Approximately 500 National Guard members are on the ground in the Chicago area, tasked with protecting ICE facilities and agents at the order of President Donald Trump.
The deployment was ordered in recent days, but members of the Guard are now assisting immigration agents and providing security at facilities according to officials.
The members, approximately 200 from Texas and 300 more from the Illinois National Guard, have been mobilized for a 60-day mission, based out of an Army reserve base in suburban Elwood.
That comes amid the backdrop of legal challenges to the deployment, with the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker suing the Trump administration to halt the deployment of troops despite Illinois officials’ wishes.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump both defended the decision to federalize the National Guard during a press availability Wednesday.
“(We’re doing this to) keep our federal officers safe, to keep our federal buildings safe, (and) we’re not gonna have it any more from these thugs,” Bondi said.
Chicago Politics
Pritzker, whom Trump called to be arrested on Wednesday, pushed back on the idea that Chicago requires military intervention, and dared the president to take him into custody.
“Somebody so insecure that he lashes out pretending he can come arrest people for no reason at all, he can’t,” he said. “He isn’t gonna do it.”
A federal judge is expected to rule on the legality of the deployment during a court hearing on Thursday. A similar deployment was halted by a federal judge in Oregon, as the Trump administration sought to put National Guard members on the ground in Portland.