U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) led the 19-member Illinois delegation in sending a letter to President Donald Trump on Monday, requesting he reverse his decision to send the National Guard to Chicago.
The letter comes after Trump’s authorization of 300 Illinois National Guard members to go to Chicago on Saturday. Four hundred Texas National Guard members were also deployed to the city after Texas Governor Greg Abbott authorized Trump to send the state’s National Guard to other states.
“Policing Americans is not the role of the military,” the letter stated. “That is the role of civilian law enforcement. The founders of this great nation understood that democracy, liberty, and the rule of law were dependent upon preventing the military from being turned upon its own people.”
Troops were seen in the city starting Tuesday. The previous day, Illinois and the city of Chicago sued the federal administration in an effort to block the federalization of the Illinois National Guard and prevent other states’ troops from coming to Illinois.
The deployments to Chicago come at a time when the city is also seeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and protests at the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois.
Governor JB Pritzker released a statement Sunday after he learned of Texas troops being deployed to Illinois.
“I call on Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate,” Pritzker’s statement read. “There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation.”
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) also released a statement on Monday.
She, along with Durbin, Duckworth and 10 other Illinois lawmakers had sent Trump a letter in September when he first announced his plan to send the National Guard to Chicago.
“We will not let Trump get away with waging a war on the American people,” Schakowsky said in the statement. “Not in Chicago. Not anywhere. Not now. Not ever.”
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