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Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says the Trump administration is readying to deploy a hundred military personnel to the state. Pritzker, surrounded by city leaders, elected officials and activists, called it an escalation of Trump’s efforts to cause, quote, “mayhem” in Chicago. From member station WBEZ, here’s Mawa Iqbal.
MAWA IQBAL, BYLINE: It’s been more than a month that President Trump has threatened off and on to send National Guard troops to Chicago as he and the city battle over the detention of people without legal status. Many in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods say they are living in fear as tensions rise. For several weeks, protesters have clashed with federal immigration agents at a suburban ICE detention facility. In a statement, Homeland Security has called the protesters rioters. And now Governor Pritzker says the Illinois National Guard received a memo saying that the Department of Homeland Security requested extra forces to, quote, “protect ICE personnel and facilities.”
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JB PRITZKER: What I have been warning of is now being realized. One thing is clear – none of what Trump is doing is making Illinois safer.
IQBAL: Pritzker and other Illinois elected officials have consistently slammed the president’s enforcement plans as political theater. This past weekend, dozens of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in tactical gear and carrying military weapons roamed through downtown Chicago, walking among shoppers and tourists. The agents were led by U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino. When asked how he and his agents were identifying people to detain, he told a white reporter from member station WBEZ…
GREGORY BOVINO: Obviously the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?
IQBAL: Immigrant rights advocate Erendira Rendon says Homeland Security is clearly making arrests based on racial profiling.
ERENDIRA RENDON: Based on class, based on how we dress and based on the language we speak. If you look like me, you are in danger.
IQBAL: Pritzker blasted the actions undertaken by the federal agents. He insists they are not about making Chicagoans safer.
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PRITZKER: If federal agents marched down busy streets harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say? I don’t think we’d have any trouble calling it what it is – authoritarianism.
IQBAL: Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. However, Pritzker and the state’s attorney general say they will sue the Trump administration if troops are deployed to Illinois.
For NPR News, I’m Mawa Iqbal in Springfield, Illinois.
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