President Donald Trump on Saturday authorised the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and property in Chicago, marking another escalation of federal intervention in American cities.
“This morning the Trump administration gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops or we will do it,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said in a statement. “To demand that the governor send troops into our territory against our will is absolutely outrageous and unpatriotic.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi also issued a memo directing Justice Department agencies, including the FBI, to assist in protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, including those in Chicago and Portland.
Tensions are rising in the city and surrounding suburbs as clashes between protesters and federal agents increase. On Friday, agents placed handcuffs on an alderperson who confronted them at the Humboldt Park Hospital.
That same morning, ICE agents led by Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino violently attacked protesters outside the suburban ICE facility in Broadview, where detainees from Operation Midway Blitz are being held.
A local reporter for the local news site Block Club Chicago reported that one of the agents pushed and put his hands around the neck of Pastor Michael Woolf of Lake Street Church in Evanston, who was protesting in front of the centre.
“One of them grabbed my nipple and twisted and put their hands on my throat. They were not gentle … I am completely peaceful. I am a pastor and committed to non-violence,” Pastor Woolf said in an interview with Block Club Chicago.
Federal agents repeatedly used tear gas and fired on protesters outside the Broadview centre who were trying to disrupt ICE operations in the city. Local authorities, including the mayor of Broadview, have called on the agents to stop their aggressive actions against residents.
In Chicago, alarms raised about racial profiling
The sight of armed, camouflaged and masked Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous downtown landmarks has amplified such concerns. Many Chicagoans were already uneasy after an immigration crackdown began earlier this month. Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.
Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters Friday near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview.
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that federal agents shot a woman Saturday morning on the southwest side of Chicago. A statement from the department said it happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”
“The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,” the statement said.
No law enforcement officers were seriously injured, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.
The woman who was shot was a U.S. citizen and was armed with a semiautomatic weapon, according to McLaughlin. She said the woman drove herself to a hospital for treatment, but a Chicago Fire Department spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that she was found near the scene and taken to a hospital in fair condition.
Immigrants’ rights advocates and residents separately reported that federal agents used tear gas near grocery or hardware stores targeted for enforcement elsewhere in Chicago on Friday and detained a city council member as she questioned the attempted arrest of a man.
Pritzker, the governor, lashed out at the Trump administration for the way federal agents, many of them masked to hide their faces, have treated protesters over the past month. He castigated officers’ “inhumane” tactics including slamming protesters to the ground, arresting a reporter and firing chemical agents into the crowds.
“It is clear federal agents cannot be trusted to act to protect the safety and constitutional rights of the public,” the Democratic governor said.