By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has denounced Donald Trump’s call to send ICE agents and National Guard troops into Illinois—specifically targeting Chicago, as Trump continues to try to deflect the nation’s attention from the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy.
Here are some of the remarks Governor Pritzker made Tuesday to the people of Chicago and Illinois.
“First, I want to address the president’s unhinged remarks a few minutes ago, begging me to call him. No, I will not call the president, asking him to send troops to Chicago. I’ve made that clear already. I know this has been an unsettling and difficult 10 days for the people of Chicago and Illinois. I’m going to do my best to share what we know as of today and speak frankly to the people of Illinois.
“Rumors have been swirling about what the White House has planned and sifting fact from fiction has been increasingly difficult because Donald Trump’s administration is not working in coordination with the city of Chicago, Cook County, or the State of Illinois. I want to take a moment at the top of my remarks to note how truly extraordinary it is for the federal government to refuse to coordinate with local law enforcement and government.
“Our state police regularly works with the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, to go after gangs and gun runners and drug cartels. Under previous White House administrations we regularly received notice and worked together on crime fighting operations. This city has hosted major political conventions, flashpoint events like the NATO conference and huge sports and entertainment gatherings over the years and across many presidential administrations. All those events required significant coordination between all levels of government. Some like the Democratic National Convention last year even required a limited deployment of the Illinois National Guard for broad security purposes, including especially preventing terrorism. For that four-day event, there were conversations and meetings that began one year before the convention between my office, the mayor’s office, the county board president’s office, CPD, state police, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security. The mayor and I were briefed at the highest levels of government and we pledged unwavering support in the effort to pull off a convention that kept attendees safe and protected the rights of all citizens to express their First Amendment rights. The convention was a true success because of that collaboration.
“Fighting crime requires coordination. We have experienced nothing like that over the past several days and weeks. On Saturday, the head of the Illinois State Police received a phone call from CBP’s chief patrol agent, Gregory Bovino, indicating that ICE would be deploying to Chicago. It’s the first outreach we have received from the Trump administration on this topic, Bovino was short on details and long on rhetoric. So in the absence of significant federal coordination, we’ve gathered information from unauthorized patriotic officials inside the government and from well-sourced reporters about Donald Trump’s plan, which is to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago.
“I’m aware that the President of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops. I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on her streets. I also have experience asking the president for assistance just to have the rug pulled out from underneath me when execution meets reality. I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump again. What I want are the federal dollars that have been promised to Illinois and Chicago for violence prevention programs that have proven to work. That is money that Illinois taxpayers send to the federal government and it’s an insult to any and every citizen to suggest that any governor should have to beg the president of any political party for resources owed their people.
“I’d like to ask a question of my own and it’s one the press should be asking as well. When did we become a country where it’s okay for the US President to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything, especially something we don’t want? Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal? As I have done since becoming governor, I’ve been reflecting on my responsibilities to the people of Illinois and one of those duties is to share with the public exactly what we know. In the coming days we expect to see what has played out in Los Angeles and Washington DC to happen here in Chicago.”
“First, Donald Trump is positioning armed federal agents and staging military vehicles on federal property such as the Great Lakes naval base. It is likely those agents will be with ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security and other similarly situated federal agencies. Many of these individuals are being relocated from Los Angeles for deployment in Chicago. We believe that staging that has already begun, started yesterday and continues into today. Second, unidentifiable agents in unmarked vehicles with masks are planning to raid Latino communities and say they’re targeting violent criminals. As we saw in Los Angeles, a very, very small percentage of the individuals they will target will be violent criminals. Instead, you’re likely to see videos of them hauling away mothers and fathers traveling to work or picking up their kids from school. Sometimes they will detain, handcuff, and haul away children. They are law-abiding individuals who pay taxes and contribute to the communities who feel safe going to work and attending mandatory immigration check-ins. In other words, they’re following the law. We have reason to believe that Stephen Miller chose the month of September to come to Chicago because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day that happen here every year. It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades. Let’s be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here. Third, as lawful citizens exercise their first amendment rights, Trump and his team will be looking for any excuse to put active-duty military on our streets supposedly to protect ICE. We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois.
