NOTE: Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s update is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. Monday, and will stream in the video player above once it begins.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is set to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Monday to address President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy hundreds of members of the National Guard to Illinois and other states.
“This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States,” Pritzker said in a release Sunday, announcing the news. “No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate.”
Late Sunday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard units to Oregon, including the California National Guard.
“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Pritzker’s statement went on to say. “It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”
Pritzker said Trump’s Department of Defense gave him what he called “an ultimatum” to either call up National Guard members or to have those members nationalized. The Department of Homeland Security previously requested up to 100 troops to be deployed to Illinois to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assets and agents, the governor’s office said.
Trump says Pritzker opposes Guard deployment because he’s ‘afraid for his life’
In a memo obtained through a court filing and signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard will be deployed in Chicago and Portland “for up to 60 days with the potential for an extension.”
“On October 4, 2025, the President determined that violent incidents, as well as the credible threat of continued violence, are impeding the execution of the laws of the United States in Illinois, Oregon, and other locations throughout the United States,” the memo read in part.
Along with the deployment of Texas troops, Trump is calling at least 300 Illinois National Guard members into service to protect federal buildings in the state, according to a copy of a Pentagon memo first reported by the Chicago Tribune and shared with NBC News by an Illinois official.
Following news of the planned deployment, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also posted on X, writing, “…National Guard troops from Texas will only serve to further escalate the Trump administration’s reckless and unconstitutional attack on our city…”
Pritzker and Johnson have long opposed calling up National Guard members for law enforcement purposes, which Trump has repeatedly threatened in recent months.
“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,” Pritzker previously said.
Trump has repeatedly insisted he has the authority to send the National Guard to Chicago despite a California court ruling he overstepped his authority in sending members to Los Angeles during protests and unrest there earlier this year.
He had indicated a desire to send the National Guard to Chicago and multiple other cities, but later backtracked on the idea, saying that Pritzker and other officials would have to ask for such assistance.
“We could straighten out Chicago — all they have to do is ask us,” he told reporters. “I want to go into Chicago, and I have this incompetent governor who doesn’t want us.”
Pritzker has opposed such a move, and has insisted that he would not request such assistance.
“He wants to set into the fact pattern that the governor called him to ask for help. Why? Because he’s going to end up in court,” Pritzker said. “He’s going to end up in court, and that will be a fact that they will use in court. That the governor called to ask for help, and I’m sorry I’m not going to provide him with evidence to support his desire to have the court rule in his favor. I’m just not going to do that.”
When could the National Guard arrive in Illinois?
It was not immediately clear when or exactly where they would be deployed.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the president authorized using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.
Over the weekend, government officials said Border Patrol agents shot and injured a woman on Chicago’s southwest side while firing at someone who tried to run them over. The DHS acknowledged the shooting, saying in a statement that Border Patrol agents “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars,” and when they got out of their trapped vehicle, “a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively.”
The woman who was shot was a U.S. citizen and was armed with a semiautomatic weapon, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, noting that the woman was accused in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection intelligence bulletin last week of doxing agents.
In an interview with Fox & Friends on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem again called Chicago “a war zone” and said protesters are being paid to disrupt operations and stir violence against officers.
“Our intelligence indicates these people are organized and making plans to ambush and kill them,” she said. “Somebody is funding them.″
Immigration enforcement and protests continue
Activists, residents and leaders say increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in Chicago.
“They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Pritzker said Sunday on CNN. “They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.”
More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since an immigration crackdown started last month in the Chicago area. But U.S. citizens, immigrants with legal status and children have been among those detained in increasingly brazen and aggressive encounters which pop up daily across neighborhoods in the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs.
And, the use of chemical agents has become more frequent and visible in the past week. Used initially to manage protesters, agents used it this week on city streets and during immigration operations, according to Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
An emergency hotline to report immigrant agent sightings topped 800 calls on Friday, the same day activists said agents threw a cannister of a chemical near a school in the city’s Logan Square neighborhood. The activity in the northwest side neighborhood prompted nearby Funston Elementary School to hold recess indoors.
The same day Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes was placed in handcuffs at a hospital. She said she asked agents to show a warrant for a person who’d broken his leg while chased by ICE agents who then transported him to the emergency room.
“ICE acted like an invading army in our neighborhoods,” said state Rep. Lilian Jiménez, a Democrat. “Helicopters hovered above our homes, terrifying families and disturbing the peace of our community. These shameful and lawless actions are not only a violation of constitutional rights but of our most basic liberty: the right to live free from persecution and fear.”
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.
