Trump ties crime with immigration, blurring the lines with Guard deployment

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CHICAGO — It's a sunny October morning, and Yackson is waiting for a bus that will take him to meet his immigration attorney.

The Venezuelan, who NPR is identifying by his first name because of his immigration status, looks at a big, run-down apartment building in front of him. Earlier this month, it was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who landed a helicopter on the roof, and arrested more than 30 people.

Yackson, 39, says he's terrified. Besides this raid, he's also heard about the possibility of National Guard troops deploying here, something a federal court has put on hold for now. The father of three lives in this neighborhood and he's been scared to leave his house.

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"We already don't know who is grabbing us, whether it's ICE or whether it's people who disguise themselves as ICE," Yackson says in Spanish. "With the National Guard, it's going to be even harder, scarier."

In several cities across the country facing National Guard deployments, NPR has heard similar sentiment.

"The government isn't exactly doing a great job of proactively delineating this person is National Guard who isn't allowed to arrest immigrants, and this person is an ICE agent or an FBI agent who is," says Dara Lind a senior fellow at the American Immigration