A group of retired military leaders on Thursday joined Gov. JB Pritzker’s call for President Donald Trump to back off his administration’s effort to send National Guard members onto the streets of Chicago.
The attempted deployment that remains stalled by a federal judge would violate “the Constitution of this great nation,” according to Major Gen. William Enyart, who led the Illinois National Guard from 2007 to 2012.
“It is imperative that we as citizens, not just as officers, but as citizens, stand up to the overreach of the federal government today in Illinois, in California and elsewhere,” Enyart said during a Loop press conference alongside Pritzker and former service members.
“Our National Guard members joined and served to defend our nation, to respond to natural disasters. They are not policemen. They are not political pawns. They are sons and daughters, husbands and wives. They’re teachers, farmers, mechanics, carpenters and students,” Enyart said. “They should not be treated as props for political theater.”
Retired Army Major Gen. Randy Manner noted military training is “designed for combat, not for community policing.”
“Soldiers are trained to eliminate threats, not to deescalate tensions or protect constitutional rights during protests. When we blur that line, we risk turning our own streets into battlefields and our citizens into potential enemies,” Manner said. “The use of the military by this administration is in Los Angeles, Memphis, and possibly Chicago, is inappropriate, it’s dangerous, and it is a clear and present danger to the security of our nation. It is un-American.”
Trump launched his threat over the summer to send Guard members to Chicago like he has in Washington, ostensibly to fight crime, which has steadily fallen in both cities and nationwide over the past few years.
The administration has since activated about 500 Guard members, many of them Texans who arrived at a southwest suburban training facility last week, before a judge temporarily blocked their deployment as Illinois Attorney Gen. Kwame Raoul’s challenge plays out.
The Guard members’ assignment is now to protect federal property and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Trump administration lawyers have said. Protests outside the Broadview ICE facility occasionally have devolved into physical confrontations, sometimes escalated by federal agents.
No matter the stated mission, it’s a faulty premise, according to Janessa Goldbeck, a former combat engineer officer in the Marine Corps and the CEO of Vet Voice Foundation.
“Picture a young Guardsman, newly trained for disaster relief, homeland support or overseas deployment. Imagine him arriving in Chicago, ordered into neighborhoods he doesn’t know, confronting emotionally fraught scenes, families being ripped apart, frightened children, communities in horror,” Goldbeck said. “This is not what he trained for. His ethos was not shaped for inner-city checkpoint enforcement. His peers are serving overseas preparing for hurricane season at home, and yet here he is in a highly charged situation with no clear mission.”
Goldbeck added that “we have to draw a line in the sand, respectfully, firmly, and without equivocation. This is not normal. This is not American, and this is not what the military is for.
“To the soldiers standing by to stand by in Chicago today, you are seen. You are respected and you deserve better leadership than this,” she said.
Enyart, who served a term as a downstate Democratic congressman from 2013 to 2015, also blasted the Chicago area patrols of ICE agents, calling it “a smirch on the National Guard’s reputation” for them to wear military-style fatigues.
“They’re not trained soldiers, and they don’t show the discipline that soldiers do. They don’t obey the same rules of engagement that soldiers do,” Enyart said. “It offends me as a soldier that we have ICE agents — I think the modern term is cosplaying — I would say pretending to be soldiers.”
Pritzker met with the former military leaders Thursday and said they were “not here on behalf of a party or political agenda. They are here out of a commitment to our country.
“With their combined wealth of experience, I have been hearing from them about what this power grab means for our state, for our country and for our brave men and women in uniform — what the likely long term consequences will be of the escalation for our military,” Pritzker said. “One thing is evident: this effort to deploy troops in American cities is not normal.”