On Wednesday, President Donald Trump demanded the imprisonment of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, citing their handling of the National Guard and related immigration enforcement in Chicago.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
These remarks followed Pritzker’s suggestion the previous day that the president might be suffering from dementia, and the arrival of hundreds of Texas National Guard troops at an army training center near the city, poised for deployment as early as Wednesday.
Chicago has emerged as the focal point of a dispute concerning the Trump Administration’s deployment of National Guard personnel and federal agents to implement an immigration sweep in Democratic-governed cities, despite opposition from local and state officials.
Over the past month, the administration initiated numerous federal immigration raids and arrests. A military-style operation last week sparked widespread condemnation when federal agents reportedly deployed flashbang grenades and detained children during nighttime hours at a residential complex that the Department of Homeland Security identified as “known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates.”
On Monday, Mayor Johnson advocated for the establishment of “ICE-free zones” across the city, prohibiting federal immigration agents from utilizing city-owned facilities for their operations and urging city departments and agencies to implement “physical barriers” to “limit access to city property for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had used Chicago Public Schools parking lots during its operations.
That same day, Illinois and Chicago initiated a lawsuit against the Administration regarding the deployment of National Guard troops to the city, characterizing it as “patently unlawful,” and requesting the court to “halt the illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional federalization of members of the National Guard of the United States, including both the Illinois and Texas National Guard.” A federal judge opted not to immediately prevent the National Guard’s deployment to the city, scheduling a hearing for Thursday.
‘Push back against tyranny’
During a press conference on Monday, Pritzker described the deployment of federal troops to Illinois as an “unconstitutional invasion,” intended to “justify and normalize the presence of armed soldiers.”
“Let me be clear, Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker stated. He further noted that Chicago is experiencing its lowest homicide rate in 60 years, alongside record employment figures.
“I refuse to let Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino continue on this march toward autocracy,” he proceeded, identifying the Homeland Security Secretary, Border Patrol commander, and the President. “The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago.”
In a distinct interview with the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, Pritzker implied that Trump’s intense focus on Chicago might stem from an undiagnosed case of dementia.
“This is a man who’s suffering dementia,” Pritzker commented in an interview with the Tribune. “This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can’t get it out of his head. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date. It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities.”
“And then, regrettably, he possesses the power of the military, the power of the federal government to execute his will, and that’s what he’s doing,” he further stated.
Concurrently, Johnson encouraged Chicago residents to “push back against tyranny” via political organizing. Journalists and unions in Chicago have initiated a lawsuit against DHS, claiming that “extreme force” was employed against reporters and TV crews during demonstrations outside the Broadview ICE facility in the Chicago suburbs.
Meanwhile, Trump has indicated his intention to invoke the Insurrection Act in Chicago, a 19th-century statute enabling the president to deploy federal troops to quell actions that “make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Although the Act has been utilized by other administrations, experts informed TIME that those instances were “far more extreme” than the current situations in Portland or Chicago.
Trump is also encountering criticism for his proposals to send troops to Portland, Oregon.
“Portland is burning to the ground” and is overrun by “insurrectionists all over the place,” the President asserted—a claim unsupported by images and videos from the scene. A federal judge halted the President’s deployment of the National Guard to Portland, ruling that he “exceeded his constitutional authority.”
The President’s demands for the imprisonment of Johnson and Pritzker coincide with the Justice Department (DOJ) acting on the President’s wishes regarding his political adversaries: Former FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday for his arraignment, following criminal charges filed by the DOJ for obstruction and making a false statement to Congress. Trump has sought retaliation against Comey due to his tenure as FBI Director during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its links to the Trump presidential campaign.
