National Guard Troops Currently Protecting Federal Property in Greater Chicago Region, Official Says
Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as political content creators. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.