Immigration and Customs Enforcement has requested access to a U.S. Navy base north of Chicago as President Donald Trump threatens to deploy National Guard troops to the Windy City with his nationwide crime crackdown and immigration agenda, according to reports.
The Department of Homeland Security requested to use the Naval Station Great Lakes — about 40 miles north of Chicago — to house ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents from September 2 through 30, officials at the base told the Chicago Sun-Times. The president has vowed to execute the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, with a goal of deporting 1 million people per year.
The request may also include National Guard members, whose deployment to two U.S. cities this year has been met with public and political pushback.
“These operations are similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer. Same DHS team,” Navy Captain Stephen Yargosz, commanding officer of the base, said in an email obtained by the outlet. “This morning I received a call that there is the potential to also support National Guard units. Not many details on this right now. Mainly a lot of concerns and questions.”
If the request is granted, the base would provide “facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs,” according to the Washington Post.
The decision to grant access has not been made as of Wednesday, the Post reported.
“President Trump has been clear: we are going to make our streets and cities safe again. Across the country, DHS law enforcement are arresting and removing the worst of worst including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists that have terrorized American communities. Under Secretary Noem, ICE and CBP are working overtime to deliver on the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again,” a senior DHS official told The Independent in a statement.
The Independent has asked Naval Station Great Lakes and the Illinois governor’s office for more information.
Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin condemned the reported plans. “Donald Trump’s reportedly going to use Naval Station Great Lakes as a center for his illegal military occupation in Chicago. That’d be a total waste, and it’d hurt our military readiness,” he said Wednesday in a statement on X.
Trump’s immigration agenda has become a fixture of his second term. DHS is facing a barrage of lawsuits over its aggressive deportation efforts.
The president also campaigned on reducing crime but his militaristic approach has sparked controversy among state leaders and civil rights groups.
Earlier this month, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., federalizing the city’s local police and arming National Guard members. Sporting bright orange high-visibility vests over their typical garb, National Guard members were spotted picking up trash in Lafayette Park this week as part of the “beautification and restoration mission,” according to officials.
In June, the president deployed thousands of National Guard members to Los Angeles as protests erupted over Trump’s immigration raids. California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the administration after Trump federalized the state’s National Guard.
Last week, the president suggested Chicago was his next target.
When asked whether the city was next in line to receive a deployment of federal troops, DHS Chief Kristi Noem told NewsNation this week: “We’re going to have a strike team in Chicago soon.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told reporters Wednesday that no federal officials have contacted him about the plans. His team has “received no calls from the White House, from the federal government, from anybody who might be in charge of some sort of troop movement,” he said.
At a press conference earlier this week, the governor insisted that there’s no need for federal forces to come to the Windy City, emphasizing that crime in Chicago is down.
In response to Pritzker’s pushback, Trump suggested during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting that he wouldn’t back down.
“I’m the president of the United States,” he said. “If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”
State leaders are privately discussing a legal strategy to challenge the federal deployment, Reuters reported.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul told WTTW on Wednesday that, legally, in order for the president to federalize the National Guard, “there either has to be a foreign invasion, rebellion from within or inability to enforce a federal law because of inadequate resources through regular means.” Raoul added: “None of those circumstances exist in regards to dealing with crime in Chicago.”
Sending in the National Guard is “performative,” Arne Duncan, former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education and founder of community violence prevention nonprofit Chicago CRED, told Reuters.
The move “harkens back to Klan patrols — that’s the imagery [Trump] wants and it’s incredibly disturbing. He wants these military clashes with civilians,” he said.
