Pritzker: Trump to federalize Illinois National Guard

By Dan McCaleb | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump will federalize 300 Illinois National Guard troops, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement Saturday.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

Trump for weeks has said he was considering deploying members of the Illinois National Guard to Chicago to fight rampant crime there.

Last month, after a particularly violent weekend in the Windy City when 11 people were murdered, 28 were shot and a hundred were shot at the previous weekend, Trump criticized Pritzker for not taking the crime problem in the city seriously.

“That’s what I call dangerous, and Pritzker’s going out and saying, ‘We’ve got crime under control,’” Trump said, noting that additional FBI agents in the city helped but wasn’t enough.

“What you really need is our big, strong soldiers to get them into shape. We’re not letting Chicago fail,” Trump said.

But Pritzker maintains Chicago doesn’t need federal help.

“In the coming hours, the Trump Administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard,” the governor said in the 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 to protect public safety. For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”

U.S. Immigration and Customes Enforcement agents conducting operations in the Chicago area have clashed with protesters in recent weeks.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Frday that two vehicles were used as weapons against ICE officers a day earlier.

The separate incidents happened in Bensenville and the other in Norridge. DHS said that two illegal aliens deliberately tried to ram and injure officers enforcing federal immigration law. The suspects are in custody with removal proceedings pending.

Clashes also have occurred at ICE’s Broadview facility. Saturday morning, DHS said its agents were surrounded by as many as 10 vehicles in Broadview One of the drivers was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, DHS said. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News that ICE agents “were forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots” against an individual identified as a U.S. citizen.

But Pritzker, in his Saturday statement, insisted the ICE activity was “not in pursuit of justice, but all of it was in pursuit of social media videos. ​

“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois. State, county, and local law enforcement have been working together and coordinating to ensure public safety around the Broadview ICE facility, and to protect people’s ability to peacefully exercise their constitutional rights. I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people.”

Crime dropped significantly in Washington D.C. after Trump deployed National Guard troops there.

• The Center Square Illinois Editor Greg Bishop and Chicago reporter James Talamonti contributed to this report.