NOW - Trump says he is adjusting his mass deportations policy to only go into cities if the mayors or governors "ask" and "say please," adding, "I don't want to go and force ourselves into a city, even if their numbers are terrible." pic.twitter.com/xji3FfEl42

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 5, 2026

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/2019203189221065004

By Jim Hoft

By shifting to an “invitation-only” model for certain interior enforcement operations, President Trump is effectively calling the bluff of every Sanctuary City mayor in America.

-------

President Donald J. Trump signaled a major adjustment to his deportation enforcement strategy during an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas that aired Wednesday evening, just days after mounting public backlash over ICE operations in Minneapolis and Operation Metro Surge triggered mass protests and two deaths.

The President revealed that moving forward, federal immigration enforcement will largely enter Democrat-run Sanctuary Cities only if the mayors of those crumbling jurisdictions explicitly “ask” for help and “invite” them in.

Tom Llamas:

I want to be clear, because it sounds like there is a shift in immigration enforcement here—that there’s going to be a shift after Minneapolis. What should Americans expect going forward?

President Trump:

Well, one thing I say to my people: they do a good job, and they don’t get credit for it. I say they (the cities) have to ask, and they have to say “please.” When a city is going to ask the mayor or the governor, I don’t want to go and force ourselves into a city, even if their numbers are terrible.

-----------

Tom Llamas:
On that question, which cities are you headed to next?

President Trump:
We have five cities that we’re looking at very strongly, but we want to be invited. We will sometimes call the governors and say, “Are you going to invite us?”

Tom Llamas:
Are they cities like Chicago, Philadelphia? Are these the cities?

President Trump:
We could straighten out the crime in Chicago. We’ve already brought it down 25% just by being there. We could have Chicago be a safe city, just like D.C. is a safe city—just like all of these places that we’ve gone to.

I look forward to it. I didn’t campaign on that. I campaigned on law and order, but I didn’t think I’d be going into individual cities and making them safe.

Tom Llamas:
Anything else you can tell us about the five cities—the five cities—anything else, so Americans are ready?

President Trump:
We’ll be announcing them very quickly, but we could do something. As an example, I was called by people in San Francisco. They said, “Please, we have a Democrat mayor. He’s trying very hard. You have friends of mine that live there. It’s got crime problems. Would you let him do the job and not come in? Let’s see how it works.”

I said, “Look, I can do it much quicker—much faster.” Don’t forget, we remove criminals. We took over 2,000 hardcore criminals out of Washington, D.C. If we didn’t do that—2% of the people create 90% of the crime. Think of that: 2%.

So you have criminals—it’s over and over again. Two percent create 90% of the crime. We took out 2,000 people—more than 2,000 people—out of Washington, D.C., and we now have a safe city.