CHICAGO: After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday (Sep 8) it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the United States without legal status.
The US Department of Homeland Security said in an online statement that “Operation Midway Blitz” was being conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but details about its scope and nature were not immediately made clear.
It remained to be seen whether President Donald Trump would send National Guard soldiers into Chicago to accompany ICE and other federal law enforcement officers, as he has in and around Los Angeles and the District of Columbia.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, each said their offices had received no official notice from federal authorities about the operation, which they decried as a political stunt designed to intimidate.
Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric about expanding federal law enforcement and National Guard presence in Democratic-led cities and states, casting the use of presidential power as an urgent effort to confront crime even as local officials cite declines in homicides and other violent offences.
DHS said its latest ICE operation was necessary because of city and state “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the crackdown was aimed at convicted gang members, rapists, kidnappers and drug traffickers who she called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago”.
The press release cited 11 cases of immigrants in the US illegally, most from Mexico and Venezuela, who DHS said had records of arrest or convictions for serious crimes and were released from local jails rather than turned over to federal immigration officials.
