State Military Forces Now Guarding Federal Property in Greater Chicago Region, Official Says

Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

  • The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
  • Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
  • During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
  • All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
  • Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
  • During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
John Powell
John Powell

A technology journalist and digital strategist with over a decade of experience covering emerging tech trends and cybersecurity.