WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is working on plans to deploy the US military to Chicago as President Donald Trump says he is cracking down on crime, homelessness and undocumented immigration, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
The Defense Department planning, in the works for weeks, involves several options, including mobilizing at least a few thousand members of the National Guard as soon as September, the Post reported, citing officials familiar with the matter.
“Chicago is a mess,” Trump, a Republican, told reporters on Friday, deriding its mayor as he continued his attacks on cities run by Democratic politicians. “And we’ll straighten that one out probably next.”
The Pentagon said in a statement late on Saturday: “We won’t speculate on further operations. The department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel.”
Asked for comment, the White House referred to Trump’s statement on Friday.
JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, which includes Chicago, said in a statement the state had received no outreach from the federal government on whether it needed assistance. He said there was no emergency warranting a National Guard or other military deployment.
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families,” Pritzker said.
A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Friday Johnson said the city had grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops.
“The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for and unsound,” the mayor said, adding that over the past year, homicides in Chicago have fallen by more than 30 percent, robberies by 35 percent and shootings by almost 40 percent.
At Trump’s request last weekend, the Republican governors of three states said they were sending hundreds of National Guard troops hundreds of miles to Washington, D.C.
The president has portrayed the nation’s capital as a city awash in crime, although Justice Department data shows violent crime hit a 30-year low last year in Washington, a self-governing federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress.
In June, Trump ordered 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, against the wishes of California’s Democratic governor, during protests over mass immigration raids by federal officials.
Pentagon working on plans for military deployment in Chicago, Washington Post reports
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Pentagon working on plans for military deployment in Chicago, Washington Post reports
- President Donald Trump: ‘Chicago is a mess … And we’ll straighten that one out probably next’
- City has grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops
Trump expands travel ban, adding 5 more countries and imposing new limits on others
- Nationals from Syria, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are banned from visiting the US
- The White House also fully restricted travel on people with Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is expanding its travel ban to include five more countries and impose new limits on others.
This move Tuesday is part of ongoing efforts to tighten US entry standards for travel and immigration. The decision follows the arrest of an Afghan national suspect in the shooting of two National Guard troops over Thanksgiving weekend.
In June, President Donald Trump announced that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from visiting the United States and those from seven others would face restrictions. The decision resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term.
At the time the ban included Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
On Tuesday, the Republican administration announced it was expanding the list of countries whose citizens are banned from entering the US to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria. The administration also fully restricted travel on people with Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents.
An additional 15 countries are also being added to the list of countries facing partial restrictions: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Trump administration said in its announcement of the expanded travel ban that many of the countries from which it was restricting travel had “widespread corruption, fraudulent or unreliable civil documents and criminal records” that made it difficult to vet their citizens for travel to the US. It also said some countries had high rates of people overstaying their visas, refused to take back their citizens who the US wished to deport or had a “general lack of stability and government control,” which made vetting difficult.
“The restrictions and limitations imposed by the Proclamation are necessary to prevent the entry of foreign nationals about whom the United States lacks sufficient information to assess the risks they pose, garner cooperation from foreign governments, enforce our immigration laws, and advance other important foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives,” reads the White House proclamation announcing the changes.
The Afghan man accused of shooting the two National Guard troops near the White House has pleaded not guilty to murder and assault charges.
