AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman in New York. Juan González is in Chicago.

President Trump signed an executive order Monday that would establish “specialized” National Guard units to be quickly deployed in Washington, D.C., and all 50 states. Under the order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will oversee the National Guard assisting local law enforcement in, quote, “quelling civil disturbances,” unquote.

The move comes weeks after Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, where district crime rate was already at its lowest level in decades. Trump’s also threatened to send troops to, oh, New York, Baltimore, Chicago and other cities. This is President Trump.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I made the statement that next should be Chicago, because, as you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now. And they don’t acknowledge it. And they say, “We don’t need him. Freedom. Freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.” A lot of people are saying, “Maybe we like a dictator.” I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker responded to Trump Monday at a news conference, surrounded by state and local officials and business and community leaders.

GOV. JB PRITZKER: Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, “Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?” Instead, I say: Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy. Most alarming, you seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander-in-chief for the members of the military that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever more alarming grabs for power.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Illinois Governor JB Pritzker speaking Monday.

For more, we go to Chicago, where we’re joined by Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who represents Chicago’s 25th Ward. He immigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador, was first elected in 2019 as a Democratic Socialist, with support from the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, DSA.

We welcome you, Alderman, to Democracy Now! You held a meeting this weekend, bringing together people all over. You’re chair of the Housing and Real Estate Committee. If you can talk about your response to what President Trump is threatening?

BYRON SIGCHO-LOPEZ: Thank you, and it’s an honor to be here with you in this critical time.

When Trump talks about many people maybe like a dictator, nobody likes a dictator. And nobody wants to see the normalization of military troops in American cities. We joined the many calls of our communities to defend our city. We cannot normalize the militarization, the disappearing of our neighbors, the kidnapping of our neighbors, as we saw in June 4th here in our city, when masked men basically created a human trap and kidnapped mainly women from our community.

We do not normalize; we organize. We do not despair. We’re not afraid. We do not comply to dictators. And here in the city of Chicago, we’ve done what we have done when this was first announced, the mass deportations: We organize, to the frustration of the Trump administration, that have seen an informed, a well-organized community, and that’s what they’re going to continue to see. We have — if anything, as a former labor organizer, we see that the boss is our best organizer. He’s uniting our city. He united our immigrant community. He’s organizing and he’s unifying our city now more than ever. Now we have labor leaders, faith leaders that are ready to make sure that our schools, our churches, our hospitals are safe grounds, as they should be.

And we want to make sure that he knows that on Labor Day, we — as he, as Trump, prepares to make this the last Labor Day in our city, we want to make sure that he knows that this is going to be a historic Labor Day, faith leaders, everybody across the city coming together to defend every neighbor. Not only are Texas legislators now fleeing political violence from the Trump administration, we have many neighbors who got kidnapped, families. We still have families, thousands of kids, from the first Trump administration, that are still unaccounted for. So, here in Chicago, we organize. We’re mobilizing labor, faith leaders, community leaders to stand for our city. We’re not going to normalize a dictator. We’re not going to normalize militarized zones. In a time like this, we stand up, and we organize.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Alderman, I wanted to ask you — you represent the 25th Ward, where the community of Pilsen, with a historic — the historic Mexican Latino community, is centered. What is the condition on the ground right now in terms of raids in Chicago? And in June, there were at least a dozen people arrested by federal immigration agents after they showed up to a routine immigration appointment at an office in the South Loop. What’s the situation right now in terms of these raids?

BYRON SIGCHO-LOPEZ: Well, we have been one of the first communities that the Trump administration targeted. We had, early on, one father that was detained after his family have left the kids in school. Just at the end of last school year, ICE was setting shop right next to one of our elementary schools in a laundromat, waiting for parents at dismissal. This is intended to create terror, to scare people, to create fear, to push people to deport themselves. So, we see also with — now that they not only don’t respect rights, they’re using violence as a tool of fascism. They did not respect constitutional rights when they entered one of our businesses a few months ago and detained two workers.

