Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) on Saturday said President Donald Trump will federalize 300 Illinois National Guard troops, despite his dissent.
“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.“
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It’s unclear what the troops will do or where they will go. Trump previously federalized the D.C. National Guard to assist in crime-fighting efforts in the nation’s capital.
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Trump said last month that the National Guard would be deployed in Chicago.
“Chicago’s very interesting, because I watched them say ‘We don’t need help, we’re safe,’ but two weeks ago, they had six people murdered and they had 24 people hit by bullets,” he said. “Chicago is a hellhole right now.”
The imminent deployment comes as immigration officers have run into several dangerous situations in the state. Officers from the Department of Homeland Security were “boxed in” by 10 cars and rammed, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin posted on X.
“Agents were unable to move their vehicles and exited the car. One of the drivers who rammed the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed US citizen who drove herself to the hospital to get care for wounds,” she said, noting intelligence that the woman had threatened agents online.
No agents were seriously wounded, and she also noted that “Pritzker’s Chicago Police Department” left the shooting scene and “declined” to help secure the area. “There is a growing crowd and we are deploying special operations to control the scene,” she said.
On CPD’s website, it says the department “does NOT work with, collaborate with, or enforce immigration laws for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
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The box-in incident comes two days after immigration officers were rammed by cars in separate incidents by illegal immigrants.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment, but did not receive a response.