President Donald Trump threatened Illinois’s biggest city with a ‘Chipocalypse’ ahead of expected Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Trump, aged 79, took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Saturday to share a meme about himself, captioning it, ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning.’
‘Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.’
Trump rebranded the Pentagon to the Department of War this week.
His threat comes as ICE readies a raid on the Windy City after Trump said he selected it for the next federal military takeover.
The Department of Homeland Security has requested the Pentagon’s permission to utilize Naval Station Great Lakes, the largest military base in Illinois, for conducting the operation, as reported by The Washington Post.
The request said that around 250 federal agents and 140 vehicles would utilize the base.
National Guard troops could also be sent in to assist the effort, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Donald Trump, 79, once again took to Truth Social, posting a meme stating: ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.’
His threat comes as ICE readies a raid on the Windy City after Trump said he’d selected for the next federal military takeover
Earlier this week, equipment and personnel began arriving at the naval base. A MAGA radio host has described this move as the start of ‘the siege of Chicago.’
Governor JB Pritzker warned the raids could start on Saturday.
On Tuesday, Pritzker criticized Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, alleging that the decision to focus on Chicago in September was due to its numerous Mexican Independence Day events.
Pritzker stated, ‘We have reason to believe that Stephen Miller chose this month to come to Chicago because of the Mexican Independence Day celebrations that occur here throughout September.’
Miller is the administration’s top immigration hardliner, the architect of the first Trump administration’s controversial child separation policy.
‘It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades,’ the governor continued. ‘Let’s be clear: the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here.’
On Thursday, El Grito Chicago organizers scrapped a planned two-day festival over ICE raid fears.
The city’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson is resisting the federal action.
Governor J.B. Pritzker warned the raids could start on Saturday
Last weekend, he signed an executive order that, among other things, bars law enforcement from wearing face masks, as ICE agents have done in other US cities.
Johnson and Pritzker are sticking with the state’s sanctuary city policies that ban local law enforcement from helping ICE agents, unless they have a criminal warrant.
On Thursday, the mayor encouraged Chicagoans to still celebrate Mexican Independence Day.
‘Why would I ask you to stay home?’ he asked. ‘Why would we allow someone who is auditioning to become a dictator of democracy to intimidate the soul of America, the city of Chicago? We should celebrate.’
The president claims that sending in the National Guard is helping the Democratic cities’ crime problem.
The National Guard deployment in DC came hand-in-hand with ICE raids in the city.
On Thursday, DC’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit arguing the more than 1,000 troops now deployed to the capital are an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
‘No American jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation,’ Schwalb said.
Two weeks ago, Trump revealed that after Washington, DC, Chicago was his next pick for a troop deployment.
‘When we’re ready, we’ll go in and we’ll straighten out Chicago, just like we did DC,’ Trump said in the Oval Office at a World Cup event.
‘Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next, that will be our next one after this and it won’t even be tough,’ Trump said.
‘And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to go. They’re wearing red hats, just like this one. But they’re wearing red hats,’ Trump told Vice President JD Vance, who was standing alongside him.
‘African-American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying: “Please, President Trump, come to Chicago,”‘ the president continued.
He added that he did ‘great’ with the black vote.
‘So I think Chicago will be our next and then we’ll help with New York,’ he said.
