President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that he think Gov. JB Pritzker is “afraid for his life” and baselessly claimed protesters in Chicago are “paid.” Andrew Leyden/Zuma
President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to invade more American cities.
On Saturday, Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Ill.) announced that the Trump administration planned to deploy 300 National Guard troops to Illinois “against our will.” Gov. Pritzker added that Department of Defense officials had told him that if he did not call up the troops himself, they would.
“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”
“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 to protect public safety,” Pritzker added. “For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”
Earlier this week, Pritzker said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was requesting National Guard troops be sent to Illinois to protect ICE agents, who have been carrying out what they call “Operation Midway Blitz,” an enforcement effort that DHS says has led to more than 1,000 arrests.
It is unclear where or when the National Guard troops were deployed, and spokespeople for the White House and Pritzker’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday afternoon.
Trump has already sent the National Guard to Washington, DC, Portland, Los Angeles, and Memphis, even though troops in some of these cities don’t appear to have much to do.
The Portland operation also hit a legal snag: On Saturday, a Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s deployment of the troops to the city, saying that the president’s allegations of unrest and his depiction of the city as “war-ravaged” were “untethered to facts.” The government, the judge said, “made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”
Trump has long been floating the idea of sending troops to Chicago, which he has called “a mess,” as I previously reported. Earlier this week, at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bizarre military meeting, Trump said he told Hegseth officials “should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds” for the US military, adding, “we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor, stupid governor.”
On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Pritzker told host Jake Tapper that residents are “booing” the presence of ICE, who are “just picking up people who are Brown and Black, and then checking their credentials.”
“We didn’t need them before they showed up,” he added.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that he believes Pritzker is “afraid for his life,” and baselessly claimed protesters in Chicago were “paid.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said in a post on X that Trump’s deployment of the troops was “authoritarian.” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) added, “History will recognize President Trump’s mobilization of our nation’s military in American cities for what it is—a vile abuse of power by a cruel President pushing us toward authoritarianism.”
Colleen K. Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois, called the announcement “the latest escalation of attacks on people in the Chicago area,” adding, “The president clearly despises the reality that Chicago rejects his cruel policies, but we will not be intimidated.”
According to reports, tensions have been ramping up between people on the ground in Chicago and ICE agents. Pritzker and other officials referenced an overnight ICE raid at an apartment building in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood this week, which reportedly led to the arrests of 37 people. Pritzker said the raid involved kids being zip-tied and separated from their parents. DHS officials claimed the area was frequented by gang members, but building residents told local media that they were swept up in the chaos regardless of whether or not they had any warrants out for their arrests.
On Saturday, DHS officials said Border Patrol agents shot an armed citizen after they were “attacked and rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.” The woman, who DHS says has a history of doxxing federal agents, was released from the hospital and is in FBI custody.
Protests have also broken out at an ICE facility in Broadview, an area on the outskirts of Chicago. More than a dozen people were arrested there on Friday, when Noem made an in-person visit, CNN reported.
On CNN on Sunday, Pritzker said the chaos is the point. “They want mayhem on the ground,” the governor said of the Trump administration. “They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops.”
