An Exclusive Message To D.C. From Chicago and Newark Mayors: Stop Pitting Black and Brown Communities Against Each Other
In Chicago and Newark, we have seen what happens when the federal government causes visible harm to our communities. When immigration raids disrupt neighborhoods and detention centers separate families, people organize. Faith leaders mobilize. Mutual aid networks expand. Neighbors look after one another. Communities demand accountability.
We have also confronted another kind of harm—one that rarely commands the same national attention. Federal policy choices that reduce support for food assistance, affordable housing, healthcare access, and community-based violence prevention deepen the effects of generations of disinvestment and economic exclusion in Black communities.
Our cities reject the false choice between responding to immediate crises and addressing longstanding inequities. Communities deserve both protection from acute harms and sustained investments that create safety, stability, and opportunity.
In Chicago, the Trump administration repeatedly singled out our city because of our commitment to protecting immigrant communities. When President Trump warned that “Chicago [was] about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” he made Chicago a target in a political battle over local democracy.
That rhetoric was followed by action. Operation Midway Blitz brought heavily armed federal agents into Chicago neighborhoods. Subsequent reporting showed that most of those arrested had no criminal convictions. The consequences extended far beyond those detained. Businesses in immigrant neighborhoods reported declining foot traffic as residents became fearful of leaving their homes. Workers missed shifts. Parents kept children home from school. Entire communities experienced economic disruption and psychological trauma.
Chicago developed executive orders and protocols designed to document potential abuses, preserve evidence of misconduct, and protect residents’ constitutional rights. Today, approximately 10 percent of Americans live in jurisdictions protected by executive orders and policies first developed in Chicago.
In Newark, Delaney Hall has become a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration detention. We have challenged the facility through litigation, sought to enforce local inspection and permitting requirements, demanded transparency regarding conditions inside the facility, and stood with residents insisting that due process and human dignity must not end at the detention center door.
Neither of us accepted that local leaders should simply stand by while our communities suffered.
In both cities, diverse communities mobilized to support families affected by detention through protests, legal support, and mutual aid efforts. These responses revealed something important: communities are capable of extraordinary acts of solidarity when harm is visible and immediate.
The response to Midway Blitz and Delaney Hall reinforced what we have long understood in our work as mayors: communities are strongest when they reject the idea that some forms of suffering deserve solidarity while others can be endured in silence.
In Chicago and Newark, we have sought to respond both to visible federal actions that threaten immigrant communities and to the less visible federal policies that compound generations of disinvestment in Black communities. We believe these commitments are inseparable.
In our cities, Black communities continue to bear the consequences of generations of segregation, economic exclusion, and public disinvestment. Federal policy decisions that reduce food assistance, limit access to healthcare, weaken investments in affordable housing, or undermine community-based violence prevention efforts do not create these inequities on their own. But they deepen them.
When communities have spent decades fighting for stable housing, quality schools, economic opportunity, and access to care, federal retrenchment compounds existing vulnerabilities and makes progress harder to achieve.
These harms may unfold more gradually than an immigration raid.
But they are no less devastating.
In both of our cities, we have tried to respond accordingly.
In Chicago, we have paired the defense of immigrant communities with investments designed to address generations of disinvestment in Black neighborhoods. Through the Missing Middle initiative, we are transforming city-owned vacant lots into opportunities for homeownership and wealth-building on the South and West Sides.
We have also expanded CARE, Chicago’s non-police crisis response program, which sends mental health professionals and emergency medical technicians to respond to behavioral health crises. CARE reflects our belief that public safety cannot be reduced to enforcement alone. Communities are safer when people have access to healthcare, support, and services that address underlying needs before they become emergencies.
In Newark, we have similarly invested in approaches that expand opportunity and strengthen stability. Through the Newark Movement for Economic Equity, one of the nation’s first municipal guaranteed income pilots, families received direct financial support to help navigate economic hardship and build greater security. Newark has also invested in violence prevention and trauma recovery initiatives that recognize that safety is rooted not only in enforcement, but in healing, trust, and community well-being.
None of these initiatives alone can undo generations of structural inequality. But they reflect a shared belief: government should not simply respond to crises after they occur. It should invest in the conditions that allow communities to thrive.
As Black mayors leading diverse cities, we reject the false choice between immigrant justice and ensuring that Black communities receive the investment, opportunity, and protection they deserve. Many Black residents in our cities are immigrants themselves, and the same systems that justify exclusion, criminalization, and neglect often rely on the belief that some communities are less deserving of dignity and support than others.
Our struggles are interconnected.
Black communities have always built systems of support in the face of neglect. The solidarity that compels people to defend immigrant neighbors facing detention and deportation is the same solidarity that compels us to confront hunger, housing instability, untreated mental health needs, and economic exclusion.
Our experience in Chicago and Newark has taught us that government policies can cause profound harm. It has also taught us that cities are often on the frontlines of protecting democracy—where constitutional rights are defended, where communities organize to care for one another, and where public institutions can either deepen inequities or help repair them. Drawing on long traditions of community organizing and collective action, we have seen that organized communities and intentional public investment possess extraordinary power to protect one another.
The question before us is not whether we can care about immigrant communities or Black communities. It is whether we are willing to reject the false choice altogether. The harms may look different, but they demand the same response: solidarity, collective action, and an unwavering commitment to one anoth
