U.S. President Donald Trump hinted Tuesday, October 7, that he may invoke the existing Insurrection Act to quell protests and combat what he sees as a “rampant crime wave” in the city of Chicago, Illinois, after threatening to do so in Portland, Oregon.
Questioned about whether he planned to invoke the legislation, one of the strongest emergency powers, to justify sending in troops in the face of episodes of civil disorder in Democratic cities, the Republican responded, “Well, it’s been invoked before.”
Trump wants to invoke the Insurrection Act
Q: Are you planning to invoke the Insurrection Act?
TRUMP: Well, it’s been invoked before. If you look at Chicago — Chicago is a great city where’s a lot of crime and if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do that job. pic.twitter.com/BJHrSJmueE
– Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 7, 2025
“If you look at Chicago, it’s a big city where there’s a lot of crime, and if the governor (of Illinois, JB Pritzker) can’t get the job done, we will,” he warned in the Oval Office during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
A day earlier, the U.S. president had already mentioned that he might invoke the Insurrection Act in Portland, following the setback suffered in a lower court that prohibited the deployment of National Guard soldiers from any state and despite the city authorities’ assurances that the situation is under control.
On Tuesday, Trump insisted that “a lot of people have been shot” in Chicago, where the Republican leader ordered the dispatch of some 300 National Guard troops from Republican Texas.
This deployment comes amid growing demonstrations against immigration raids in the north-central city, where Border Patrol agents fired shots in the South Side area on Saturday, October 4, injuring a U.S. citizen.
Local authorities and Democrat Pritzker have denounced this decision as a new abuse of power by the president, who has already done the same in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., the latter as part of an anti-crime campaign, despite the rejection of the capital’s government.
After a federal judge ruled against a state lawsuit to block the deployment, Pritzker called the situation “an unconstitutional invasion of Illinois by the federal government.”
The Insurrection Act of 1807, not to be confused with martial law, was intended to be applied in crises that exceeded the response capacity of civilian authorities.
Because their use is not clearly defined or limited, which gives presidents considerable power to stipulate when and where to deploy military forces within the country.
The last time the Insurrection Act was used was in 1992 under George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) in California in response to civil unrest in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers accused of beating an African-American driver. Bush (1989-1993) in California in response to civil unrest in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers accused of beating an African-American driver.
If you look at Chicago, it's a big city where there's a lot of crime, and if the governor can't get the job done, we will
President Donald Trump
With information from EFE
