President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago to address what he says is out-of-control crime.
The move came hours after immigration authorities said they faced off with protesters in the Democrat-run city. Officials said an “armed woman” was shot after claiming she and others rammed their cars into law enforcement vehicles.
State and local leaders have for weeks criticised Trump’s deployment plans, calling them an abuse of power. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said Trump was “attempting to manufacture a crisis”.
The announcement came as a federal judge in Portland, Oregon, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying 200 troops there.
Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: “Agents were unable to move their vehicles and exited the car. One of the drivers who rammed the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.”
“Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed US citizen,” she added.
Judge Karin Immergut called Trump’s statements about conditions in Portland “untethered to the facts,” and said the move violated the Constitution.
She said the use of the military to quell unrest without the consent of the state of Oregon risked the sovereignty of that state and others, adding that it also inflamed tensions in the city and led to increased protests.
Immergut ruled that the administration’s arguments for the deployment “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power – to the detriment of this nation”.
While it’s unclear whether troops have arrived in Chicago, any such deployment would likely be met with legal challenges.
The city is the latest – many of them led by Democrats – to be targeted for a controversial deployment of troops, joining Washington, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Portland.
The deployments have posed both legal and constitutional questions, as a state’s governor typically deploys National Guard troops, and century-old laws limit the government’s use of the military for domestic matters.
Chicago has seen an increase in protests over immigration enforcement in the city, many of them happening outside US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like [Gov] Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorised 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
On Saturday, just before Trump authorised troops there, US Border Patrol personnel shot a woman in Chicago after a group of people rammed cars into immigration enforcement vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement. The woman was armed, the statement said.
The woman’s injuries were unclear. DHS said she drove herself to a local hospital.
Earlier this week, the president discussed his ongoing military deployments to US cities during a meeting with high-ranking military leaders.
He told military leaders he wants American cities to be used as “training grounds” for US troops so they can combat the “enemy from within” and quell unrest.
“They’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” he said of Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. He told the military leaders it would be “a major part for some of the people in this room”.
Trump has threatened to send troops to Chicago for nearly a month, citing crime and shootings in the city.
Violent crime in Chicago has fallen significantly over the past two years. Between January and June, the homicide rate was down by a third compared with the same period last year, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.
But the overall levels in Chicago remain substantially higher than the average for many US cities. There were at least 58 people shot – eight fatally – over the Labour Day holiday weekend last month.
