Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has slammed what he called Donald Trump’s “invasion,” saying the United States president had ordered an additional 400 National Guard members from Texas to be deployed to Illinois, Oregon and “other states”.
“I call on Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate,” he said on X Sunday evening. “There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation.”
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded by saying he “fully authorised” Trump’s deployment of his state’s National Guard soldiers to other states.
“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott said in a post on X.
The Texas National Guard “defend our country with pride”, Abbott added.
The exchange between the Republican leader of Texas and the Democrat of Illinois comes as immigrants and US citizens in the state’s capital, Chicago, have faced mass arrests in recent days from federal immigration agents, prompting protests.
In one incident last week, federal agents “rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters” as they stormed a five-storey apartment building, according to a report in NewsNation, which was invited to observe the operation.
Residents and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which canvassed the area, said those who were zip-tied included children and US citizens.
Rodrick Johnson, a US citizen briefly detained, said agents broke through his door and placed him in zip ties.
“I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer,” the 67-year-old told the Chicago Sun-Times. “They never brought one.”
Complicating the issue further, a federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked the troops from being sent to Oregon, after that state challenged the move in court.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have also used physical force, chemical munitions and rubber bullets to try to quash protests that have emerged in response to the immigration raids.
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Meanwhile, a federal judge temporarily blocked a similar move from the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops from California to the northwestern state of Oregon, and its capital, Portland, late on Sunday.
Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield had announced shortly beforehand that the states of Oregon and California were launching the new joint legal challenge to what he called “the unlawful deployment of California National Guard troops to Oregon”.
The two West Coast states had originally requested a narrower order that would have blocked only California National Guard troops from being sent to Oregon, but asked for the order to be expanded to National Guard troops being sent from any other state to Oregon, after the news that Texas National Guard personnel were also being activated.
Describing the reasons for the new legal action on Sunday, Rayfield said Oregon “will absolutely not be a party to the president’s attempt to normalise the use of the United States military in our American cities”.
Last week, Trump told a gathering of US military generals that he expects the US military to help respond to the “enemy from within … before it gets out of control.”
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