Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday state officials have not sent nor gotten any requests from the federal government about offering assistance amid reports the Pentagon is planning a military deployment to Chicago that could send a few thousand National Guard troops as soon as September as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on crime.
It follows Trump’s comments Friday about considering federal intervention in Chicago similar to the nearly 2,000 National Guard troops he deployed recently in Washington, D.C., to address what his administration has described as a surge in violent crime despite D.C. officials reporting a decline in crime.
“There is no emergency that warrants the president of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states or sending active-duty military within our own borders,” Pritzker said. “Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families.”
Citing officials familiar with the matter, The Washington Post reported Saturday the Pentagon has been planning for weeks a military intervention in Chicago.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office didn’t respond Saturday to a request for comment.
On Friday, the mayor said deploying federal troops to Chicago would be against the law and “undermine” the city’s progress in reducing crime and that he hadn’t gotten any word from the Trump administration about a potential federal intervention.
“Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the city of Chicago,” Johnson said Friday.
In response to a request for comment, a White House spokesperson pointed to Trump’s comments Friday when he said: “Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we will straighten that one out next.”
Homicides in Chicago, like many other major U.S. cities, have dropped significantly since they spiked during the pandemic. Yearly homicides are down about 50%, from around 500 to around 250, since 2021, according to Chicago police data.
The number of reported shootings in Chicago has dropped by about 57% in the past four years, according to police.
Defense Department officials did not respond to a request for comment.