?” Homan said. “We’re going to flood the zone.”
The law-and-order crackdown comes as the White House continues to press for higher arrest and deportation numbers, with ICE falling short of its 3,000 daily arrests quota. Even with the billions of dollars from the GOP’s policy and tax legislation to boost immigration enforcement, the administration faces a number of challenges in ramping up its deportation efforts and quickly deploying the funds to increase detention capacity and hire more ICE agents.
“They’ve figured out how to get both of their theater acts at the same time,” said a former ICE official who worked during the Biden administration. “The law and order, where the president has always been strong in his polling. And then also they’re answering the mail on immigration enforcement. It’s all being blended together. You have this two-part act where both of these things are ongoing at the same time, augmenting each other.”
A White House official said the president’s immigration agenda and his crime crackdown are separate priorities. The president’s strategy in Washington is focused on addressing violent crime and broader beautification, with the official adding that “part of this is ensuring compliance with federal immigration law, which fits in with the president’s law and order agenda.”
The official said undocumented immigrants arrested in Washington were detained while committing other crimes, and that “ongoing immigration enforcement in sanctuary cities and elsewhere should not be conflated with the president’s efforts to address violent crime.”
“While addressing violent crime means rooting out the dangerous criminal illegal aliens in sanctuary cities it also means arresting all violent criminals regardless of if they’re an illegal alien or an American citizen or somewhere in between,” the official said.
The potential enforcement surges in major cities across the U.S. could bolster ICE ranks by a yet-to-be-determined amount in areas with large populations of undocumented immigrants, while providing the visuals the White House can tout to excite the base, the former Biden administration official said. As Trump talks about targeting Chicago for crime, his administration has planned to ramp up immigration enforcement in the city. They’re also planning crackdowns in other cities, including Boston and New Orleans.
“Everything is still: flood the zone. Show of force. Piss people off, get them to riot and then send in the National Guard,” said an administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the strategy.
That’s the playbook the Trump administration used in Los Angeles. And if immigration enforcement in other blue cities spurs clashes with local officials and residents, the president could then deploy the National Guard to protect ICE officers or federal property — though it’s expected that any move to do so would be met with legal challenges similar to California’s.
“Immigration enforcement seems like the tip of the spear that can pull on a much larger military presence on American streets,” said Michael Kagan, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Immigration Clinic. “And immigration is like the Trojan horse that lets that in a city. That becomes the hook — they can say, ‘Oh, they’re just protecting an ICE operation.’”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has already decried plans for increased ICE raids, warning that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is planning to target Chicago this month “because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day” on Sept. 16. He said such efforts are about “terror and cruelty,” not the “safety” of Chicagoans.
The governor also said the president is looking for states where the governor is willing to call out the National Guard so it “can look like he’s getting something done.”
Trump suggested Wednesday that he may deploy the National Guard to New Orleans before Chicago. The city is also on the Justice Department’s sanctuary city list, which Trump officials in recent weeks have threatened to target.
“We are making a determination now: Do we go to Chicago? Or do we go to a place like New Orleans where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that has become quite — quite tough, quite bad.” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “You have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in two weeks, easier than D.C.”
Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
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