By Falling for Johnson, Pritzker’s Bait, White House Is Missing Opportunity to Resurrect Chicago

The federal government can do much to improve the lives of Chicago residents. This requires focus and discipline, not reflexive enforcement stunts. Pritzker, Johnson, and their allies want to divert public attention from their failures

President Trump’s increased immigration enforcement is a gift to Democrats, who now have ample fodder for a narrative of cruelty and disregard for civil liberties. For Governor Pritzker — who oversees a state with the nation's highest taxes and some of its poorest economic performance — ICE operations conveniently divert public attention. The same is true for Mayor Brandon Johnson, who presides over what Ken Griffin refers to as a "failed city-state."  

Tom Homan, the President’s Border Czar, has warned that when local governments refuse to cooperate with federal authorities, ICE must cast a wider net, sometimes ensnaring otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. That is exactly the controversy Pritzker and Johnson seek: Images of ICE agents at doorsteps, shifting blame to Washington and casting Illinois as the victim.  

Earlier this year, I asked in Chicago Contrarian if President Trump would take the bait. I argued then that the administration should avoid political theatrics with Illinois and Chicago officials, instead focusing on pragmatic, results-driven action to improve life and challenge the Democratic Party's control. Nevertheless, the administration has stumbled into the trap, fueling drama rather than real reforms.  

The White House would be wise to instruct ICE to step back and ignore political theatrics. It should focus solely on federal actions that make measurable impacts —especially in areas where local leadership has failed, such as public safety and quality education.  

Bring the Cook County criminal justice system under a federal consent decree  

Chicago’s criminal justice system — spanning city, county, and state — is a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Yet only the police operate under a federal consent decree, which focuses mostly on police-involved shootings but does little for broader public safety. True transparency requires examining the entire system — from prosecutors and judges to county officials.  

Public safety is a human right. The Department of Justice should expand its oversight to Cook County’s full justice structure: Not just police, but the State’s Attorney’s Office, Cook County courts, and county leadership. The goal is clear — keep habitual offenders off the streets while protecting victims, witnesses, and first responders.  

Chicago has annually led the nation in the number of murders, shootings, and youth gun violence for the better part of two decades. Black residents are hit hardest: While only 29 percent of the population, they account for over 75 percent of shooting and homicide victims. Black women represent 16 percent of the population but comprise nearly 30 percent of violent crime victims. 

State and local leaders have failed to tackle this crisis, as mainstream media largely ignore it. Nearly one in five violent crime suspects is released pretrial for another felony; since 2020, more than 400 were charged with homicide or attempted homicide while already home awaiting trial. With low arrest rates, the actual number is likely far higher.  

Under Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a “criminal defense industrial complex” has flourished, prioritizing offenders and excusing dysfunction. Former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s “Conviction Integrity Unit” pursued mass exonerations based mainly on procedural issues rather than proven innocence, at times issuing dubious “certificates of innocence,” which led to the release of hundreds of individuals who likely committed the crimes, who then sued the city.  

Since 2008, the city has paid over $1.1 billion in police misconduct settlements, as Chicago has had half of all police misconduct releases and lawsuit costs in the entire nation. State’s Attorney Foxx has left the city with at least 275 cases and rising that will cost taxpayers well in excess of $1 billion once settled.  

A federal consent decree is needed to bring oversight and accountability to the entire Cook County court system. It should be accompanied by a coordinated federal law enforcement presence — the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and Homeland Security — to target repeat violent offenders for federal prosecution, where penalties are stiffer and public safety is prioritized.  

The Chicago Public Schools consent decree  

The U.S. Department of Education’s investigation into CPS’s “Black Students Success Plan” at the urging of a conservative advocacy group, on the grounds that it discriminates, is misplaced. That plan aims to improve outcomes for Black students, and using race as one factor to design interventions is simply best practice. If the administration’s goal is to return authority to states and districts by scaling back federal mandates, this investigation achieves the opposite.  

The deeper problem is that education bureaucracies and teachers unions have long denied poor children, in Chicago overwhelmingly Black and Latino, meaningful access to quality schools. Chicago’s de facto apartheid system allows wealthier families to opt out, while the rest languish in failing public schools with minimal transparency and accountability.  

The CTU has pressured the district to remove standardized tests from promotion and teacher and school evaluations, and the district now avoids ranking schools by performance, eliminating indicators that once provided transparency and promoted accountability. There’s a push to phase out magnet schools due to embarrassing performance gaps compared to neighborhood schools. CPS currently socially promotes students while giving parents few alternatives to failing neighborhood schools.  

Elected Local School Councils and their principals lack real authority, as budgets, staffing, and curriculum are still tightly controlled by the central administration and union contract. This bureaucratic inertia benefits the union by growing its membership, increasing member pay and benefits, ensuring job security regardless of performance, and stifling innovation and competition.  

To protect underperforming schools from competition, the CTU has opposed all forms of school choice. It led the campaign to end the very modest “Invest in Kids” private scholarship program, which benefited low-income families, capped the number of public charter schools and individual school enrollments, and blocked any new charters—including those for dropouts.  

Despite serving over 54,000 students — one-fourth of the city’s public high schoolers—and being the only alternatives for most Black and Latino families, charters receive 36 percent less funding per pupil than district schools. Additional mandates and uncertainty from short renewal periods hinder their ability to recruit and retain staff.  

This is institutional racism by outcome, if not by intent. Poor communities are denied access to quality choices, unable to force improvement in failing schools because teachers unions block change to preserve their monopoly. Federal intervention in the form of a consent decree is necessary to dismantle an education system that locks poor children, overwhelmingly Black and Latino, into failure determined by family income and zip code.  

The goals for reform are clear: funding should follow students; parents should be able to choose the best school for their children, whether traditional public, public charter, or private; and elected Local School Councils and their principals, free from union mandates, should be empowered to make decisions reflecting their communities. True reform means real freedom for parents and real agency for local school leaders and educators.  

As economist Thomas Sowell said: “The most dangerous form of racism is not the kind that comes with a hood or a noose — it’s the kind that comes with an eraser.” Chicago’s erasure of opportunity under the guise of “equity” has entrenched segregation by quality and income, making education a civil rights issue requiring federal attention. It is the unfinished business of Brown v. Board of Education.

In summary, the federal government can do much to improve life in Chicago, with or without local cooperation. This requires focus and discipline, not enforcement stunts or theatrical confrontations. Pritzker and Johnson have baited the president, seeking to make federal authority a sideshow. There is still time for the administration to reject the bait and pursue strategies that truly advance public safety and create educational opportunity for all.