(CNN) — The state of Illinois and Chicago on Monday sued the Trump administration over its move to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago as the White House targets Democrat-led cities amid weeks of protests against the federal government’s immigration enforcement campaign.
The lawsuit opens a new front in the legal battles the White House is waging against state and local officials, coming just hours after a federal judge blocked a similar deployment of the guard to Portland, Oregon.
“Defendants’ deployment of federalized troops to Illinois is patently unlawful,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiffs ask this court to halt the illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional federalization of members of the National Guard of the United States, including both the Illinois and Texas National Guard.”
The lawsuit comes two days after the White House announced President Donald Trump authorized sending 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to Chicago to “protect federal officers and assets,” reprising a strategy he first used against anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
News of the deployment was condemned by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who said he refused to call up the National Guard after the Trump administration demanded he do so. On Sunday – after learning the administration also planned to send 400 members of the Texas National Guard to Illinois and Oregon, among other places – Pritzker likened the move to an “invasion.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order the administration to stop federalizing or deploying any National Guard troops to Illinois, and to declare the federalization of National Guard troops more broadly as unlawful.Trump, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are among the defendants named.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said the president “will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson told CNN.
The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, argued the deployments are politically motivated, claiming Trump has a long history of making “threatening and derogatory” comments about Chicago and the state of Illinois, dating to at least 2013.
Among other examples, it calls out a September 6 social media post by Trump in which he said Chicago would “find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” referring to the president’s rebranded name for the Pentagon.
Illinois and Chicago have already seen a “surge” of federal agents, some of whom have responded to demonstrations at an ICE facility in Broadview, near Chicago, the lawsuit says. Those protests are a “flimsy pretext” to deploy National Guardsmen to the state, the lawsuit says.
Instead, “Defendants’ provocative and arbitrary actions have threatened to undermine public safety by inciting a public outcry,” the lawsuit says, because local and state law enforcement have been sent to “maintain the peace” in Broadview while ICE continues operating the facility.
“There is no legal or factual justification” for the National Guard federalization order, the lawsuit says.
Illinois’ complaint follows a similar challenge to the administration’s move to assign federalized guard troops from Oregon and California to Portland.
Officials in both states had objected, and a Trump-appointed federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked the deployment of National Guard from anywhere in the US to Portland.
The president, the judge said, appeared to have “exceeded his constitutional authority” by federalizing troops, because protests in Portland “did not pose a ‘danger of rebellion.’”
This story has been updated with additional information.
(CNN) — Immigration enforcement operations are ramping up in Chicago and Boston, marking the latest escalation between the Trump administration and Democratic-led cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced “Operation Midway Blitz” aimed at targeting “criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor (JB) Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”
The heightened rhetoric from President Donald Trump and his top officials aligns with how the White House plans to push forward its aggressive agenda aimed at undocumented immigrants. Ongoing arrests in Chicago are expected to expand as a federal presence builds up in a weeks-long, phased approach, according to officials familiar with the plans who stressed it’s still in flux.
Operations in Boston and Chicago are modeled after the June immigrationsweeps in Los Angeles that the Supreme Court ruled Monday can continue under certain circumstances. The Homeland Security official charged with immigration operations in Los Angeles, Gregory Bovino, was deployed to Chicago to do the same there, officials told CNN, with one describing Chicago as “Los Angeles on the road.”
The escalating actions also follow a massive raid last week at a Hyundai plant in Georgia that, while not in a sanctuary city, previews forthcoming worksite operations, border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
In tandem with those moves, more Democratic-led cities also are bracing for the Trump administration to decide — “over the next day or two,” the president said Sunday — where to further deploy National Guard troops to crack down on violent crime, a purported problem the White House sometimes has linked with immigration.
This image from video provided by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows a person being handcuffed at the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant in Ellabell, Georgia, on Thursday. Credit: Corey Bullard / AP via CNN Newsource
The Department of Homeland Security on Sunday blamed Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for sanctuary polices that “not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens.” Crossing the border or overstaying a visa and being undocumented in the United States generally is a civil infraction, not a criminal one.
