President Trump authorized the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago this weekend to safeguard federal agents fighting crime and enforcing immigration law in the city, which has resulted instead in riots against the crackdown.
The president warned Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker that the pending arrival of 300 guardsmen — 200 more than the federal government originally planned to activate — followed what Homeland Security officials called an “ambush” Saturday in which two people rammed their cars into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles.
Agents shot a female suspect in self-defense. She suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was criminally charged, as was another man.
Mr. Trump speculated Sunday that the Democratic governor’s reluctance to activate the National Guard is because he’s “afraid for his life.”
“When you can have 40 or 50 people killed over the last couple of months, hundreds of people wounded, there’s no place like that in the world,” the president said prior to traveling for the Navy’s 250th anniversary celebration in Norfolk, Virginia.
Mr. Pritzker pushed back on Mr. Trump’s characterization of Chicago as a “war zone.”
He instead blamed the White House for fomenting tensions between city residents and federal authorities outside an ICE detention facility in the city’s suburbs.
“They’re just making this up,” Mr. Pritzker told CNN on Sunday. “And then what do they do? They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.”
He also said that federal authorities are provoking people into fighting back by using force.
“I mean, if you were on the ground and you’re having tear gas pellets fired at you, as they have been doing in Broadview, Illinois, you know you want to react. You want something to happen. And unfortunately, they’re using every lever at their disposal to keep us from maintaining order.”
The administration did not offer a timeline of when the troops would make it into city limits.
The ongoing spat through soundbites comes after federal officials said Marimar Martinez, 30, drove into ICE vehicles Saturday and pulled out a gun.
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents fired “defensive shots at an armed U.S. citizen.”
Authorities took Ms. Martinez, who was wounded by the gunfire, into custody.
She and another person, 21-year-old Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, were charged in the same incident with using their individual vehicles to assault, impede, and interfere with the work of federal agents.
Ms. McLaughlin labeled those involved in Saturday’s attack “domestic terrorists.”
“These attacks on our brave law enforcement officers must end,” she said.
Chicago is the latest city to come in the federal crosshairs for its refusal to cooperate with federal immigration-enforcement efforts.
The Trump administration intended to send 200 National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon, in response to ongoing protests at a local ICE facility, but a federal judge blocked the deployment by labeling it government overreach.
“This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law,” Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, wrote in her opinion. “Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.”
White House officials said the situation outside the Portland ICE facility is unsustainable.
Just through Sept. 8, well before the Guard was ordered in, 26 people had been charged with federal crimes in connection with those demonstrations, with charges ranging from arson, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
The White House is attempting to send 300 California National Guard troops into the Oregon city to work around the judge’s order. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is suing the administration for pulling what he said was a political stunt.
A National Guard deployment to Los Angeles this summer was the first use of the Guard to assist with immigration agents.
The deployment sparked riots in the Southern California city that took over its downtown area.