Illinois governor JB Pritzker announced that Donald Trump plans to federalize 300 national guard troops in the state at the same time US border patrol agents reportedly shot a woman in Chicago amid an aggressive immigration and militarized enforcement operation in the city.
Pritzker, a Democrat, revealed the president’s intent to deploy troops despite the governor being firmly opposed to the move.
“This morning, the Trump administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”
He added: “They will pull hard-working Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance – not a serious effort the protect public safety. For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.
“This demand follows unprecedented escalations of aggression against Illinois citizens and residents.”
Trump’s plan to deploy troops comes just as a severe crackdown on immigration by Ice is happening in Chicago, with the operation being met with fierce outrage from local civic groups and opposition by local Democrats.
The exact circumstances of the Saturday morning shooting incident and the health of the woman remain unclear.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the shooting happened after patrolling agents said they felt threatened by approaching vehicles and that the gunfire had been “defensive”.
In a statement, DHS said that the woman had been named in a Customs and Border Protection intelligence bulletin last week for allegedly doxing agents and posting threats against Ice online. The woman’s name has not been released by the agency, and nor have any further details to corroborate these claims.
The statement added that no agents had been injured during the incident.
The shooting comes after federal immigration agents last month shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb after he allegedly attempted to flee a traffic stop and struck an officer with his car.
Chicago is one of a slew of US cities were Donald Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy the national guard and other troops in order to help police the immigration crackdown – or, in some cases, to respond to inflated claims about crime levels.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Gregory Bovino, a border patrol sector chief, on Friday visited the Broadview Ice facility in suburban Chicago, which has become the site of escalations by federal agents against protesters and journalists.
Noem vowed on social media Saturday afternoon to send additional troops to Chicago: “I am deploying more special operations to control the scene. Reinforcements are on their way. If you see a law enforcement officer today, thank them.”
The Trump administration has targeted Chicago with federal law enforcement starting in August, falsely claiming there had been a rise in crime in the city in recent years.
Since then, there have been reports of increasingly aggressive Ice enforcement in communities, including helicopters hovering over apartment raids and arrests of local officials and candidates for office who protest against the operations.
Trump has also repeatedly deployed national guard troops to cities across the US, from Los Angeles to Washington DC, despite federal law generally prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. The continuous pattern of military occupations on American soil has raised widespread concern about the politicization of the US military.
