CHICAGO — President Donald Trump has called for the deployment of 700 federal troops to Illinois, including 400 guardsmen from Texas.
Late Sunday, Gov. JB Pritzker announced that Trump had ordered 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon and other locations. The announcement came a day after Trump called to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard for deployment.
“No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate,” Pritzker said in a statement. “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”
On Sunday, Judge Karin Immergut of the U.S. District Court in Oregon blocked the administration from sending troops to Oregon — twice, The New York Times reported. The State of Illinois and City of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday morning hoping to block the deployment here as well, calling the move “patently unlawful.”
In a memo to Illinois National Guard leadership Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the troops could be called into service “effective immediately” and be used in the area for 60 days, according to the Tribune.
The troops’ objective would be to guard ICE facilities in Illinois, the Tribune reported.
The deployment comes after weeks of back and forth between the Trump administration, state and local officials. Trump has threatened multiple times to send troops to Chicago, calling the city crime-ridden and local leaders incompetent, despite data showing crime decreasing across the city.
“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois. State, county, and local law enforcement have been working together and coordinating to ensure public safety around the Broadview ICE facility, and to protect people’s ability to peacefully exercise their constitutional rights,” Pritzker said in a statement. “I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people.”
State officials have said that if Trump federalizes the National Guard, legal action would follow. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has repeatedly said he would sue as soon as he sees “boots on the ground.” At a September news conference, Raoul said he would fight any “unlawful deployment of the military against our American citizens.”
The deployment announcement came after U.S. Border Patrol agents shot a woman Saturday morning on the city’s Southwest Side.
The shooting happened in the 3900 block of South Kedzie Avenue, according to Chicago police. Agents on patrol in vehicles were “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars,” one of which the woman was driving, according to a Department of Homeland Security statement posted Saturday on social media.
Agents fired “defensive shots” after discovering the woman — a U.S. citizen — had a semi-automatic weapon, according to the statement. Community groups on the scene, however, said agents crashed into a civilian car and caused a multi-car crash on Kedzie Avenue. They also deployed tear gas and pepper spray and used military vehicles in response to the presence of protesters, the group said.
The woman was in fair condition at Mt. Sinai Hospital, according to the Sun-Times.
Chicago Police officers responded to the scene to document the incident and to provide safety and traffic control, police said in a statement. Chicago Police are not involved in the incident or its investigation, the statement said.
A crowd began gathering near the scene of the shooting by late morning. A live stream of the scene from the online platform Citizen shows people gathering around police-taped boundaries, protesting federal officers on the scene. People can be heard screaming “Go home ICE” and “Take your mask off.”
Both federal officers and Chicago police officers can be seen guarding the borders of the scene.
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Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), who has largely been in support of immigration enforcement in Chicago, said that neighbors on the Southwest Side are feeling “anger, fear, and trauma” due to the government’s tactics in neighborhoods.
“Our community is angry, and it shows in the resistance taking place in our neighborhoods by our residents, but this is not the answer,” Lopez said.
Saturday’s incident is the latest clash between protesters and federal agents who are in Chicago for “Operation Midway Blitz,” the government’s enhanced immigration enforcement effort in the area.
On Friday, federal agents again attacked protesters outside ICE’s processing facility in suburban Broadview while other officers deployed smoke grenades on a crowded street in Logan Square. Officers also briefly detained Chicago Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) as she confronted them Friday at Humboldt Park Hospital.
This is a developing story.
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