Demonstrators protest along Kedzie Avenue in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago on Saturday. Photo / Joshua Lott, Washington Post
President Donald Trump on Saturday authorised the activation of 300 National Guard troops in this city against the Illinois governor’s wishes. The orders came after heavily armed federal agents shot a woman, sparking further clashes between immigration authorities and angry residents.
A federal judge separately barred Trump from sending National Guard troops to Portland, where protesters and federal law enforcement were facing off outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. The rapidly unfolding events in both cities represented an escalation of weeks of tension between residents and officials and the Trump administration.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said federal agents shot the woman in Chicago during immigration enforcement operations in the city’s Brighton Park neighbourhood.
The agents fired “defensive shots” after “officers were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars”, McLaughlin said. The woman, who was a US citizen but not identified, drove herself to a nearby hospital and was later taken into custody by the FBI, according to DHS.
The Washington Post could not immediately verify the sequence of events.
The Chicago Police Department said officers were called to the scene after the shooting, but declined to comment on the incident, saying that federal authorities are handling the investigation into the shooting. Mt Sinai Hospital told the Post the woman had been treated and released.
The shooting occurred a few hours before Illinois governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, said the Trump administration had issued him an “ultimatum” that state National Guard troops be deployed to Chicago or those troops would be sent in under federal command.
Pritzker said he rebuffed the administration’s demands, but that he now expected 300 National Guard troops to be federalised soon.
The White House said the move would be taken to “protect federal officers”.
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” a White House spokesperson said.
Pritzker said the move has “never been about safety. This is about control”.
“They will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance - not a serious effort to protect public safety,” Pritzker said.
Officials with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office did not immediately respond to the governor’s statement Saturday.
In a series of other chaotic events, federal agents Saturday shot chemical irritants at the more than 100 demonstrators who were protesting enforcement operations in Brighton Park, a neighbourhood in southwest Chicago. Online videos show residents forcing ICE agents to retreat down neighbourhood streets.
Jesus, a 30-year-old Brighton Park resident who asked that he be identified only by his first name out of concern for his safety, was at home around 11am when he heard cries of “La Migra!” and “ICE is out!” echoing outside on his normally quiet street.
He stepped outside to learn from residents that federal agents had shot a woman nearby and watched as unmarked cars with no licence plates lined up at an intersection. Over the next few hours, crowds gathered to protest immigration agents who had set up several police lines.
Once agents began firing chemical rounds and stun grenades into the street, Jesus said, protesters ran to his stoop asking for water to wash off the irritants. He and his partner helped protesters flush their eyes and distributed water, snacks and protective gear.
“To have it in our community, five feet away, is petrifying,” Jesus said of the federal response.
Though Jesus and his partner are US citizens, he told the Post he’s felt deeply anxious over the past two months, as he worried the federal immigration agents are engaging in racial profiling. He and his partner have developed contingency plans and code words and have tucked AirTags into their shoes and bags should the other go missing.
“I’m brown-skinned,” Jesus said. “That makes me an easy target.”
If federalised, the National Guard members in Illinois would work under Title 10 of federal law, prohibiting them from carrying out law enforcement duties. The mission would probably focus more narrowly on protecting federal law enforcement personnel and facilities, the officials said. It was not clear Saturday whether Guard members would carry firearms.
Last weekend, Hegseth sent a letter to Oregon’s governor, saying he was invoking Title 10 to deploy 200 National Guard members in Portland to “temporarily protect” ICE and other US officials, prompting the state to sue the administration to stop the action. On Saturday, a federal judge issued a ruling that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying troops in Portland after Oregon argued that such an action would violate the state’s 10th Amendment right to control its National Guard.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) also sued after Trump seized control of the California National Guard despite the governor’s objections. Trump deployed about 4000 Guard members and about 700 active-duty infantry Marines to Los Angeles after a few cases of violent protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Early last month, a federal judge said that the Trump administration had violated the Posse Comitatus Act by placing the troops in law enforcement roles. However, the judge temporarily paused his order, which a federal appeals court left in place until arguments could be heard in greater detail.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said Saturday she will be deploying more “special operations” officers to Chicago.
Over the past month, the Trump administration has surged federal agents into Chicago to make hundreds of arrests for immigration-related offences. The operations have strained relations with the community and prompted continual protests outside an ICE detention centre in Broadview, a Chicago suburb.
ICE agents and other federal authorities in armoured vehicles and helicopters swarmed a building on Tuesday as they went door-to-door at a large apartment building on the South Side of Chicago looking for suspects.
On Friday, federal agents were seen detonating chemical irritants as they drove down a street in Chicago. The irritants affected operations at a nearby primary school, Pritzker said. Pritzker referred to the federal operations as “unprecedented escalations of aggression against Illinois citizens and residents”.
McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman, countered that ICE agents are being threatened and attacked in Chicago. She said the woman who was shot Saturday had previously threatened ICE agents in social media posts.
“The violence and dehumanisation of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop,” McLaughlin said.
But Brandon Lee, communications director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, questioned Homeland Security’s accounting of the shooting.
Lee said preliminary information suggests the border patrol agents “cerashed into a civilian vehicle” during an enforcement operation. The crash led to a “chaotic scene” where residents stood up to demand accountability.
“ICE is coming in from the outside and they are the ones creating this atmosphere of fear, detaining community members without warrants, and carrying out these operations with militarised equipment,” Lee said.
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