Politics USA

Trump Sends Troops to Illinois, Calls for Jailing Democratic Leaders Over Deportation Standoff

Trump Sends Troops to Illinois, Calls for Jailing Democratic Leaders Over Deportation Standoff
Source: AP Photo

 

President Donald Trump has taken his immigration crackdown to a new level, sending armed troops into Illinois and calling for Democratic officials who resist his orders to be jailed.

On Wednesday, Trump lashed out on his Truth Social platform, posting:

“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!”

The comments came just a day after 200 troops from Texas arrived in Illinois to back up ICE operations in and around Chicago, the latest city caught in the middle of the president’s mass deportation campaign.

The move has triggered protests, lawsuits, and widespread alarm over what critics describe as creeping authoritarianism. Chicago, a declared “sanctuary city,” is now ground zero in a national confrontation between federal power and local defiance.

Trump insists the military presence is necessary to “keep federal agents safe.” Local leaders call it overreach.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told reporters in disbelief:

“The federal government has not communicated with us in any way about their troop movements. I can’t believe I have to say ‘troop movements’ in an American city, but that is what we’re talking about here.”

The confrontation is heading to court: a hearing scheduled for Thursday will determine whether the National Guard deployment is even legal.

Pritzker, a Democrat and potential 2028 presidential contender, has become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics. On X (formerly Twitter), he blasted the administration’s tactics:

“Making people feel they need to carry citizenship papers. Invading our state with military troops. Sending in war helicopters in the middle of the night.”
“What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism? We must all stand up and speak out.”

The “war helicopters” remark referred to a dramatic ICE raid last week, when Black Hawk helicopters swooped down on a Chicago housing complex. Dozens were arrested, though US media later reported that several American citizens were detained for hours by mistake.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declared new “ICE-free zones” — city-owned properties that federal immigration agents are barred from entering. Johnson accused Republicans of “wanting a rematch of the Civil War.”

Trump’s deployment follows similar military operations in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, and comes amid a wave of lawsuits accusing ICE of excessive force and due-process violations.

The president has hinted he might go even further, threatening to use the Insurrection Act, a rarely invoked law that allows the use of military troops for domestic enforcement, if courts or state officials “hold us up.”

Trump has already faced judicial setbacks. A federal judge in Oregon blocked his previous attempt to federalize the National Guard there, ruling that his claims of emergency were “simply untethered to the facts.” The court reminded the White House that the US remains a “nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

 

Wyoming Star Staff

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