Black, Hispanic Chicagoans Like ICE Agents More Than They Like Brandon Johnson

David Keene | September 4, 2025

(The Washington Times) — Brandon Johnson of Chicago, America’s least-popular mayor, is, according to a recent poll, less popular among the city’s Hispanic and Black voters than the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents scheduled to soon descend on the city to deal with the swarm of criminal illegals within its borders.

It turns out that the ICE agents Illinois Gov J.B. Pritzker declared last week to be neither “wanted nor needed in Chicago” are likely to be welcomed by many Chicagoans convinced that Messrs. Johnson and Pritzker will never deal with either the immigration crisis or the horrific crime and violence that have become a part of life in the Windy City.

The poll of Chicago residents, released last week by M3 Strategies, a Mississippi-based firm that has polled Illinois voters for various clients, was reported by most in the media as supporting the liberal opposition to the Trump administration’s threat to send the National Guard into Chicago. Why? Because few people in the media took the time to look at the actual numbers.

If they had, they would have been shocked by the real feelings of those Mr. Pritzker claims neither want nor need help. The poll makes two things clear: There are two Chicagos.

One is the Chicago of affluent, liberal White fans of the Cubs who live in safe neighborhoods untouched by the crime and violence that plague the other Chicago, where 54 people were shot over the weekend. That Chicago includes many working-class Whites but is largely Black and Hispanic. Many of those who live in this Chicago live in fear of gang bangers, drug dealers and other thugs who occupy their neighborhoods.

Mr. Pritzker and America’s least-popular mayor talk and act as if these neighborhoods don’t exist.

Although most Chicagoans are uncomfortable with the idea that the National Guard is the answer to their problems, residents of the second Chicago would welcome federal aid from ICE, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. They want help dealing with a crisis that Mr. Pritzker and the mayor of Chicago are convinced doesn’t exist.

White Chicagoans oppose a beefed-up ICE presence in their sanctuary city by a 3-1 margin, but a plurality of Chicago Hispanics would welcome it, as would 35% of the city’s Black residents. These are the Chicagoans who experience the hell that the more affluent ignore.

This same desire for security can be seen in these groups’ support for more police on the streets in their neighborhoods. Eighty-six percent of Black Chicagoans and 82% of the city’s Hispanics would welcome an increased number of cops in their neighborhoods. (To be fair, so would 64% of White Chicagoans, evidence that not every White Chicagoan lives in a gated community.) While only 8% of Blacks and Hispanics would oppose more cops on the streets, fully 22% of Whites strongly oppose an increased police presence in the city.

Liberal demands to “defund” the police or replace cops with woke social workers are based on the liberal belief that police officers are inherently racist and that minorities would be better off with fewer cops in their neighborhoods. These people see cops, not criminals, as the bad guys. Nowhere has this liberal belief been stronger than in Chicago.

Every one of them should read the response to the pollster’s query, “How serious is police misconduct?” in the city. Thirteen percent of Chicago’s Blacks and Hispanics see it as a serious problem. The rest dismiss this article of liberal faith and say, “Hire more” because they need protection.

These poll results might come as a shock to those who have swallowed the liberal Kool-Aid for so long, but they simply underscore what those moved more by facts than ideology have been saying for years.

The victims of crime tend not to be affluent liberal Whites but working-class Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities living in crime-ravaged inner-city neighborhoods. It’s why polls in recent years have revealed that such people are the least likely to support defund-the-police schemes.

The amazing fact, however, is just how little facts influence the J.B. Pritzkers and Brandon Johnsons of this country, who live in a fantasy world with little or no contact with the one the rest of us inhabit.

David Keene is editor-at-large at The Washington Times.