Calling up the National Guard is “always on the table” for Chicago, Homan told CNN, even after a federal judge last week ruled Trump broke federal law by using the US military to help with law enforcement activities in and around Los Angeles — while use of the guard in Washington, DC, is unlike anywhere else.
“We used them in Los Angeles, and we use them in Washington, DC,” Homan said. “They’re a force multiplier.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said in a statement Monday that such enforcement won’t make people feel safer.
“They are a waste of money, stoke fear, and represent another failed attempt at a distraction,” he said.
Cities push back against Trump threats
In Washington, DC, where more than 2,200 armed National Guard troops have roamed for weeks, officials are suing the Trump administration, accusing the president of violating the Constitution and federal law by sending soldiers into the city without consent from local leaders.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday by DC’s attorney general, claims the troops — many from out of state — have been deputized by the US Marshals office and are patrolling neighborhoods, conducting searches and making arrests, despite federal laws that generally bar the military from acting as local police.
The Trump administration has touted its efforts in the capital city, pointing to a sharp drop in violent crime since ramping up federal law enforcement last month. But critics argue the National Guard deployment is unnecessary and costly, with taxpayers footing an estimated $1 million a day, while troops take photos with tourists, pick up trash and lay mulch.
Members of the National Guard patrol inside the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on August 28. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images via CNN Newsource
Trump has also repeatedly slammed nearby Baltimore for its crime, calling the city a “hellhole” and suggesting the National Guard could be deployed there next.
“We don’t need an occupation,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday. Scott said he’d explore all options when asked whether he would sign an order like Chicago’s that tells local police not to cooperate with federal law enforcement should they be deployed.
On Sunday evening, Trump told reporters Chicago is a “very dangerous place,” adding to anticipation of troops there. The president said he could “solve Chicago very quickly,” but stopped short of committing to deploy the guard.
The next morning, he lashed out at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, questioning the Democrat’s supposed aversion to federal intervention: “WHY??? … Only the Criminals will be hurt” by any federal efforts, Trump wrote on his social media platform, adding crime is “ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE!!!”
Pritzker denounced DHS operations in the state Monday, saying in a post on X that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime.”
“That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks,” he said, adding that the administration has chosen to focus “on scaring Illinoisians.”
The governor’s office has still not recieved any “formal communication or information” from the Trump administration and that they are often learning of operations through social media, said Matt Hill, spokesperson for Pritzker.
Seven people were killed in Chicago from Friday evening through Sunday, preliminary police figures show. At least six victims were men, ages 21 to 42.
Still, fatal shootings in the city are down 34.2% this year through September 6 compared with the same period in 2024, with 237 killed in 2025, mayor’s office data shows.
The Windy City has prepared for more than a week for looming National Guard deployments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, from the governor bracing for a court fight to parade planners postponing.
Fears gripped Chicago over the weekend
On the Lower West Side of Chicago, the start of Mexican Independence Day celebrations typically marks a raucous weekend of parties and parades drawing hundreds of thousands of attendees. While some crowds did gather Saturday waving green, white and red flags in the predominantly Latino Pilsen neighborhood, an undercurrent of caution persisted.
As costumed performers and children with baskets of treats paraded through the community, bright orange whistles swung from their necks, each one ready to cut through the music should federal immigration agents appear.
Keilina Zamora prepares to participate in the Mexican Independence Day parade in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Saturday. Credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images via CNN NewsourcePeople watch the Mexican Independence Day parade in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Saturday. Credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images via CNN Newsource
Elsewhere, celebrations were muted.
In Wauconda, a village northwest of Chicago, the annual Latino Heritage Festival was canceled due in part to “immigration concerns in our area,” the Wauconda Police Department said in a Friday social media post.
