Under threats of deploying federal agents to intensify immigration enforcement in communities across Chicago, including my own, our neighbors are beginning to prepare a coordinated response to the possibility of Donald Trump sending the National Guard to occupy our streets and neighborhoods to assist and protect federal agents. His threat is a hollow performance of power — one that betrays the values of a democratic society and undermines the very progress Chicago has built around public safety and human dignity for its residents in recent years. Safety does not grow from the barrel of a gun but from the soil of justice, dignity, and care.

Donald Trump claims that Chicago is experiencing extreme violence. But this past year, Chicago saw the fewest homicides in six decades — the safest summer since the 1960s. That progress did not come from flooding the streets with soldiers or police. It came because the city invested in people: in youth jobs, mental health services, violence interruption, and community infrastructure. We move closer to peace not by threatening more violence, but by steadily nourishing the conditions that allow everyone to thrive.

The National Guard is not a solution to Chicago’s problems. Even if the Guard successfully imposes quiet for a moment, their presence carries the seeds of an explosion of violence and aggression. Soldiers in military fatigues patrolling neighborhoods do not heal wounds; they deepen them. They make residents feel like enemies in their own homes, cowering in fear.