Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who has raised the alarm that the Trump administration will move to federalize hundreds of the state’s National Guard troops after the state refused to deploy troops to Chicago.
The move would sharply escalate tensions that have simmered between Pritzker and Trump over the past month as the president continued to deliberate publicly whether he would deploy troops to Chicago as part of his expansion of deportations across the country, with attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on the rise.
In a multi-part post on X, Pritzker revealed that the Trump administration had given him an “ultimatum” to deploy troops voluntarily or they would be federalized instead – a move the governor criticized as “absolutely outrageous and un-American.”
Since Pritzker refused to “send military troops within our own borders,” he said the president intended to do so “against our will … in the coming hours.”
“The Trump Administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard,” Pritzker wrote. “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 the protect public safety.”
“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control,” Pritzker wrote, saying the demand followed “unprecedented escalations of aggression against Illinois citizens and residents.”
“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois,” Pritzker stressed.
This is a breaking news story. Updates will follow.
