President Donald Trump’s administration is buying more property in Chicago to carry out immigration enforcement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday.
The unspecified real estate effort could potentially expand the federal government’s footprint beyond the suburban Broadview facility that has become the focal point of local protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“We’re purchasing more buildings in Chicago to operate out of,” Noem told Trump during an open Cabinet meeting. “We’re gonna not back off. In fact, we’re doubling down and we’re gonna be in more parts of Chicago in response to the people there.”
Encounters between federal agents and protesters in Broadview occasionally have grown hostile over the past month, with masked officers often escalating tense physical confrontations with civilians trying to disrupt the agency’s enhanced deportation operation.
National Guard troops federalized by Trump have been assigned to Broadview to protect ICE agents, though protests largely have been peaceful, with only dozens in attendance over the past few days.
Conservative social media influencers who have been granted access to the deportation campaign shared videos last week of Noem and other officials scouting vacant warehouses around Chicago as potential ICE processing centers. It’s not clear where the feds are looking to expand.
“I was there a few days ago and looked at some facilities that we can deploy more law enforcement out of. Because what they’re trying to do with these riots and violence is distract us and keep us from going after those murderers and rapists that are out on the streets,” Noem said.
Trump initially cited crime in Chicago as the impetus to send in the Guard over the strong opposition of Gov. JB Pritzker and other local officials, despite the fact violent crime has fallen steadily over the past few years.
During a federal court hearing over Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s lawsuit seeking to block the deployment, an attorney for Trump’s Justice Department said the mission for troops who arrived in the city this week is to protect federal agents and property.
“I don’t understand why Pritzker is trying to protect people that are really bad people,” Trump said, nodding at Noem’s suggestion that the Democratic governor is being swayed by “anarchists that are on the street.”
“I think Pritzker’s threatened by people, because there’s no other reason that this could be possible, that they don’t want to have a safe Chicago,” Trump said. “And we can solve the problem very quickly, and we’re doing that anyway, regardless of if he doesn’t want it, or if he does want it, we’re doing it anyway.”
At an unrelated press conference, Pritzker said Trump administration officials “are just looking for ways to provoke people.”
“If they can plant troops or agents in place where there might be the prospect of people being upset — and by the way, there’s a high prospect in the city of Chicago, in fact, across the state of Illinois, [of] people being upset about having troops posted in front of them in a way that’s never been done before — I think that’s what their aim is, is to try to provoke something,” Pritzker said. “There are a whole lot of peaceful protests that have gone on and peaceful protesters, and I want to emphasize peaceful. That’s what they’re doing.”
Contributing: Jon Seidel