President Trump appeared to once again threaten sending troops to Chicago for a widespread immigration and crime crackdown similar to that seen in Los Angeles when the National Guard was recently deployed there.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump shared a screenshot that reads “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning …’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The AI-generated image appears to parody the movie “Apocalypse Now.”
Mr. Trump has targeted Chicago and other Democrat-led cities for expanded federal intervention. His administration has said it will step up immigration enforcement in the Windy City, as he did in Los Angeles, and would deploy National Guard troops to help fight crime. In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Mr. Trump deployed them last month in Washington, D.C., as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.
A federal court in California ruled this week that the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed Guard and active-duty U.S Marines to Los Angeles. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that the administration violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
Although details about the promised Chicago operation have been sparse, local opposition is already widespread and is building in the suburbs. State and city leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration.
“We’re going in. I didn’t say when, we’re going in,” Mr. Trump said in an Oval Office event Tuesday, after a reporter asked if he plans to send the Guard to Chicago.
Mr. Trump did not specify whether his administration will primarily send Guard forces or federal law enforcement agents to Chicago.
On Sunday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker responded to Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post, saying in a post X, “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city.”
“This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
The city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, in a post on X, said Mr. Trump’s threats are “beneath the honor of our nation.”
“But the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” he wrote. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”
An internal government memo obtained by CBS News this week showed that the Department of Homeland Security asked the Pentagon to accommodate roughly 250 federal agents and 140 vehicles at the Naval Station Great Lakes – the largest military base in Illinois and the Navy’s largest training station.
The request was officially made last week, and Homeland Security personnel and equipment began arriving at the naval station earlier this week, a U.S. official familiar with the operation told CBS News. The naval station is located about 50 miles north of Chicago on Lake Michigan.
The internal memo said Homeland Security officials would need the base for 30 days, suggesting the immigration crackdown in Chicago could last for weeks.
In a statement to CBS News, DHS said it will “go to wherever these criminal illegal aliens are — including Chicago, Boston, and other cities.”
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, nowhere is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens,” the department said. “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”
Activists, church groups and schools in the nation’s third-largest city have been preparing for the operation. Organizers postponed a downtown Mexican Independence Day festival scheduled for later this month because of fears in the community about the planned immigration crackdown. They did not set a new date.