As members of the Texas National Guard boarded a plane On Monday, state and city leaders in Illinois were holding a press conference asking them to stay away from Chicago.
It was not immediately clear when Guard members would arrive in Chicago. Texas Gov. Abbott shared a photo on social media Monday showing the state’s “elite” National Guard boarding a plane, but did not say where they were headed.
“Illinois will not allow the Trump administration to continue its authoritarian march without resistance,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. “We will use every lever at our disposal to stop this power grab because military troops should not be used against American communities.”
A security guard monitors the street outside an immigration and customs (ICE) processing center in Broadview, Illinois, on September 10, 2025.
Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier in the day, Abbott had responded For Pritzker on social media, saying, “I fully authorized the president to call up 400 members of the Texas National Guard to ensure the safety of federal officials.”
During a press conference Tuesday morning, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he had not received information about the whereabouts of Texas National Guard troops.
“We have not heard directly, of course, from the president or his administration and my expectation is that, regardless of what this administration is doing, I will remain steadfast and committed to protecting the rights and civility of our nation and it will begin here in Chicago,” Johnson said.
“We know that, just like what we’ve seen in other parts of the country, there is a process that the National Guard goes through before they are actually released onto the streets of Chicago or anywhere,” Johnson added.
Johnson said what he does know is that the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago is “illegal, unconstitutional, it’s dangerous, it’s wrong.”
The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block federalization and the deployment of the National Guard.
Fundamental principle separating military from domestic issues is ‘endangered’ as Trump seeks to deploy National Guard to Cities across the country, attorneys from Illinois and Chicago wrote in the lawsuit.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker speaks at a press conference on October 6, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
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“Let me be clear, Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said during a news conference.
To support his point, Pritzker touched on a video of an ice raid conducted last week at an apartment complex in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, which he said was filmed by federal authorities with high-definition cameras for social media purposes. He said it was the same video that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on social media on Saturday.
“They brought in military Black Hawk helicopters and over 100 officers in full tactical gear,” Pritzker said.
He added: “At night and apparently for the cameras, armed federal agents emerged from Black Hawk helicopters, raping the roof of that apartment building.”
The governor alleged that the Trump administration is following a playbook to “cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it look like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Trump said he didn’t see the need to use the Insurrection Act yet, but “if I had to enact it, I would, if people were being killed and the courts were holding us, or the governors or the mayors were holding us.”
