Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois has a message for President Trump: Keep the military out of Chicago.
Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, stood alongside the Chicago River on Monday afternoon, flanked by Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, pastors, business leaders and community organizers, to push back on Mr. Trump’s offhand declaration that he would send the military into the city, as he had done in Los Angeles and Washington.
“Calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification,” Mr. Pritzker said.
“Look around you right now,” he said, gesturing to pedestrians strolling on the city’s popular riverwalk and the “L” trains rumbling nearby. “Does this look like an emergency?”
Mr. Pritzker added that eight of the 10 states with the highest homicide rates were led by Republicans.
Responding to his remarks, Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, wrote in an email: “If these Democrats spent half as much time addressing crime in their cities as they did going on cable news to complain about President Trump, their residents would be a lot safer.”
On Friday, Mr. Trump said that he planned to target Chicago and New York for his next federal crackdown on crime, calling Chicago “a mess” and suggesting he was willing to use active-duty troops on city streets.
“We’ll straighten that one out,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “I think Chicago will be our next, and then we’ll help with New York.”
The alarm of city officials could be seen in the rare assembly of elected officials alongside Mr. Pritzker.
At the lectern, Mayor Johnson noted Chicago’s progress in reducing crime, saying that Chicago does not rank among the top 25 most dangerous cities in the country.
And the officials pointed out the politics behind Mr. Trump’s choices.
“We are being targeted because of what and who we represent,” Mr. Johnson said, nodding to Chicago’s racial diversity and left-leaning politics. “As the mayor of this city, I can tell you that Chicagoans are not calling for military occupation.”
It is uncertain whether Mr. Trump will actually take concrete steps to send National Guard troops into Chicago. When he did so in Los Angeles in June, he made rare use of federal powers in response to clashes over an immigration crackdown in the city. A specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
Mr. Trump could activate the National Guard in Chicago using a mechanism similar to the one he used in Los Angeles, which was upheld in the courts.
But Chicago is not in the midst of any civil unrest or protests. Violent crime rose during the pandemic but has plummeted since then. Murders are down 50 percent since 2021, and in the last year, crime has fallen in nearly every major category tracked by the Chicago Police Department.
In Illinois, the state’s National Guard forces have never been federalized for an in-state response, except at the governor’s request. In most situations, governors control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states.
Mr. Trump could send more federal law enforcement officers to Chicago from the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration or other agencies.
He could also invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military personnel for civilian law enforcement, but it is not clear what justification he could offer for such an extreme move. The act gives the president the power to send military forces to states to quell widespread public unrest and to support civilian law enforcement agencies.
In Illinois, the National Guard was activated by the governor during the pandemic, when protests, rioting and looting occurred in Chicago and other cities. National Guard troops helped law enforcement officers stop rioting and protect property.
Chicago has been a particular obsession and target of Mr. Trump, who frequently insults the city’s Democratic mayors and suggests that it is wildly crime-ridden and dangerous.
His threat to send the American military into its streets was met with mockery by many Chicagoans, who responded on social media with videos of the city in late-summer splendor, with people strolling through downtown streets, watching baseball at Wrigley Field and riding bicycles and playing volleyball on the lakefront.