U.S. border policy czar Tom Homan suggested Thursday that Chicago, a city to which President Donald Trump has announced he will send the Army to fight crime, could soon experience a surge in operations against migrants.
Asked about a possible major Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation next week in Chicago, a city that President Trump this week called a “killing field,” Tom Homan told reporters at the White House that “operations have intensified across the country” and that “you could certainly see an increase in places like Chicago.”
He also added that arrests of undocumented migrants would also be intensified in other cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Portland or Seattle, all of them “sanctuary cities” that, he insisted, “refuse to collaborate with ICE”.
Homan also confirmed that ICE is being considered to use a naval base north of Chicago as an operations center, but declined to specify whether the National Guard, which Trump has said he will send to the city, would be based at the same facility.
In any case, he said that “a large contingent” will be mobilized, but that the government will not reveal “how many resources” will be deployed because there is no intention for “the criminal (in Chicago) to know”.
Trump has repeatedly threatened other Democratic-governed cities such as Chicago or Baltimore with federalizing their public safety, something he already did by sending the National Guard to Los Angeles during protests against ICE raids in June.
In turn, last August 11, Trump declared a “Public Safety Emergency” in Washington that allowed him to take control of the Washington Police and deploy the National Guard to “restore public order,” despite the city’s crime data being at its lowest level in 30 years.
The president threatened again this Thursday with a deployment in Chicago through a message on his social network Truth Social addressed to JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois, the state where the city is located.
“Governor Pritzker had six murders in Chicago this weekend. Twenty people were shot. But he won’t ask for my help. is it possible? People are desperate for him to curb crime, something the Democrats are not capable of doing. stay tuned!!!”, Trump wrote, according to information from EFE.
For more information, visit QuéOnnda.com.
