As the Donald Trump administration pushes ahead with hard-line policies such as deploying the National Guard to cities with strong Democratic support under the pretext of "maintaining public order," backlash from local governments is intensifying. Minister Kristi Noem called Chicago, where protests over immigration enforcement have escalated, "a war zone," and Democratic governors and mayors pushed back, saying, "The federal government is creating a war zone."
Minister Noem said in an interview with Fox News on the 5th (local time), "Mayor Brandon Johnson's Chicago is a war zone," and criticized, "Mayor Johnson is lying about the situation on the ground so that criminals can go to Chicago and ruin people's lives."
Prior to Minister Noem's interview, President Trump approved a plan to deploy 300 Illinois National Guard troops to Chicago. The National Guard, the military force maintained by each state, is under the governor's command in peacetime, but in an emergency can be mobilized by the federal government at the president's direction.
Regarding the deployment of the National Guard, Minister Noem said, "Residents know that the cities we go into have become much freer," adding, "Residents have become much safer. Just because we arrived, we caught thousands of criminals who were on the streets of Chicago."
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has criticized immigration crackdowns and the National Guard deployment as "insane and harmful." Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also pushed back in an interview with CNN, saying, "It is they (the federal government) who are turning it into a war zone."
Recently in Chicago, protests have continued against the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. The previous day, in the city's southwest, an immigration enforcement agent shot and injured a U.S. citizen. In response to the news, protests in Chicago against the Trump administration's immigration policy reportedly grew even more intense.