US President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago to protect federal officers and assets.<\/p>\n
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorised using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.<\/p>\n
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” Jackson said.<\/p>\n
Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said the guard received notice from the Pentagon early in the day.<\/p>\n
He called the move unnecessary and “a manufactured performance \u2014 not a serious effort to protect public safety”.<\/p>\n
“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has long threatened to send troops to Chicago, but it was not immediately clear when or exactly where they would be deployed.<\/p>\n
The orders came after heavily armed federal agents shot a woman during immigration enforcement operations, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on X.<\/a><\/p>\n She said that agents fired “defensive shots” after “officers were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”<\/p>\n The woman who was shot was a US citizen and was armed with a semiautomatic weapon, according to Ms McLaughlin.<\/p>\n The city is the latest \u2014 many of them led by Democrats \u2014 to be targeted or talked about for controversial deployment of troops, including Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans and the Californian cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Judge temporarily blocks use of National Guard in Portland<\/p>\n A federal judge in Oregon on Saturday, local time, temporarily blocked the deployment of 200 National Guard troops to Portland.<\/p>\n US District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary restraining order after Oregon and Portland sued.<\/p>\n She said the relatively small protests the city had seen did not justify the use of federalised forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.<\/p>\n “This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Judge Immergut wrote.<\/p>\n “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”<\/p>\n