One of the largest events of the Fiestas Patrias, the parade for the Mexican Independence Day in Waukegan, has been postponed for the first time in its 30-year history to November 1 from September 14. The festival is celebrated every year in the suburb along Lake Michigan just north of the Great Lakes naval base, the facility Gov. JB Pritzker said Trump is set to use as a command center for incoming immigration agents.
Communities throughout the nation’s third-largest city are preparing for ICE presence by handing out flyers reminding families they have the right in the face of immigration enforcement to remain silent and don’t have to consent to be searched or share their birthplace or citizenship status, among other rights.
In Pilsen, neighbors gathered this weekend to celebrate Latino culture, choosing joy despite fear: “I think now more than ever is when we need to demonstrate that we are united and we are a community,” longtime resident Araceli Lucio said.
CNN’s Kit Maher, Alison Main, Samantha Waldenberg, Lily Hautau, Chris Boyette and Gabe Cohen contributed to this report.
(CNN) — President Donald Trump posted a meme on social media Saturday saying that Chicago “will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” as the city’s officials brace for an immigration crackdown.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post reads. Trump signed an executive order Friday to rebrand the Pentagon as the “Department of War.”
The post includes what appears to be an artificially generated image of the president wearing a hat and sunglasses, with the Chicago skyline in the background, accompanied by text reading “Chipocalypse Now.”
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday called Trump’s post “not normal.”
“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
It comes as Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against the country’s third most-populous city. CNN previously reported the Trump administration’s plans to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, and that officials there were bracing for it to begin as early as Friday.
In recent days, personnel from Immigration and Border Protection as well as Customs and Border Protection have begun trickling into the city, White House officials told CNN.
The Trump administration has also reserved the right to call in the National Guard if there is a reaction to the operation that warrants it, the officials said. The Chicago operation is being modeled off of a similar operation carried out in Los Angeles in June. A judge ruled this week that the June deployment broke federal law prohibiting the military from law enforcement activity on US soil in most cases; the Trump administration has appealed.
White House officials have made clear the Chicago immigration crackdown is distinct from the idea the president has floated to use federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to carry out a broader crime crackdown in the city, similar to the operation in Washington, DC.
When asked by a reporter Tuesday about sending National Guard troops into the city, Trump said, “We’re going,” adding, “I didn’t say when. We’re going in.”
Democratic officials who represent Chicago and Illinois also condemned Trump’s post Saturday.
“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” wrote Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on social media. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth described Trump’s post on X as “Stolen valor at its worst,” writing, “Take off that Cavalry hat, you draft dodger. You didn’t earn the right to wear it.”
(CNN) — Officials in Chicago are bracing for a major federal immigration enforcement operation that could begin as soon as this week, with the city’s mayor signing an order over the weekend aimed at resisting the Trump administration’s planned crackdown.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday such a move would be an “invasion” and that he has had no communication with the Trump administration about reported plans to send National Guard troops to Chicago.
“No one in the administration – the president or anybody under him – has called anyone in my administration, or me. So, it’s clear that in secret they’re planning this – well, it’s an invasion with US troops, if they in fact do that,” Pritzker said Sunday.
The operation is expected to kick off in Chicago by this Friday and could involve agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and potentially be backed by guard forces in a peacekeeping role, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.
“We’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we’re upholding our laws, but we do intend to add more resources to those operations,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
An immigration operation in the city would further escalate a clash between the White House and Democratic-led cities and comes as President Donald Trump and his aides have repeatedly slammed Chicago over policies that limit cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration enforcement.
Asked about expanding these operations beyond Chicago, Noem said that the Trump administration has “not taken anything off the table,” and specifically named San Francisco and Boston in addition to Chicago. She suggested that Republican-led cities with crime problems were “absolutely” also being evaluated.
Chicago has been preparing to try to resist Trump’s planned immigration crackdown with Mayor Brandon Johnson signing an executive order Saturday providing guidance and directives to the city’s agencies and law enforcement “in the midst of escalating threats from the federal government.”
