Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton joined leaders in Lake County on Friday to denounce President Donald Trump’s plan to use a nearby naval base to house hundreds of federal immigration agents as part of a potential surge in enforcement next week in Chicago.
Naval Station Great Lakes near North Chicago — the Navy’s largest training station and the largest military installation in the state — is being considered as a possible staging ground for the immigration blitz, the Chicago Sun-Times first reported. National Guard troops could also be sent to support the effort.
Like Gov. JB Pritzker, Stratton was defiant in the face of Trump’s plan to target Chicago, saying the president “knows Illinois won’t stand silently by while our neighbors are snatched off the street in broad daylight.”
She joined a chorus of voices speaking out against the Trump administration’s looming threats.
Earlier Friday, a group of faith leaders met at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse downtown to deliver a letter intended for Trump to the U.S. attorney’s office.
“We are rising, rising not because of soldiers and military occupation, but because of neighbors and organizers, healthcare professionals, educators, pastors and parents, young people and elders who decide to choose peace,” said the Rev. Tyrone McGowan, from Progressive Community Church on the South Side.
The Rev. Marshall Hatch holds up a letter that a group of religious leaders plan to deliver to the U.S. attorney’s office in the Loop on Friday. The letter, addressed to President Donald Trump, asks the president not to send National Guard and military personnel to Chicago.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Around the same time, a group of veterans gathered virtually and said the deployment of the National Guard elsewhere had also stoked fear in the troops.
Demi Palacek, an Air Force veteran and member of the Illinois Army National Guard, noted that service members are now “forced into roles that pit us against our own communities.
“Readiness will suffer, and [during] the next disaster or emergency, the National Guard will not be trusted in the community to do its job,” Palacek added.
In addition to a looming immigration enforcement operation that could send more than 200 federal agents to the Chicago area, Trump has also threatened to send in the National Guard to suppress crime, which he says is out of control.
In fact, Chicago has seen a 32% decline in homicides, a nearly 33% decline in robberies and a 36% decline in shootings so far this year compared with 2024, according to Chicago police data. Chicago’s homicide rate had increased by about 60% from 2019 to 2021, but as of 2025, it has followed national trends and fallen 25% below where it was in 2019.
Speaking alongside Stratton, North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. predicted the planned operation would target “hardworking” families, drive up crime and promote distrust among residents and local law enforcement — a fear echoed by Lake County States Attorney Eric Reinhart.
“ICE raids do not make us safer, they make us afraid,” Rockingham told reporters gathered at Veterans Memorial Park in North Chicago. “These raids are not law enforcement, they are fear enforcement, and I cannot go quietly into the night and let our city be the staging ground for inhumanity.”
A source familiar with operations at Naval Station Great Lakes said final approval hadn’t been granted to use the base to house federal agents carrying out immigration arrests.
Stratton and other lawmakers have said it’s difficult to formulate a plan to respond without knowing exactly what they’re up against. Still, Stratton predicted that federal agents would provoke protesters and create a crisis.
“When we exercise our right to peaceful protest, [Trump] will say we’ve gone too far,” she said. “He’ll call in the National Guard and claim it’s the only way to restore order.”