Texas National Guard Troops Arrive in Illinois

The first National Guard troops sent to the Chicago area by President Trump arrived Tuesday at an Army training center outside the city. The AP saw military personnel in uniforms with the Texas National Guard patch at the US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted a picture on social media Monday showing Texas National Guard members boarding a plane but didn't specify where they were going. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has said some 300 of his state's guard troops were to be federalized and deployed to the nation's third-largest city, along with 400 others from Texas.

The arrival of National Guard members follows a lawsuit Illinois and Chicago filed Monday alleging that Trump's authorization to deploy troops to the Windy City is "unlawful and dangerous." Trump claims the troops are needed to protect federal immigration enforcement efforts and crack down on crime. The judge declined to immediately block the deployment and gave the administration until midnight Wednesday to respond to the lawsuit, the Chicago Tribune reports.

• Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant said county officials "received no information or coordination from the federal government about this deployment," NBC5 reports. She called the move an "aggressive overreach," saying, "Our federal government moving armed troops into our community should be alarming to everyone." The county sheriff's office said it will follow state law, "which prohibits local law enforcement from assisting or coordinating with federal authorities in immigration enforcement."

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Monday barring federal agents from using city-owned property as staging areas. It applies to parking lots, garages, and vacant lots. Johnson said Tuesday that around 3,000 runners from Mexico have signed up for Sunday's Chicago Marathon, and he has encouraged them to come because "the best way in which we can demonstrate resistance is not bending the knee to tyranny," the Tribune reports.
• Pritzker vowed Monday that he wouldn't back down. "The Trump administration is following a playbook: cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them," the Democratic governor said. "Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act so that he can send the military to our city." Trump warned Monday that he could invoke the act if courts block troop deployments.
• "Chicago will be saved, and this FBI will continue to crush violent crime there, and all around the country," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X Tuesday morning. "Heading to the Windy City now." At a news conference, Johnson said, "Well, Kash is really coming here to enjoy the city of Chicago and spend money. And I strongly encourage him to spend as much as he possibly can."