WASHINGTON — The Trump administration federalized hundreds of Illinois National Guard members Saturday after Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker rejected an “ultimatum” from the US Department of War to deploy troops in crime-ridden Chicago.
“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker posted on X. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”
“In the coming hours, the Trump Administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard,” he added. “I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois.”
The White House confirmed the deployment later Saturday.
“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorized 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
On Saturday morning, US Border Patrol agents opened fire on 10 cars who “boxed” them in during a patrol in Chicago’s Broadview neighborhood on the South Side, according to Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
“Agents were unable to move their vehicles and exited the car. One of the drivers who rammed the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
“Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed US citizen who drove herself to the hospital to get care for wounds.”
The DHS spokeswoman added that the armed woman had been flagged in a Customs and Border Protection bulletin last week “for doxing agents and posting online ‘Hey to all my gang let’s f— those mother f—ers up, don’t let them take anyone.’”
There were no other injuries to law enforcement or others from the attack.
“Pritzker’s Chicago Police Department is leaving the shooting scene and refuses to assist us in securing the area,” McLaughlin noted. “There is a growing crowd and we are deploying special operations to control the scene.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller later declared it an act of “domestic terrorism and seditious insurrection.”
DHS launched Operation Midway Blitz in September to round up illegal immigrants in Chicago after local Democrats balked at the Trump administration’s request to address crime in America’s third-largest city.
The operation is being conducted after an illegal migrant, Julio Cucul-Bol, killed a 20-year-old Illinois woman and her friend in a drunk driving, hit-and-run wreck.
President Trump hinted at the immigration raids by sharing an “Apocalypse Now”-themed meme.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” the social media post, playing off of a line from director Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War classic delivered by Robert Duvall’s character Col. Bill Kilgore: “I love the small of napalm in the morning.”
“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump’s post added.
A similar federal takeover in Washington, DC, in August cut violent crime nearly in half.
Pritzker said federal immigration authorities had been engaged in the weeks before in “unprecedented escalations of aggression against Illinois citizens and residents” and that the looming federal takeover of Chicago was “not a serious effort the protect public safety.”
“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control,” the Illinois governor said.
“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.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem traveled to Illinois Friday to visit the Chicago federal detention center, which has been a hotbed of civil unrest and anti-ICE protests, but was blocked by local authorities from entering a municipal building.
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