After weeks of threats from President Donald Trump to deploy military troops into Illinois over the vehement objections of Gov. JB Pritzker and other Democratic leaders, Texas National Guard members arrived early Tuesday at a southwest suburban military training site ahead of an operation to protect federal immigration agents and facilities.
Local government officials confirmed the Texas National Guard’s arrival and said communication channels had been opened between their office and the Guard. Sun-Times journalists saw troops moving between mobile barracks staged at the U.S. Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood, about 50 miles outside of Chicago.
Gov. JB Pritzker told the Sun-Times the Texas National Guard is using the federal Joliet area facility because he has not allowed them to use state facilities. Pritzker has repeatedly said he has received no communications from the Trump administration about deployment.
“The reports are, that is where they are. That’s where they arrived. Remember, they’re arriving, thinking that they’re going to have to spend weeks here,” Pritzker said. “And so they’ve got to have a bunk and a place to unpack and such.”
“They are not on the streets of Elwood, and that’s because that’s where they had to go because I refused to allow them to use state facilities,” said Pritzker, who has called the deployment an “invasion.”
The troops showed up a day after a federal judge rejected a request from Pritzker and Illinois Attorney Gen. Kwame Raoul to immediately bar the deployment. A hearing on the temporary restraining order sought by Illinois leaders was scheduled for Thursday.
During a White House briefing, Trump said he was still considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops, a move that could bypass the court fight being waged by Pritzker and Raoul.
“Chicago’s a great city where there’s a lot of crime and if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job,” Trump said, calling Johnson “grossly incompetent.”
At an unrelated press conference, Johnson said he has had no communication with the Trump administration or the National Guard and is “not aware of where they are,” where they’re staging or where they might be going.
But if members of the National Guard or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violate his latest executive order prohibiting them from using city property as staging grounds for ICE raids, they should be “charged with a crime because it is a crime.”
“Isn’t that the basic rule of what they ostensibly refer to as law and order? How do you expect people to respect your ability to carry out law and order if you don’t follow it yourself?” the mayor said.
Pressed on whether he wants Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke to file those charges, Johnson said. “I’m saying they should be held accountable.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said this week he’s been in touch with federal law enforcement agencies to strengthen communications after Saturday’s mayhem in Brighton Park that saw some federal agents claim that they were left to fend for themselves.
It’s not clear when Guard members could show up on the streets of Chicago or Broadview, where protests outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement facility have sometimes flared into violence — often escalated by federal agents.
In a statement, state Sen. Rachel Ventura, the Joliet Democrat whose district is now hosting troops, said the deployment “is not only shameful and unnecessary — it’s a blatant abuse of power.
“Illinois has a long and proud history of protecting its people and welcoming those whose rights have been threatened elsewhere, and we won’t allow our communities to be targeted simply because the president doesn’t agree with these values,” Ventura said.
“Today, I’m calling on our community to rise above those who seek to divide us,” Ventura added. “Instead of turning to the shameful tactics of violence, we find our strength in one another. We must show up and demonstrate peacefully in the face of this overreach.”
Meanwhile in Washington, Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, grilled U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Trump administration’s deployments among other policy swings “to protect President Trump and his allies and attack his opponents, and sadly, the American people.”
“These deployments basically target Democratic-run cities and Democratic leaders, ignoring many Republican-led areas of our country with even higher crime rates, and making clear that this is for political theater, not public safety,” Durbin said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He slammed Trump’s suggestion last week that large cities could serve as military “training grounds.”
“Chicago is not the enemy. Our fellow Americans are not the enemy. It is abhorrent for the president who is supposed to represent all Americans, regardless of political party, to describe anyone who disagrees with him in this manner,” Durbin said.
Bondi stuck to White House claims that the deployments are intended to tamp down crime, which in reality has fallen in Chicago and other major cities over the past few years.
“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi told Durbin. “And currently, the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.”
