200 Texas National Guard troops arrive in Chicago as Trump ramps up crackdown

Despite significant pushback from the local administration, Texas National Guard troops have made their way to Chicago, marking an escalation of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the city.

Trump has already sent troops onto the streets of Los Angeles and Washington, DC and has ordered them to Memphis as well as Chicago and Portland, threatening to invoke emergency powers to forward such efforts if the courts get in the way.

A Pentagon official told AFP that 200 Texas National Guard troops arrived in Chicago on Tuesday, a city that has already been experiencing immigration enforcement in recent weeks.

The most recent deployment of troops follows a decision by US District Judge April Perry, who declined to issue an immediate order blocking their entry into the city, as a lawsuit filed by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago against the Trump administration’s actions remains pending.

The troops have been sent to Illinois under a mission to protect “federal functions, personnel, and property,” the Pentagon official said, adding that the guards have been initially deployed for a 60-day period.

‘Nobody is above the law’

Earlier this week, Kwame Raoul, the Illinois attorney general, challenged the deployment of troops in a lawsuit, but Perry’s judgment paved the way for the move anyway.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from operating on city-owned property, the third such order aimed at restricting ICE’s authority in the city since Trump initially announced the deployment.

“City property and unwilling private businesses will no longer serve as staging grounds for these raids. The fact is, we cannot allow them to rampage throughout our city with no checks or balances. Nobody is above the law … if Congress will not check this administration, then Chicago will,” Johnson said.

With inputs from agencies