Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday said he’s “glad” President Donald Trump is signaling a shift away from sending the National Guard to Chicago — at least for now — but emphasized that a president-led military presence in the city is still a possibility, and more ICE enforcements are likely on the way.
Trump on Tuesday night told reporters that he would focus on sending the guard to another city and said he’s working with a governor “who would love us to be there.” The president has yet to announce which city he was referencing.
“I’m not convinced that we’re not going to see military troops on the ground,” Pritzker said at a Chicago press briefing on Wednesday. “We don’t know. I mean, I wish the president would again recognize that military troops in American cities are something that just doesn’t belong. And he should not be ordering them into American cities.”
Pritzker again declared there is no emergency in Chicago that requires military troops on the ground.
“Each day it seems like the president is deciding, you know, maybe you read something in the newspaper and he’ll send troops to Portland or perhaps in New Orleans or perhaps to Chicago, and so I’m always glad to know he’s not sending them to Chicago,” Pritzker said. “We don’t need them.”
The governor said sources within the Trump administration that had been tipping his office about the possibility of National Guard deployment have been quiet this week.
“They’re not calling us now, which I think is a good sign. It is a sign that they are not hearing things that are suspiciously like, we’re going to see military troops coming,” Pritzker said. “So I would just say, I’m not saying anything definitive other than I take it that the silence of the last day or two from those folks is an indication that maybe there’s some other place or other focus that the president is putting his attention.”
Still, Pritzker warned that he believes more ICE enforcement, as part of “Operation Midwest Blitz,” is still on the way.
“They clearly have not gone out full force yet here with seemingly the number of people from ICE that they intended to have on the ground,” Pritzker said. “I haven’t seen all of those folks yet, but I anticipate that we will.”
Also on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to Bensenville to announce the seizure of 600,000 units of illegal vaping products. The operation was executed across six states and targeted five distributors and nine retailers, according to NBC.
Bondi, too, teased Trump’s next troop deployment.
“The president wants cities to ask us. You’re going to hear an announcement very soon where we’re going next,” Bondi said. “But we want Chicago to ask us for the help and they’re not going to do that, I understand.”