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The Trump administration plans to deploy hundreds of US military personnel to Illinois over the objections of the state’s Democratic governor JB Pritzker.
The White House on Saturday announced that President Donald Trump had authorised 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets in the state, blaming “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell”.
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
Trump has in recent months sent US national guard troops into Democratic-led cities and threatened to send them to others, including Chicago in Illinois.
Pritzker said on Saturday that the defence department, which Trump has renamed the Department of War, had notified him that it will deploy the national guard in the state after sending him “an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will.”
“It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will,” Pritzker said.
Trump has accused Democratic leaders in some of the largest US cities of allowing crime to rise. He has framed his deployments of national guard troops on to the streets in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Portland, Oregon, all heavily Democratic cities, as an effort to protect Americans from illegal immigrants and violent leftists.
Democratic mayors and governors accuse Trump of trying to intimidate political rivals.
“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control,” Pritzker said.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the department did not have information to provide. Trump’s Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, posted to social media a video of himself at a Navy-Air Force football game.
The state of Oregon and city of Portland have filed a lawsuit against the administration’s deployment of 200 troops in the city. Trump earlier this week called the city a “never-ending disaster” and said he had “no choice” but to send troops.
Trump has in recent months also deployed thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into American cities in a bid to round up and deport foreigners residing in the US without visas, a population that he and the Republican party have characterised as invaders that threaten American national security.
The ICE raids, often carried out by masked agents at apartment buildings, schools and businesses, have swept up US citizens, legal residents and visa holders as well. Democratic leaders say the campaign has targeted blue states and cities in particular.
Pritzker in his statement said the administration’s demand comes the day after immigration officers “threw chemical agents near an elementary school, arrested elected officials exercising their First Amendment rights, and raided a Walmart. None of it was in pursuit of justice, but all of it was in pursuit of social media videos.”
“I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people,” Pritzker said.
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