Politics

Trump to Send 300 National Guard Troops to Chicago Despite Objections: Pritzker

President Donald Trump will send 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday, adding that he refused an order from military officials to use his authority to deploy the guard.

“In the coming hours, the Trump Administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard,” Pritzker said in a statement. “They will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance — not a serious effort the protect public safety.”

Pritzker once again said the president was not interested in fighting crime but was engaged in an unconstitutional federal overreach.

Pritzker said military officials called Saturday morning and “gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will. It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

Pritzker said he refused that order.

“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement the president had authorized the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago in a statement issued late Saturday afternoon.

“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorized 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” Jackson said. “President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”

No riots have been reported in Chicago, even as protesters have been tear-gassed and shot with pepper pellets by federal agents outside an ICE processing facility in south suburban Broadview.

It is not clear what the National Guard units would be deployed to Chicago, what they would be charged with doing or when they would arrive in Chicago.

If Trump makes good on the latest in a long series of threats against Chicago and its leaders, Chicago would join Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and become the third American city to be occupied by National Guard troops under the command of federal officials to be deployed over the objections of local leaders.

Trump has also ordered National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, despite Gov. Tina Kotek’s objections.

A federal judge blocked that deployment late Saturday for at least 14 days.

U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, said the president’s claims of daily unrest in Portland were “untethered to facts” and risked violating the U.S. Constitution by imposing military rule.

The Trump administration immediately appealed that ruling.

Pritzker said Trump’s renewed threats to send military personnel to Chicago follows “unprecedented escalations of aggression” against Chicagoans on Friday, including the dispersal of chemical agents near a Logan Square elementary school, the decision to detain Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) as she objected to the presence of federal agents in a hospital and the raid of an Austin Walmart.

“None of it was in pursuit of justice, but all of it was in pursuit of social media videos,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker has vowed to immediately ask a federal judge to block any deployment of National Guard troops by the federal government over his objections.

Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Portland officials have refused to help carry out Trump’s goal of implementing the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

All four cities are led by Democratic mayors, and three of the mayors are Black.

All four cities are also self-proclaimed sanctuary cities and have refused demands from federal officials that local law enforcement help federal agents deport undocumented immigrants. Trump ordered the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers when the federal government took control of the department.

Attempts by the Trump administration to force cities like Chicago and Los Angeles to stop protecting undocumented immigrants by yanking federal funding have been blocked by several federal judges indefinitely.