US President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago in Illinois, to address what he says is out-of-control crime.<\/p>\n
The move came hours after immigration authorities said they confronted protesters in the Democrat-run city. Officials said an \u201carmed woman\u201d was shot after she and others allegedly rammed their cars into law enforcement vehicles.<\/p>\n
State and local leaders have for weeks criticised Trump\u2019s deployment plans, calling it an abuse of power. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said Trump was \u201cattempting to manufacture a crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
The announcement came as a federal judge in Portland, Oregon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying 200 troops there \u2013 though it appears to have tried to overcome this.<\/p>\n
Judge Karin Immergut called Trump\u2019s statements about conditions in Portland \u201cuntethered to the facts\u201d and said the move violated the Constitution.<\/p>\n
She said the use of the military to quell unrest without the state of Oregon consenting risked the sovereignty of that state and others, adding that it also inflamed tensions in the city and caused increased protests.<\/p>\n
Immergut ruled that the administration\u2019s arguments for the deployment \u201crisk blurring the line between civil and military federal power \u2013 to the detriment of this nation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, applauded the court\u2019s decision and said that she hoped Trump respects the order and halts the deployment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no insurrection in Portland, no threat to national security,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cThe only threat we face is to our Democracy \u2013 and that threat is being led by President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has filed a notice indicating it will appeal the judge\u2019s decision. The president again criticised leadership in the state on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe place is burning down, and they pretend like there\u2019s nothing happening,\u201d Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, California\u2019s Governor Gavin Newsom said Trump had ordered 300 National Guard troops in California to deploy to Oregon after the judge\u2019s order. Newsom said he plans to file a lawsuit over the move.<\/p>\n
In Chicago, it\u2019s still unclear whether any troops have arrived \u2013 though any such deployment would likely be met with legal challenges.<\/p>\n
Pritzker said Trump was also redeploying the Texas National Guard.<\/p>\n
He said on Sunday night that the US president was \u201cordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
He called on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to \u201cimmediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to co-ordinate\u201d.<\/p>\n
The city is the latest to be targeted for a controversial deployment of troops \u2013 many of them led by Democrats \u2013 joining Washington DC, Los Angeles, Memphis and Portland.<\/p>\n
The deployments have posed both legal and constitutional questions, as National Guard troops are typically deployed by a state\u2019s governor and century-old laws limit the government\u2019s use of the military for domestic matters.<\/p>\n
Chicago has seen an increase in protests over immigration enforcement in the city, many of them happening outside US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.<\/p>\n
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago was to quell \u201congoing violent riots and lawlessness\u201d, adding: \u201cPresident Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday \u2013 just before Trump authorised troops there \u2013 US Border Patrol personnel shot a woman in Chicago after a group of people rammed cars into immigration enforcement vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement. The woman was armed, it said.<\/p>\n
DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: \u201cAgents were unable to move their vehicles and exited the car. One of the drivers who rammed the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLaw enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed US citizen,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s injuries were unclear. The DHS said she drove herself to a local hospital.<\/p>\n
Pritzker told CNN on Saturday that Trump\u2019s authorisation of troops there would incite protests. He accused the administration of creating a \u201cwarzone\u201d to rationalise the response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the warzone so that they can send in even more troops,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re using every lever at their disposal to keep us from maintaining order.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the president talked about his ongoing military deployments to US cities while addressing high-ranking leaders across the military.<\/p>\n
He told military leaders he wanted US cities used as \u201ctraining grounds\u201d for troops so they could combat the \u201cenemy from within\u201d and quell unrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very unsafe places and we\u2019re going to straighten them out one by one,\u201d he said of Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. He told the military leaders it would be \u201ca major part for some of the people in this room\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump has threatened to send troops to Chicago for nearly a month \u2013 citing crime and shootings in the city.<\/p>\n
Violent crime in Chicago has fallen significantly over the past two years. Between January and June, the homicide rate was down by a third compared to the same period last year, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.<\/p>\n
But the overall levels in Chicago remain substantially higher than the average for many US cities. There were at least 58 people shot \u2013 eight fatally \u2013 over the Labor Day holiday weekend last month.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago in Illinois, to address what he says is out-of-control crime. The move came hours after immigration authorities said they confronted protesters in the Democrat-run city. Officials said an \u201carmed woman\u201d was shot after she and others allegedly rammed their cars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}