The Department of Homeland Security sent a memo to the Department of War, requesting 100 military personnel to be sent to Illinois “claiming a need for protection of ICE personnel and facilities,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Monday.
The governor held a news conference after Border Patrol agents, some of whom were carrying rifles and wearing bulletproof vests, began patrolling prominent streets in downtown Chicago over the weekend.
“What I have been warning of is now being realized,” Pritzker said at a news briefing. “One thing is clear, none of what Trump is doing is making Illinois safer.”
Amid heightened tensions, protests at a processing facility in suburban Broadview escalated in recent days, as multiple arrests were made and tear gas was deployed against demonstrators.
“In Broadview, people nonviolently holding signs and chanting against brutality, expressing their First Amendment rights, have been regularly attacked with chemical agents…Agents reportedly unholstered their guns and pointed them at protesters,” the governor said. “In their own words, ICE intended to unleash a ‘shitshow’ in the Broadview community.’”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday that she is sending more federal troops to ICE facilities around the country.
“If you so much as touch one of our federal officers, you will go to prison,” she said.
Pritzker, alongside notable lawmakers including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, among others, criticized “the MAGA Republicans supported invasion” of Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
“This is not about fighting crime or about public safety,” he said. “This is about sowing fear and intimidation and division among Americans. It was about creating a pretext to send armed military troops into our communities.”
President Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Sunday, said that he is still considering sending armed National Guard troops into Chicago.
“Any place where there is big trouble, we want to go and help out,” he said, calling Chicago a “crime-ridden mess.”
Late last month, Pritzker delivered a strongly worded message, warning the president not to come to the city, following his threats to deploy the National Guard.
Trump reposted videos showing agents in Chicago this weekend, but has yet to make a public statement on their presence.
Mayor Brandon Johnson blasted the presence of Border Patrol agents in the downtown area as a “stunt” that has “nothing to do with public safety.”
“What we saw yesterday was an absolute disgrace,” he said. “Families, visitors, everyday Chicagoans were out enjoying our city, and they were met with dozens of heavily armed federal agents aiming to strike fear in our communities.”
In one instance downtown, footage from Millennium Park showed agents interacting with four people – two children and two adults – and placing them in the back of a pickup truck.
While ICE hasn’t provided details on the incident, Pritzker said, “In Millennium Park federal agents interrogated a family as their small daughter held onto her doll and appeared to try to translate for her parents.”
Hundreds of people in the city and suburbs have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent weeks as part of a ramped-up effort to deport more individuals who the Trump administration called “criminal illegal aliens.”
This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
