A Chicago suburb has warned its residents that federal immigration agents may be present in the coming days as Donald Trump continues to threaten an immigration enforcement crackdown and national guard deployment in the nation’s third largest city.
The city of Evanston issued a statement urging its residents to report sightings of federal agents, after local officials said they were informed over the weekend about the likelihood of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activity.
Within hours of the statement, Trump repeated his desire to send federal enforcement and national guard troops to “straighten” Chicago out.
“You try and reason with people, like in Chicago, with the governor there, you try and reason with them, and it’s like you’re talking to a wall,” the president said during remarks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
Furthermore, a social media post from the Trump-led Department of Homeland Security said the agency was “launching Operation Midway Blitz” in honor of an Illinois woman who authorities say was killed in January by a Guatemalan national who was in the US without permission.
The suspect in the case was identified as 29-year-old Julio Cucul Bol, and authorities say he was drunk-driving.
Invoking a term that historically has been associated with the intense, sudden military attacks waged by the Nazis during the second world war, Monday’s DHS post claimed the operation in Abraham’s name would target those who “flocked” to Chicago knowing it limits local law enforcement cooperation with Ice. The post also contained a tribute video to Abraham, who was killed in the crash alongside a 21-year-old woman named Chloe Polzin.
Evanston’s mayor, Daniel Biss, told the local outlet Evanston Now that he received information from the governor’s office suggesting the likelihood Ice agents would be deployed there “in the coming days”.
“In Evanston, we welcome our immigrant and refugee neighbors and protect each other,” the statement read. “We will do all we can to safeguard our community and keep Evanston families together.”
Evanston’s statement encouraged community members to understand their rights and said local police officers would continue to wear clearly marked uniforms or vests to distinguish themselves from federal agents.
That statement marked the latest indication from a local Illinois government that the federal intervention threatened by Trump could be imminent.
On Wednesday last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that an advance team of at least 30 agents was undergoing crowd-control and flash-grenade training at Naval Station Great Lakes, north of Chicago. And 230 agents, most of whom work for Customs and Border Protection, were being sent to Chicago from Los Angeles, the outlet reported.
Meanwhile, at a news conference last week, the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, expressed concern that Ice agents would target Mexican Independence Day events in the middle of September. The El Grito Chicago Mexican Independence Day festival was postponed due to concerns about Ice operations.
Trump’s deployment of military troops to Los Angeles in July was deemed illegal in a ruling by a federal judge in California. And his federalization of Washington DC’s police department in August was unprecedented.
Nonetheless, the Republican president has turned his focus to other major Democratic-led cities, threatening federal intervention over what he has purported is a “national crime emergency”.
Despite falling crime rates nationwide, Trump has insisted his priority is “cleaning up cities” with a focus on violent crime and homelessness. And he has repeatedly suggested he next wants to deploy the national guard to Chicago – where, like in Washington DC, violent crime is at its lowest in decades.
Calling Chicago a “hellhole”, Trump has boasted: “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, [but] we’re going in.”
Trump has verbally attacked Pritzker, opining that the Illinois governor has been reckless for not asking for the president’s help.
Earlier on his Truth Social platform, Trump insisted that he wants to “help the people of Chicago, not hurt them”.
The post derided Democratic leaders in Chicago and Illinois, saying “the city and state have not been able to do the job”.
“People of Illinois should band together and DEMAND PROTECTION,” Trump’s post continued. “IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE!!! ACT NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”
Shrai Popat contributed reporting
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