* Click here for a text copy of the speech.
* Gov. Pritzker today…
We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois. […]
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.
More in a bit. And please pardon any transcription errors.
…Adding… The Texas claim was raised by a reporter…
Q: Can you explain where your intel comes from related to the Texas national guard? Sources in the Texas governor’s office just told my colleagues that’s not accurate.
Pritzker: Well, good, keep asking. And let’s be clear, I’m not going to reveal the sources. These are people who are patriotic Americans, who either work in the administration or work in the various branches of military, who have been willing to share what they know with us.
And the Houston Chronicle followed up…
Gov. Greg Abbott’s office disputed a claim from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday that the Texas National Guard was preparing to deploy to his state as part of a law and order crackdown by the Trump administration.
Texas is not preparing to deploy troops to Illinois, a spokesman for Abbott said on Tuesday afternoon.
…Adding… More Pritzker…
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. […]
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 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 in a legal and ethical manner.
* Some folks have pointed to Pritzker calling out the National Guard during last year’s Democratic National Convention. His explanation…
This city has hosted major political conventions, flash point 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. … 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.
* More…
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 our 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.
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:29 pm:
Jade Helm North from the folks who thought it was real the first time.
- VK - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:30 pm:
== the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois.==
This is WILD.
- dan l - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:34 pm:
Might be nothing. Might be something.
I saw some aging military vehicles come into the city via rail over the weekend.
- Demoralized - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:36 pm:
This is the equivalent of one state invading another state.
- hisgirlfriday - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:36 pm:
So let me get this straight…
From 2022 to 2024, Texas trafficks migrants to Illinois through their busing program.
Now because migrants exist in Chicago that pretext is being used in 2025 to justify an ICE surge and Texas National Guard invasion of Illinois?
Despicable.
- Norseman - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:39 pm:
Great speech Governor Pritzker. I also have to compliment Mayor Johnson on a good speech - not JB quality, but good.
I’m heartened by what appears to be the effective planning and preparation I had hoped for and urged to respond to Trump’s invasion. Now it’s up to the AG’s people to respond quickly with quick and strong legal action once it begins.
- ChicagoVinny - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:56 pm:
Washington recently signed a law that forbids non-federalized out of state national guard from entering their state without the Governor’s permission.
IL should be doing the same thing.
It would at least force Trump to federalize these Texas national guard troops.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 3:57 pm:
===It would at least force Trump to federalize these Texas national guard troops===
What makes you think he won’t?
- ChicagoVinny - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:00 pm:
== What makes you think he won’t? ==
I think he would. But it’d make Trump react to IL instead of the other way around.
- BE - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:01 pm:
Of course it’s Texas.
Between the human trafficking of their migrants to us (especially during winter) and the TX Dems,
- JP Altgeld - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:07 pm:
The main problem is that we still have not found a way to talk about this in a way that makes sense to every day people (e.g., non-political people).
We keep saying crime is down then 54 people are shot in a weekend. Nobody is really buying it.
So we tweet and put targets on our back and now here we are.
Just say “give us our federal funding so we can hire more properly trained police officers and engage in the types of intervention and mentorship programs we know actually reduce violence.”
- Jibba - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:16 pm:
No troops are going to the neighborhoods where violence is high, nor are they planning to do anything to lessen it.
- Moe Berg - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:19 pm:
So troops from a revanchist Confederate state will be invading a Union state 160 years after the northern victory.
With a twist that the Commander in Chief is a New Yorker and his commanding general a Californian.
As Faulkner wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.”
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 4:28 pm:
= This is the equivalent of one state invading another state.=
If it is true, and I really hope it isn’t, that is exactly what it is. Pritzker would have the right to activate the Illinois National Guard to defend us. But that is what dumpster wants. This is all to push a pretext for the mid terms.
- mrp - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 5:15 pm:
“Surge” should be an alarming and alerting word used repeatedly to anybody paying attention this past quarter century Iraq Blackwater mercenaries coming home to roost etc.
- NIU Grad - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 5:22 pm:
“These are people who are patriotic Americans, who either work in the administration or work in the various branches of military”
I have to wonder if the Pritzker team gained sympathetic contacts in Texas who were the ones tipping them off about bus departures during that fiasco.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 6:47 pm:
=== Just say “give us our federal funding so we can hire more properly trained police officers and engage in the types of intervention and mentorship programs we know actually reduce violence.”===
Mayor Johnson and Gov. Pritzker have both don exactly that as have several other political leaders. The various news outlets need to start leading with those quotes and follow up with the excellent data and research that show the efficacy.
- Give Us Barabbas - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 6:54 pm:
If it isn’t Texas sending them, it could be Florida; that’s the kind of theater both those governors have been playing at all along and either one would love to do something to JB .
- Pundent - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 8:29 pm:
=We keep saying crime is down then 54 people are shot in a weekend. Nobody is really buying it.=
The people who aren’t buying it are those that are predisposed to accepting phony narratives to confirm their biases. As far as big cities go, Chicago comes in at #29 when examining violent crime rates. Houston is #7. It seems the Texas National Guard wouldn’t have to travel far to take up crime fighting.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5470828-fbi-data-violent-crime-cities/
- Frida's Boss - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 8:55 pm:
JB talking like Trump- Many people have told me Texas is coming to Chicago. Oh many people, we have sources, sources you don’t know about because they’re inside, they’re very smart and we don’t want them to get in trouble, but we know. You don’t know because they only told us.
- lloyd - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 9:04 pm:
==predisposed to accepting phony narratives==
Very insensitive thing to say. There are folks out here who are living through narratives you call phony.
- Pundent - Tuesday, Sep 2, 25 @ 9:26 pm:
=There are folks out here who are living through narratives you call phony.=
They can take solace in the fact they don’t live in Houston. But I am a bit surprised that Governor Abbott isn’t more concerned about crime in his own backyard. If I was a resident of Texas and knew that he and the President cared more about crime in Chicago than Houston I wouldn’t be happy.