Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) said President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement to cities was “an invasion with U.S. troops.”
Partial transcript as follows:
ED O’KEEFE: Governor Pritzker, thank you for doing this, and thanks for the tour. We appreciate it. I want to start with the fact that we’ve now learned the Trump administration is preparing to launch what they call major immigration enforcement here in Chicago in the coming days. The Homeland Security Secretary on Friday suggested, quote “going to use LA as an example.” So that mix of federal agents deploying with the assistance of National Guard troops potentially, to protect them and federal property. What’s your response to those apparent plans?
PRITZKER: Well, they’ve been here before, ICE has, scaring the communities across the city of Chicago. Frankly, right here in Little Village, businesses had to close, people had to stay home- people who are U.S. citizens, by the way, because they’re afraid of being snatched off the streets and disappeared by people wearing masks and throwing them into vans. So the people of Chicago know what this looks like and are prepared. We hope that they don’t send any troops along with ICE, and if they do, they’ll be in court pretty quickly, because that is illegal. Posse Comitatus does not allow U.S. troops into U.S. cities to do- you know, to fight crime, to be involved in law enforcement. That’s not their job.
O’KEEFE: If they’re doing federal immigration work, a judge might say, if they’re protecting those federal agents, that’s okay. I mean, you’ll just fight that in court as long as you can?
PRITZKER: Well, National Guard troops- any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not.
O’KEEFE: Have you been briefed by anyone in the administration about these plans?
PRITZKER: No one in the administration, the President, or anybody under him, has called anyone in my administration or- and me, have not called the city of Chicago or anyone else. So it’s clear that, in secret, they’re planning this- well, it’s an invasion with U.S. troops, if they, in fact, do that. The other thing is, you know, they ought to be coordinating with local law enforcement. They ought to let us know when they’re coming, where they’re coming, if it’s ICE or if it’s ATF or whoever it is. But, they don’t want to do that either and I must say, it’s disruptive, it’s dangerous. It tends to inflame passions on the ground when they don’t let us know what their plans are, and when we can’t coordinate with them.
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