Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker meets with community violence intervention (CVI) leaders as they hold an emergency response training to prepare for federal deployments in Chicago, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. [AP Photo\/Nam Y. Huh]<\/p>\n
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Wednesday said that state officials were informed that a federal immigration strike force backed by National Guard troops would be mobilized Friday and ready to take action in Chicago on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The force would be based at the Naval Station Great Lakes, just north of the city. The Pentagon has approved the use of the base as a staging ground, to act both as a hub for operations directed by the Department of Homeland Security, and to house National Guard troops or active-duty military personnel if they are deployed.<\/p>\n
Local officials in the Chicago suburbs near the naval base were briefed there Wednesday and told to expect about 300 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to target\u00a0immigrants\u00a0in the greater Chicago area, followed by the National Guard if there was any public disorder in response to the stepped-up raids.<\/p>\n
Leon Rockingham, mayor of North Chicago, one of the suburbs near the base, told the press, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that a time has come in our country where the National Guard and ICE are coming into our\u00a0community\u00a0to basically scare the Latino population. \u2026 I didn\u2019t think our country would ever get to that point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to the build-up and threatened raids, organizers of the Mexican\u00a0independence\u00a0celebration \u201cEl Grito Chicago\u201d postponed the event, set for September 13-14 at Grant Park in downtown Chicago. They said they were acting at the recommendation of state and local government officials. No new date has been set.<\/p>\n
Pritzker said that the state had been informed by \u201cpatriotic officials inside the government and from well-sourced reporters about Donald Trump\u2019s plan, which is to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. He added that Trump was looking for \u201cany excuse to put active-duty on our streets supposedly to protect ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n
Members of the Louisiana National Guard patrol at Union Station, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Washington. [AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana]<\/p>\n
Pritzker said he had been informed that the Texas National Guard was being readied for deployment to Illinois, although Texas state officials denied this. The Illinois governor said he was not \u201cabsolutely certain\u201d that Texas troops would be sent more than 1,000 miles to another state, on the orders of the president, an action that would be unprecedented in modern US history.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign organization\u2014which is raising vast sums of money although he is barred by the Constitution from running again for president\u2014sent out a fundraising email Wednesday urging contributors to \u201cjoin the MAGA Blitz and say: LIBERATE CHICAGO \u2013 SAVE AMERICA \u2013 STAND WITH TRUMP!\u201d<\/p>\n
Pritzker debunked the claims that the raids in the Chicago area were aimed at fighting crime. \u201cLet\u2019s be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here,\u201d he told a downtown Chicago press briefing. But he added that the state \u201ccannot stand in the way\u201d of federal law enforcement. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re going to have armed men standing in between,\u201d he said, but rather the state would go to court against illegal federal actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The governor said that he expected the stepped-up federal presence to last about one month, although some National Guard troops still remain in Los Angeles, three months after they were first deployed. And he urged residents to avoid any direct conflict with troops or federal agents.<\/p>\n
This counsel of impotence and passivity was positively militant compared to the posture taken by congressional Democrats in Washington. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in his opening remarks at his weekly press conference Thursday, did not mention either the troop deployment in Washington DC or Trump\u2019s threats to send troops into Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, Boston and other cities.<\/p>\n
He confined himself to a litany of shopworn Democratic criticisms of the Republican Party for failing to lower the high cost of living, \u201cfix our broken healthcare system\u201d and \u201cclean up corruption in this town.\u201d He attacked Trump\u2019s tax cut for the wealthy, passed two months ago, but said nothing about the presence of National Guard troops only a few hundred yards from where he was speaking in the Capitol.<\/p>\n
When reporters raised the issue, mainly from a right-wing standpoint, suggesting that crime was plunging in Washington D.C. because of Trump\u2019s military occupation, Jeffries responded with a full-throated salute to the police:<\/p>\n
\nOne thing I will continue to make clear is that we should support the Metropolitan Police Department, support the Chicago Police Department, support the New York Police Department, and support local law enforcement all across America. And what we should be doing is giving them the ability to do their jobs, with the resources they need to continue to protect and serve, Republicans have actually cut funding for local law enforcement. What does that have to do with making communities safe? And so we\u2019re going to continue to make clear we\u2019re focused on keeping communities safe all across America. And in my humble opinion, the best way to do that is to support local law enforcement, local police departments, and local partnerships between the police and the community.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n