National Guard Troops Currently Guarding Government Property in Chicago Area, Official Says
Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed 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: one.