Texas national guard troops have arrived in the Chicago area, marking an escalation of Donald Trump’s crackdown on the city.
Chicago has already seen a ramping up of immigration enforcement in the past few weeks, as well as increasingly violent altercations in the suburb of Broadview, where law enforcement has been filmed deploying tear gas and pepper gas against protestors.
The latest military presence comes after April Perry, a US district judge, declined to immediately block troops from entering the city amid a pending lawsuit from the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago against the Trump administration’s actions.
Kwame Raoul, the Illinois attorney general, had filed the lawsuit on Monday in order to stop Trump from enlisting the state’s national guard or sending in troops from other states such as Texas “immediately and permanently”.
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But after Perry’s ruling, the troops were mobilized on Monday, and multiple outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Times confirmed they were remaining in the Chicago area on Tuesday.
Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, also signed an executive order banning Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents from operating on city-owned properties, the third executive order attempting to limit the power of Ice agents in the city since Trump first signaled the deployment.
“City property and unwilling private businesses will no longer serve as staging grounds for these raids,” said Johnson during the order’s signing on Monday. “The fact is, we cannot allow them to rampage throughout our city with no checks or balances. Nobody is above the law … if Congress will not check this administration, then Chicago will.”
The White House accused the mayor of “aiding and abetting criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, traffickers, and gang bangers”, Newsweek reported.
Illinois officials have long condemned the Trump administration’s plans for a federal takeover. Pritzker previously called on “all to stand up” to Trump in the face of the intervention during an interview with CBS News in September.
“Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency,” said Pritzker, adding, “I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states”.
Johnson has also vociferously condemned the planned intervention since it was first signaled. During a Labor Day rally, he told a protest in the city: “We’re going to defend our democracy in the city of Chicago. We’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in the city of Chicago.”
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Trump had been signaling the federal intervention in Chicago, amid his targeting of Democratic-led cities for expanded federal enforcement of immigration laws.
Trump has repeatedly attempted to deploy federal troops to Portland, but a federal judge blocked his latest efforts on Sunday. Tina Kotek, Oregon’s governor, has denounced any military intervention in the state as a “threat to our democracy” as well as a “wake-up call” for other state officials, in recent comments to NPR.
In June, the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops in Los Angeles, where Ice agents conducted large-scale raids. Trump also deployed thousands of National Guard troops and sent federal agents to Washington DC in August, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.
Trump has said the moves are necessary to help with immigration enforcement and fight crime. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders locally and around the country have pointed out that crime levels are generally falling.
