WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he plans to send National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, which would mark an extraordinary effort to militarise yet another Democratic-led city.
Trump’s comments come just hours after a federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from using the military to fight crime in California.
“We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office.
Trump at one point said he would “love to have” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker call and request troops, but “we’re going to do it anyway.”
“We have the right to do it,” Trump said, adding that the federal intervention would extend to Baltimore as well.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said over the weekend that Chicago police will not collaborate with any National Guard troops or federal agents if Trump deploys them to the city in coming days as he has threatened in the past.
Pritzker, a Democrat whose name has also been floated as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, has previously said the president lacks the legal authority to deploy troops to his state if not requested by the governor.
Trump has been threatening to expand his federal crackdown on Democrat-led US cities to Chicago, casting the use of presidential power as an urgent effort to tackle crime even as city officials cite declines in homicides, gun violence and burglaries.
Local officials and residents in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, have been preparing for the possible arrival of federal agents and troops.
The Democratic mayor, surrounded by other city leaders, signed an executive order on Saturday aimed at preparing Chicago for any US enforcement operation, as Trump has staged in Los Angeles and Washington.
US officials have told Reuters that there has been initial planning at the Pentagon about what a deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago would look like.
Trump has much less power over Chicago and Baltimore than he does over Washington, D.C., where as president he holds more sway since it is not a US state.
Trump is almost certain to face legal challenges if he uses a provision known as Section 12406 to send National Guard troops from Republican-led states into Democratic strongholds.
Some Republican governors have sent hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington at Trump’s request. The president has depicted the capital as being in the grip of a crime wave, although official data shows crime is down in the city.
Chicago has long had high levels of gun violence but crime, including homicide, has declined in the last year.
In July, the Baltimore police department said there had been a double-digit reduction in gun violence compared to the previous year. The city has had 84 homicides so far this year, the fewest in over 50 years, according to the mayor.
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