The mayor’s order “affirms” that Chicago police will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement.” It also “urges” federal law enforcement officers to use body cameras and refrain from wearing masks.
Exterior view of the Illinois Army National Guard building, housing a recruiting office, on August 27, in Chicago. Credit: Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu/ / Getty Images via CNN Newsource
“We may see militarized immigration enforcement. We may also see National Guard troops. We may even see active duty military and armed vehicles in our streets. We have not called for this. Our people have not asked for this, but nevertheless, we find ourselves having to respond to this,” Johnson said before signing the executive order on Saturday.
White House officials have made clear that these immigration enforcement plans are distinct from the idea the president has floated over the past week to use federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to carry out a broader crime crackdown in Chicago, similar to the current surge in Washington, DC.
Trump took to social media Monday morning with a post celebrating what he called a massive victory over crime in the nation’s capital and taking sharp aim at Democratic leaders across the country for refusing his floated plans for an aggressive federal anti-crime strategy in their states as well.
He contrasted politicians who are resisting his plans with what he sees as a more welcoming stance from Washington DC’s leadership. In the Truth Social post, Trump said DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “statements and actions were positive, instead of others like Pritzker, Wes Moore, Newscum, and the 5% approval rated Mayor of Chicago, who spend all of their time trying to justify violent Crime, instead of working with us to completely ELIMINATE it.”
Trump officials have been quick to criticize the Illinois governor and defend potential federal policing in the state by pointing to crime statistics.
Noem pointed to homicide statistics in Chicago on Sunday in a dig to the governor, saying Pritzker “can talk about what a great job he’s doing as governor, but he’s failing these families. … This seems like it’s more about Gov. Pritzker’s ego now rather than actually protecting his people.”
In a warning to Pritzker on Saturday, Trump told the governor to quickly “straighten” out crime in Chicago or the federal government will intervene.
“Six people were killed, and 24 people were shot, in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME. He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
At least 54 people were shot – seven of them fatally – in Chicago over the holiday weekend. Roughly 32 shootings have been reported since Friday at 10:32 p.m., with victims ranging in age from 14 to 48, according to incident notifications published by the Chicago Police Department.
Meanwhile, the Chicago mayor’s office last week touted a 21.6% decrease in overall violent crime and a 32.3% decrease in homicides so far this year.
Warnock gave The Atlanta Voice a few minutes to speak about his momentous speech.
“I was deeply honored last night to have the opportunity to have the country hear from Georgia,” said Warnock, who spoke to this reporter by phone. “What I endeavored to do was stand in the moral tradition of Georgia’s native son, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Asked what he felt like immediately after the speech, Warnock said it was the “honor of his life to represent the people of Georgia.”
“That’s a sacred commitment and covenant,” he continued. “It’s not unlike my commitment as a pastor.”
Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
Long-time Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson (2nd district) and Congressman Sanford Bishop (4th district) were on hand for the breakfast and both used the words “proud” and “sermon” when they spoke about Warnock’s speech.
“It was right on point. He told us what we needed to hear, he told America what they needed to hear,” Bishop said of the speech. “He was able to translate what would normally be a sermon into a message.”
Johnson said, “Reverend Warnock is a gifted speaker, a motivational speaker, and a truth-teller. What is so unique about Warnock is that he speaks to all Americans regardless of their religion. I was so proud of him as one of Georgia’s senators.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the event’s host, Georgia Democratic Party Chair Nikema Williams, were all complimentary of Warnock’s turn on stage that night.
“What a great speech he gave yesterday,” Whitmer said of Warnock. The Michigan Governor was one of several politicians who took the stage during the breakfast, which took place inside the Hyatt Regency downtown.
Pritzker, in his second term as governor, echoed a popular sentiment that if people around the country didn’t know Warnock, they did now following his speech.
Senator Cory Booker, who was a surprise guest to the breakfast, took the stage and was immediately complimentary of Warnock as well, stating that Warnock was a strong presence in the United States Senate and a great representative for Georgia.