“I want to be very clear on this point and I want to speak directly to the press right now. We know before anything has happened here that the Trump plan is to use any excuse to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago. If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try and go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago. I’m imploring everyone if and when that happens, do not take the bait. Lastly, after about 30 days or so, we believe that they will pick up all of those resources that they send here to Chicago and send them to the next city in a blue state, ignoring cities in red states with higher violent crime rates than we have.
“None of this is about fighting crime or making Chicago safer. None of it. For Trump it’s about testing his power and producing a political drama to cover up for his corruption. If you need any proof of this that it’s all a big show, well look at who they’re putting in charge, Gregory Bovino. A guy who desperately wants to be a reality TV star. He led the cruel adventures of ICE in Los Angeles and he’s been sent here to do the very same thing. Go look at his social media. He terrorizes innocent people and then posts on TikTok edits of himself. Apparently, this is a Trump administration norm because the last time we saw staged major ICE raids in Chicago, they sent Dr. Phil here to embed with the agents so he could get views and likes for his social media.
“When Bovino pulled these stunts in LA, people got hurt. Two innocent people died trying to flee his masked agents. ICE opened fire on a vehicle without dangerous provocation. They detained a disabled 15-year-old, drew their guns on him. They have ripped mothers away from their babies and handcuffed 10-year-olds. In Washington they pulled over firefighters headed to fight an actual wildfire and detained two of the firefighters on duty in that effort, and they want to bring all of that to Chicago. During one of Bovino’s raids, US Customs and Border Patrol’s own data indicated that their officers had no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested. Again, this is not about crime. More and more reports around these raids include people who were stopped or detained because of how they look and not because of any threat to the public.
“If any of this was about dealing with the complexities of a broken immigration system, then Trump would have had the Congress Trump-Republicans control write and pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Not only has that not happened, there is no talk of any such effort on the horizon. I know how Donald Trump thinks because I’ve been governor during both of his terms. He has surrounded himself with groveling yes men who are too weak to restrain his most violent and unhinged impulses or who share those impulses. As a governor who cares about the wellbeing of my people, I can’t live in a fantasy land where I pretend Trump is not tearing this country apart for personal greed and power. I have to deal in facts and here they are. Crime is down in Chicago, murders are down by almost 50% in the last four years, shootings are down 57%, robberies down 34%, burglaries down 21%, motor vehicle thefts down 26%. One violent crime is too many and we have more work to do, but we have made important progress on safety that Trump is now jeopardizing.
“Just during the last week, I’ve been in neighborhoods across Chicago, from Bronzeville to South Shore, to Chatham to Little Village. The president’s absurd characterizations do not match what is happening on the ground here. He has no idea what he’s talking about. There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops. He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans too. Crime is a reality that we all take seriously, me especially, I’ve held the hands of grieving mothers who have lost their kids to gun violence. I’ve been in consistent contact with law enforcement and managed our state through some of its toughest moments. That has informed our comprehensive evidence-based approach to crime, hiring more police officers and giving them more funding, gun and drug and gang interdiction, investing in community violence intervention, mental health supports, more substance use treatment. Those programs have shown real progress. Then you know what happened? Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress cut those programs because they are unserious people who seem to know nothing about fighting crime. We are ready to fight troop deployments in court and we will do everything possible to ensure that agents operating inside the confines of this state do so
“… so in a legal and ethical manner. To Chicagoans, what you can do is look out for your communities and your neighbors. Know your rights. Film things that you see happening in your neighborhoods and your streets and share them with the news media. Authoritarians thrive on your silence. Be loud for America. To everyone listening, but most especially to the press, I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal. I refuse to concede that the abject cruelty that we’re seeing play out with the execution of Trump and Stephen Miller’s policies are okay or justified. I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it’s being done in the fake guise of fighting crime. Because, as I said six months ago in my State of the State address, any rational person who has spent even the most minimal amount of time studying human history has to ask themselves one important question. Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?”
To Support our independent investigative journalism contributions are welcome via Cashapp to: $BlackStarNews
Also support Black Star News by buying merch from our brand new Black Star Store!
