Violence prevention workers say they worry the city is being exploited to normalize military force on US streets

For months, Donald Trump and his administration have been using violent crime as a justification for ramping up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) operations and sending or threatening to send the national guard to blue cities – first in Los Angeles, then Washington DC and, last week, Chicago.

But for those who work on the ground to prevent crime, the White House’s approaches will do little to address underlying causes. Instead, they say, increased law enforcement will only lead to harassment and increased surveillance in communities that are already overpoliced.