In our community right now, there’s serious concerns and fear of the Trump administration coming and snatching families. They’re snatching or being around schools, around hospitals, churches. So, in our community, we’re organizing. We are making sure that we denounce the Trump administration for coming to churches, hospitals, schools. We are preparing. We’re working together with all community leaders, as we did when the administration threatened with mass deportations. We organized.

And we are — now we’re organizing with labor leaders to make sure that our labor leaders, elected leaders, faith leaders, our community at the frontlines, that we keep affordable communities safe, in safe spaces, and that we come heavy with a mass mobilization on Labor Day, on September 1st, led by the Chicago Teachers Union and many other leaders, to make sure that the Trump administration will see dignity, our solidarity to L.A., our solidarity to D.C. We see what’s happening. We need to make sure that there’s more coverage of this. We invite all the media to come to Chicago.

We are organizing to protect our communities. We are prepared to mobilize, as we did not only to organize about knowing your rights. It’s clear that the Trump administration does not respect our constitutional rights. So we’re going to make sure that we are organized to protect our people and go on the offense. We need to hold them accountable for the people who are dying in ICE facilities, for the concentration camps illegally built, and also for the kids who are being separated, for the multiple atrocities. We are prepared here in Chicago. We are a strong labor city. We’re not going to normalize fascism, and we’re prepared to face the dictator head-on. And we know that we can defeat Project 2025 and the dictator that wants to consolidate power.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Alderman, I wanted to ask you — you’re a close ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson. Your discussions with the mayor in terms of how he’s going to respond if Trump sends the National Guard in, especially the issue of how will the Chicago police respond?

BYRON SIGCHO-LOPEZ: Yes, we have been in close communication with Mayor Johnson, just as we did when we launched a huge “Know Your Rights” campaign, to make sure that the mayor knows that it’s critical that the city of Chicago stands strong. And he today will be joining us on an announcement to have a major mobilization for Labor Day.

We also have talked about the importance of making sure that there’s no collaboration between the Chicago Police Department and the Trump administration. We have seen that on June 4th. There was an investigation, multiple leaders and elected officials that condemned the actions of ICE and any kind of collaboration on June 4th, the incident that you mentioned. And the mayor has shown his support for our community. His community — he’s standing strong. He went to Washington to defend our Constitution, our state and city code. And we are here prepared to mobilize on Labor Day, Mayor Johnson being one of the people standing with us. There will be no collaboration with the Chicago Police Department and ICE agents. And that’s what we suspect, that the Trump administration is deploying military forces because they know that there’s no way that they can conduct such operations again without the collaboration of the Chicago Police Department. On this case, he wants to send the military. We will continue to push back. We will continue to make sure that there’s no collaboration with the Chicago Police Department.

But more than anything else, we want to make sure that there’s massive mobilization in our city to make sure that we protect each other, protect our neighbors. I’m glad that Mayor Johnson is joining today the launching of the Labor Day movement to protect our city. Chicago is a labor city, is a labor town. And we’re going to join L.A. and D.C. fighting fascism. And we know that we’re going to defeat Project 2025 here in Chicago. We are ready, as my sister, Stacy Davis Gates, said, for a fair attempt to reconstruct and rebuild our country. Americans are courageous. Americans will not stand for kings or dictators. And here in Chicago, we show and we will show the power of the labor movement, along with faith leaders and our immigrant communities together. The dictator has unified our city, and we’re ready to take on this, because we must defeat fascism. Chairman Fred Hampton said it clearly and well: If we do not defeat fascism, fascism will stop every single one of us. So, here in Chicago, in the land of Chairman Fred Hampton, in the land of the labor movement, we say to Trump: We’re going — we’re not afraid. We’re not going to be intimidated. And we will not comply with a dictator.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking to Alderperson Byron Sigcho-Lopez, speaking to us from Chicago.