President Donald Trump’s administration plans to deploy Illinois National Guard troops to the Chicago region for at least 60 days, according to a memo sent by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Illinois National Guard leadership and obtained by the Tribune.
In the memo, which was sent Saturday, Hegseth informed Illinois National Guard leadership that up to 300 of its members will be called into federal service “effective immediately” for the two-month period.
According to the memo, the president called on guard members to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Protective Service, and other federal government personnel “who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where violent demonstrations against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.”
Much of the historic move to federalize state National Guard troops — over the objections of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker — was laid out by Pritzker on Saturday and was quickly defended by the White House, while Democrats slammed it as a power grab by the president to sow fear and division.
A spokesperson for Pritzker said the governor has not communicated with Trump administration officials regarding the deployment.
“The Governor did not receive any calls from any federal officials. The Illinois National Guard communicated to the Department of War that the situation in Illinois does not require the use of the military and, as a result, the Governor opposes the deployment of the National Guard under any status,” the governor’s office said.
The White House said the troops were needed ostensibly to ensure the safety of federal agents and facilities that are part of Trump’s immigration enforcement surge that has hit the Chicago area for the past month.
The memo didn’t specify exactly where the deployments would take place, but said the chief of the National Guard Bureau, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commander of U.S. Northern Command would coordinate details about the mobilization with the Illinois Guard.
The move to federalize and deploy the Illinois National Guard comes as Trump sought to circumvent a temporary restraining order by a federal judge in Oregon who, on Saturday night, blocked the president’s mobilization of 200 Oregon National Guard members in Portland. On Sunday, Trump federalized 300 National Guard members from California for deployment in Portland — a move California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a “breathtaking abuse of power” as he vowed legal action to try to stop it.
“The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents,” Newsom said.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul did not have specific plans to file new lawsuits against the Trump administration early Sunday, following the news of the Illinois National Guard deployment and the issuance of the Oregon temporary restraining order.
Annie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois office, said in a statement Sunday that the attorney general “is firmly committed to upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law.”
“Our office will not hesitate to take legal action in the event of any unlawful deployment anywhere in Illinois,” Thompson wrote.
A spokeswoman for Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, who filed suit seeking to block the deployment, said their office has “been in touch and coordinating” legal strategy with Raoul’s office.
Rayfield spokeswoman Jenny Hansson also said Democratic attorneys general “have been working closely since January to hold the line on this administration.”
Speaking outside the White House as he prepared for a naval celebration in Norfolk, Virginia, Trump intimated Sunday that Pritzker was opposing efforts to bring in the National Guard because it would anger protesters of immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago and Portland who are “paid people.”
He also said Pritzker was “afraid for his life,” apparently contending the governor does not want to run afoul of organizations and networks the administration alleges are behind the protests over enhanced immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Repeating as he often does basic Chicago police blotter statistics about murders and shootings and lauding his federalization of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., Trump criticized Pritzker, a major critic of the president, for saying “what a wonderful place” Chicago is when “they need help.”
“I believe the politicians are under threat, because there’s no way somebody can say that things are wonderful in Chicago,” Trump said. “There’s no city in the world like that. We’re going to straighten it out. And I think that Pritzker, he’s not a stupid person. I think that Pritzker is afraid for his life.”
Pritzker, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said it was the Trump administration and federal agents who “are the ones that are making it a war zone. They need to get out of Chicago if they’re not going to focus on the worst of the worst, which is what the President said they were going to do. They need to get the heck out.
“They want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops,” Pritzker said.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard, sought to downplay potential confrontations with the Trump-ordered deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard members.
“So they’ll be home, grown Illinoisans, and they’re our brothers and sisters, our neighbors. I probably served with quite a number of them, certainly the leadership. And, you know, they’ll be home. We’ll welcome them,” Duckworth said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
“It’s a misuse of the National Guard. They’re not needed, but we’re going to welcome them, because they’re our brothers and sisters, and we’re proud of our National Guard,” she said.
Trump’s National Guard plans also drew opposition from a coalition of business and civic groups.
Troop deployment could harm the “meaningful progress” being made to make Chicago safer by sowing “fear and chaos,” according to a statement from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and Civic Federation.
The statement touted the work already underway to address violence in the city and described Trump’s plans as a threat to “our businesses’ bottom lines and our reputation.” Federal partnership plays a critical role in safety, it said.
In his comments outside the White House, Trump criticized Judge Karin Immergut — who he appointed to the U.S. District Court in Oregon — for blocking the deployment of Oregon National Guard troops in Portland without mentioning his move to send California National Guard members to the city.
Immergut said Trump’s basis for deploying the guard in Portland was “simply untethered to the facts” and that historic tradition “boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.” Allowing the troops to be deployed risk “blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation,” Immergut wrote.
Trump acknowledged appointing the judge but said, “I wasn’t served well.”
“Portland is burning to the ground. You have agitators, insurrectionists. All you have to do is look at that, look at the television,” Trump said. “That judge ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Immergut, in her ruling, also noted that “state and local law enforcement will need to expend additional resources to quell increased civil unrest that is likely to result from the Guard’s mobilization.”
Trump previously federalized Guard troops in Los Angeles after sporadic anti-ICE protests in June and did the same along with law enforcement in Washington, D.C., in August. Early last month, he announced he was deploying the Guard to Memphis with the support of Tennessee GOP Gov. Bill Lee, and late last month, he said he was authorizing the Guard to go into Portland, Oregon, over the objections of local officials.
Tribune reporter Jake Sheridan contributed.