Cities Say They Want Federal Agents Fighting Crime, Not Protesters

In recent years, cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York have turned to Washington for help in combating gun violence and other crimes, arguing that only the federal government has the resources to tackle problems like guns being traded illegally across state borders.

Now as President Trump has threatened to send federal agents to clean up what he called “totally out of control” crime and disorder, some big-city mayors and police officials are pushing back on such federal involvement, suggesting that the president is using their cities as props in a political game.

Portland, Ore., has become a cautionary tale. Several Democratic mayors have said they do not want unidentified officers dressed in camouflage patrolling their streets and battling protesters. If the federal government wants to bring resources to bear on violence, said mayors and other officials, it should help with issues like gun crimes, rather than dispatching officers who will make an already tense summer worse.

“The deployment of unnamed special secret agents onto our streets to detain people without cause and to effectively take away their civil rights and civil liberties without due process — that is not going to happen in Chicago,” Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot said at a news conference on Tuesday.