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CHICAGO (WLS) — President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker “should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers!”
Trump made the Truth Social post as ICE has surged operations in Chicago.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump said on the social media post.
National Guard Troops from Texas are camped out in the Chicago area; they are expected to begin operations this week.
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Some could be used to guard the Broadview ICE facility, but demonstrators have said it won’t stop them from protesting.
Organizations, including the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said they are planning a demonstration in downtown Chicago on Wednesday evening.
ABC7 captured Texas National Guard members at Army Reserve training center in southwest suburban Elwood.
The troops were identified to be from Texas by a shoulder patch with the letter “T.”
Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant said had not heard nothing about “the scale of operations or the length of time they will be stationed at [the] facility.”
Governor JB Pritzker saying that his office has been left in the dark through the federalization of troops from Illinois.
Although Trump cites crime as his reasoning for mobilizing the military, CPD data shows the murder rate is in fact falling.
The Illinois National Guard members who’ve been federalized still need to undergo days of training.
Texas service members could be on the streets sooner as they’ve already been trained for operations on the border.
But on Tuesday, the talk shifted back to crime, despite statistics showing that it is significantly down. Trump met with the Canadian prime minister, bashing Chicago once again.
“If you look at Chicago, Chicago’s a great city where there’s a lot of crime. And if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job. It’s all very simple,” Trump said.
The ABC7 Chicago data team analyzed crime data from the Chicago Police Department. According to that data, there have been 458 murders in the past 12 months. That’s down nearly 30% from the yearly average of the prior three years.
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