President Donald Trump has issued a call for more troops in Chicago to address “murder and crime” at a shopping center that does not exist.
“The Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Chicago, once considered our Nation’s BEST, now has a more than 28% vacancy factor, and is ready to call it quits unless something is done about the murder and crime, which is prevalent throughout the City,” the 79-year-old president raged on Truth Social Tuesday. “CALL IN THE TROOPS, FAST, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!”
Not only is there no “Miracle Mile Shopping Center” in Chicago, but the closest shopping center with that name is over 400 miles away in St. Louis Park, Minneapolis. Other similarly named “Miracle Mile” shopping centers exist in several other states, such as Ohio, Florida and Nevada — but none are located in Illinois, home of the Windy City.
Trump was likely referencing Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile, a commercial hub offering high-end shopping and hundreds of storefronts in the city’s downtown district. The commercial corridor is currently undergoing a “budding recovery,” with crime falling and visitors back to nearly pre-pandemic levels, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for clarification on the president’s comments.
Various news organizations were quick to issue a fact check on the president, not just correcting the famed shopping district’s name but reporting that crime is actually down in Chicago compared to year’s past.
NBC’s Natasha Korecki corrected the president by noting that, before the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” homicides in Chicago were down 24 percent for the year to date, shootings were down 24 percent, robberies 41 percent, car thefts 28 percent and violent crime 22 percent.
But perhaps the most significant footnote came from The Chicago Tribune, which reported that federal immigration agents may soon be leaving the Illinois metropolis because their operation is winding down after two months of contentious raids on alleged undocumented migrants.
Commander Gregory Bovino, who has been leading “Operation Midway Blitz,” is expected to leave within days to take up another assignment elsewhere, the Tribune reported on Monday. At the same time, his Border Patrol forces are redeployed and an on-call task force, composed of FBI personnel and U.S. attorneys, parts ways.
“Every day DHS enforces the laws of this country, including in Chicago,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement. “We do not comment or telegraph future operations.”
The administration claims to have made more than 3,000 arrests since beginning its operations in the area in early September, but its actions have provoked tensions at the street level.
Confrontations with protesters have seen a person shot in an incident in which two cars were accused of ramming an agency van, a Presbyterian minister hit in the head with pepper balls, and tear gas fired in residential streets, creating a climate of fear among residents.
Bovino was ordered to testify in federal court in late October after he and his masked officers faced a wave of allegations about their aggressive tactics, including one episode in which an agent was accused of pointing a gun at a demonstrator and saying “bang, bang” and “you’re dead, liberal.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has repeatedly made the case that federal intervention in local law enforcement is unnecessary, decrying the crackdown by comparing it to events in Nazi Germany and urging ICE to stand down over the Halloween holiday weekend to ensure the safety of trick-or-treaters.
Pritzker took the agency to task again on Monday after its officers posed for a team photograph in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture, known as the Bean, in Millennium Park.
“Making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting,” the governor said.
“Greg Bovino and his masked agents are not here to make Chicago safer. As children are tear gassed and U.S. citizens detained, they are posing for photo ops and producing reality TV moments.”
