Hundreds of protesters have poured onto Chicago’s streets to condemn President Donald Trump’s decision to send Texas National Guard troops into the city.
On Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Texas National Guard troops were headed to protect the Broadview ICE facility.
Later that evening, a military spokesperson told the Associated Press the Texas National Guard troops who had arrived in Chicago were protecting federal property in the city.
Though the total number of National Guard troops in Chicago is unclear, a mission summary from the U.S. military said there would be 200 soldiers from the Texas National Guard and another 300 from the Illinois National Guard.
Locals responded to the National Guard’s incursion into the city by marching through downtown Chicago. The city’s mayor and the state’s governor have vehemently opposed the Trump administration’s plan to send troops to the Chicago area.
The protest was broadly opposed to Trump’s immigration crackdowns and his decision to send troops into the city.
“We can stand up for people that can’t stand up for themselves,” Jinah Yun-Mitchell, 59, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “The rule of law is falling apart, so we all need to do something to make sure that it doesn’t keep going in this direction.”
Another protester, who declined to share his last name to protect himself and his family, told Block Club Chicago that he was marching for people he personally knows who have been detained by ICE.
“In my community where I teach, there’s kids not coming to school for a month at a time because they’re scared of what can happen to them,” he told the outlet. “I’m overwhelmed with blinding anger and depression for the people who are being affected.”
He said ICE agents “shot my friend in the face” with non-lethal rounds during another demonstration at an ICE facility.
The gathered protesters made their message to Trump and the masked federal agents clear, chanting: “Donald Trump, you stupid clown; ICE ain’t welcome in this town.”
Trump has justified sending troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, by insisting that federal immigration agents need protection in the wake of a shooting that killed two detainees at an ICE facility in Dallas. Trump is not sending the National Guard to Dallas, where the shooting actually occurred.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has moved to block the National Guard deployment, and a ruling on that request is scheduled for Thursday.
Pritzker called the military deployments “Trump’s invasion,” and Trump called for Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to be jailed.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Johnson said he was “not going anywhere” and that he would “stay firm as the mayor of this amazing city.”
Pritzker wrote on X that Trump was sprinting toward “full-blown authoritarianism.”
“Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?” he wrote. “Masked agents already are grabbing people off the street, separating children from their parents. Creating fear.”
The president has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if the courts rule that his use of the National Guard is illegal.
“If I had to enact it, I’d do that,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”
As the decision looms, the National Guard and those opposing Trump in Chicago are taking to the streets.
Earlier on Wednesday, Alderman Jesse Fuentes — who was handcuffed by a federal agent on Friday — spoke to the gathered protesters.
“As your alderperson, not just of the 26th Ward because every Chicagoan matters, I will make sure that we utilize every legislative tool at our disposal to slow ICE down to protect our neighbors,” Fuentes said, according to Block Club Chicago.
