Hundreds of Texas National Guard troops have arrived in Illinois as part of the Trump administration’s long-threatened plan to send military troops into Chicago, despite a lawsuit and vigorous opposition to the move from city and state leaders.
“The elite Texas National Guard are on the ground and ready to go,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on X on Tuesday. “They are putting America first by ensuring that the federal government can safely enforce federal law.”
A military official told The New York Times that 200 Texas troops are expected to deploy to the Chicago area on Wednesday, while 300 Illinois National Guard troops the Trump administration has attempted to federalize over the objections of state officials are also preparing to deploy.
The National Guard soldiers deploying in Illinois will be mobilized for an initial period of 60 days and protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other federal agents and property in the state, U.S. Northern Command said in a statement. A military official told The NYT that the troops heading to the state are not expected to take direct law enforcement roles themselves.
News cameras spotted Texas Guard troops on Tuesday at an Army Reserve center in Elwood, Illinois, 55 miles southwest of Chicago.
Illinois and the city of Chicago sued the Trump administration on Monday to stop the National Guard deployments, alleging that the White House was putting the “bedrock principles” separating the military from domestic law enforcement “in peril.”
A federal court last week temporarily paused a similar attempted deployment of in-and out-of-state Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, but the judge in the Illinois case declined to take such a step, scheduling a hearing in the suit for Thursday. For the time being, that means the troops in Illinois may begin their operations before the court weighs in.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, has accused the president of using authoritarian tactics to wield control over states and cities governed by his political rivals.
“He wants to justify and normalize the presence of armed soldiers under his direct command,” Pritzker said Monday.
Speaking in Minneapolis Tuesday, Pritzker said the Trump administration has not spoken with him directly or given him information about its plans in Illinois.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said during a press conference Tuesday he also had not been notified about details of the operation, which he called “unconstitutional,” “illegal,” and “wrong.”
Pritzker, in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC, called on his fellow governors to rally to his support and threatened to withdraw from the National Governors Association if the organization did not speak out in Illinois’s defense.
“We should stand as one against the idea that Donald Trump has the ability to call up our National Guard against our will,” the governor said, accusing Abbott of being a “tool” and “lackey” of the White House.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose National Guard troops the Trump administration attempted to send to Portland, after they were used in a similar military deployment to Los Angeles earlier this year, hammered Texas leaders for supporting the White House campaign to send troops into Illinois.
“Crime is out of control in Texas,” Newsom wrote on X. “Texas’ homicide rate is 39% higher than California. But Greg Abbott is busy sending his National Guard to Illinois for stunts. Stop invading other states and clean up your own damn mess, Greg.”
The assembling Guard presence in Illinois will join the scores of federal agents who have already been sent to the Chicago area for a multi-agency immigration crackdown dubbed Operation Midway Blitz, which local officials and protesters have also opposed.
Throughout the back-and-forth with Illinois leaders, Trump administration officials have framed their unprecedented, heavily militarized presence in the state as a response to an alleged law-and-order crisis and out-of-control crime, pointing to regular protests around an ICE facility outside of Chicago and alleged violent threats against federal agents.
“Seeing what’s happening in Chicago, they need the National Guard,” Attorney General Pam Bondi testified in the Senate on Tuesday. “Our ICE members need the National Guard to protect the national buildings.”
“When violent gangs can plot to kidnap and kill law enforcement officers in a U.S. city like Chicago, that means they are feeling way too comfortable,” Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol leader spearheading the operation, wrote on X on Tuesday. “Time to make them feel uncomfortable.”
The ACLU of Illinois, which is also suing the Trump administration, has accused those same federal agents of unleashing a campaign of violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters and journalists during weeks of demonstrations outside an ICE building in Broadview, near Chicago.
Major crime is down across multiple categories in Chicago, according to police statistics, including a 28 percent decline in murder in 2025 compared to this period last year, and a 34 percent decline in robbery.
Chicago Mayor Johnson signed an executive order Monday barring federal immigration agents and others from using city-owned property, such as parking lots, garages and vacant lots, as staging areas for enforcement operations.
The Illinois operation is part of a larger Trump administration tactic of sending or threatening to send troops into largely Democrat-run cities.
Since starting his second term, Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A federal judge in September said the administration “willfully” broke federal law by deploying guard troops to Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.
