In the face of continued and confusing threats that Chicago would be subjected to a federal incursion over immigration and crime, Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday sought to brace Chicagoans for a spike in raids from federal authorities and even potentially the National Guard in coming days.
“Let’s be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here,” Pritzker said at a downtown news conference, standing alongside Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and other state leaders.
While Trump remained ambiguous — even in his most recent comments Tuesday — about a timeline or the details of a federal crackdown in Illinois, Pritzker made it clear his administration thinks Trump plans to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago’s streets and direct immigration enforcement agents to “raid Latino communities” in the coming weeks.
The deployments would look similar to recent actions the Trump administration took in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Pritzker said, citing conversations with unnamed sources and journalists, though he acknowledged the administration’s plans are blanketed in rumors and speculation, and the governor blamed Washington for a lack of coordination.
The governor’s announcement in Chicago came just hours after Trump told reporters in Washington that it was a matter of when — not if — he would send members of the National Guard into Chicago over the city’s crime problem.
“Well, we’re going in. I didn’t say when we’re going in,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Look, I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation when we lose, when 20 people are killed over the last two and a half weeks, and 75 are shot with bullets.”
But Pritzker countered that the move was not only political but authoritarian, adding that he specifically has “reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois.” The Texas Military Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Pritzker’s remarks, but in a published report in the Houston Chronicle Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office disputed the claim.
How Trump’s moves would actually occur, however, remained unclear. Earlier Tuesday, a federal judge in California issued an injunction that prohibits the Trump administration from using federalized National Guard troops and military personnel in that state for law enforcement activities. The judge said the Trump administration “willfully” broke federal law by sending Guard troops to the Los Angeles area in early June after days of protests over immigration raids. Trump dismissed the ruling as a decision from a “radically left judge.”
Pritzker said the state has heard from representatives within the Trump administration that it planned to soon send agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to assist ICE agents in Chicago. Already, the administration is “staging military vehicles on federal property,” including at the Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Pritzker said.
Federal officials are preparing for raids, Pritzker said, potentially timed to coincide with planned celebrations for Mexican Independence Day this month — though he later added he was not suggesting people change their plans in anticipation of potential immigration enforcement actions.
The governor said Trump would be looking for “any excuse” to send active duty military to Chicago.
“If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try to go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago,” Pritzker said, apparently referring to a widely shared incident in Washington in which a person threw a sandwich at a federal officer. “I’m imploring everyone, if and when that happens, do not take the bait.”
The governor said he expected the amplified federal presence to last around one month.
The latest intelligence relayed by the governor came after the head of Illinois State Police received a phone call from Trump border official Gregory Bovino over the weekend “indicating that ICE would be deployed to Chicago,” Pritzker told reporters. It is the first outreach the state has received from the Trump administration on the issue, the governor said.
Bovino spearheaded Trump’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and is known for his aggressive tactics and social media videos promoting his agents’ role in deporting thousands of immigrants.
“Bovino was short on details and long on rhetoric,” Pritzker said Tuesday.
Pritzker continued to call for Chicagoans to peacefully protest against Trump’s actions, look out for neighbors and know their rights in the face of immigration enforcement. Chicagoans should also “film things that you see happening in your neighborhoods and your streets and share them with the news media,” he said.
“Our goal is not to scare anyone but to prepare everyone to face some ugly realities in the coming days,” Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said at the same news conference Tuesday. “Many Illinoisans who look a certain way are going to spend this time living in deep fear.”
Before Pritzker’s public comments Tuesday, Trump renewed his criticisms of the Democratic governor and said he’s responsible for crime in Chicago.
“There’s no place, there’s no place in the world, including you can go to Afghanistan. You can go to places that you would think of, they don’t even come close to this. Chicago is a hellhole right now,” he said.
The president’s comments came following a Labor Day weekend that saw more than four dozen people shot and eight killed between 10 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Monday.
Even though the spotlight was once again turned on Chicago violence with the threat of Trump sending in the National Guard, CPD records show the 2025 Labor Day weekend’s killing total actually was slightly down compared to other recent years. Records reviewed by the Tribune show that the Labor Day weekend in Chicago has on average in recent years resulted in 11 killings and about 38 other nonfatal shootings.
The worst recent year came in 2020, when 14 people were killed and 44 were wounded over that holiday period. This year’s figure comes during a continuing trend of better violence numbers in the city since the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the weekend began, Chicago had recorded 266 homicides in 2025, according to the Police Department. That was a 32% decline in killings from the same time period in 2024. Total shooting incidents were also down 36% citywide.
Trump had previously warned of National Guard intervention in Chicago but had said he would like to be invited by Pritzker — something the two-term Democratic governor said would not happen.
Also during the news conference, Trump contended that a morning TV show interviewed a dozen people urging Guard intervention in Chicago.
“Most of them were African American. They were Black. And they were saying, ‘Please, please, please, let the president send it.’ These were people from Chicago. ‘Please. We need help. We need help. We can’t walk outside. We’re petrified,’” Trump said.
“If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up. I would love to do it now. We’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country,” he said.
Asked about violence in Chicago, Johnson pointed the finger back at Trump for the city’s ongoing gun violence epidemic — including this past holiday weekend because “the president continues to allow tens of thousands of guns to be trafficked into our state and our city.”
“Every time someone is shot, every time someone loses their life to violence, it’s a tragedy,” Johnson said. “The fact of the matter is, is that we have illegal guns that are being trafficked in our city. That’s the problem, right? We have done everything in our power locally getting guns off the streets of Chicago.”
The mayor also staunchly rejected the notion Trump would help the situation by sending in troops and instead said local leaders will “take every single measure that we can to protect our people from these threats.”
Trump, who federalized law enforcement in Washington, D.C., as well as deployed the National Guard, said the nation’s capital “serves as a template, and we’re going to do it elsewhere, but Chicago is certainly going to be high.”
But Trump has greater power to federalize resources, such as the Guard, in the District of Columbia, which is not a state. The president’s power is limited elsewhere by state sovereignty.
“It’s an honor to do it. … A lot of presidents wouldn’t do what I’m doing. I don’t need this heat. But when I watch television last night and I’m watching the news and I see that nine people were killed in Chicago and 54 were badly wounded with bullets. I say, ‘That’s not this country. We have to do something,’” Trump said. “We have a lot of people. We have a great force. We have a great military force.”
After he spoke to reporters, the White House issued a statement asking, “For J.B. Pritzker, When Will Enough Be Enough?”
“Pritzker is too blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome to … act in the best interest of his constituents and end this bloodshed,” the statement said. “The Trump Administration’s message to Chicagoans and residents in Democrat-run cities nationwide is simple: You don’t have to live like this.”
Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin, Sam Charles and Dan Petrella contributed.