”Chicago's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect (immigration authority) ICE agents”, rages the US president on his own social media platform Truth Social.
He adds that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also "should" be behind bars.
Both Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson are Democrats.
Declines
On site in the metropolis Chicago, the National Guard is intended to primarily protect federal facilities or function as a task force in ”urgent circumstances, such as riots or other violent situations”, says Gregory Bovino at the border authority Border Patrol to CNN. They are also expected to be ready to assist the immigration authority ICE, which on the president's orders arrests and deports undocumented immigrants.
According to information to Fox News, 200 soldiers have initially been mobilized federally for a period of 60 days.
Both the state and the city have submitted applications for injunctions to stop the mobilization. Pritzker and Johnson decline the effort and describe the Trump administration's move as an illegal federal power grab. A judge is expected to hear the case on Thursday.
Recently, the president's decision to deploy state military to the city of Portland in Oregon was stopped by a court. On Tuesday, Donald Trump opened up to invoking the US law Insurrection Act, which gives the president the opportunity to deploy military to maintain law and order under certain circumstances.
Acting politically?
Each state has its own National Guard, a very old reserve force within the US defense, with the governor as commander-in-chief. It is usually used in natural disasters, terrorist attacks or protests. But the National Guard can also be federalized by the US president under certain circumstances, which Donald Trump is now taking advantage of.
Trump claims that he wants to address violent crime in major cities but has been criticized for primarily sending soldiers to Democrat-led areas, often places where statistics show that crime is on the decline.
