The Trump administration is pointing to renewed unrest in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, to justify an imminent deployment of federal troops to the two Democrat-led cities, seizing on new rounds of protests and the recent arrest of a conservative influencer.
“We’re sending in the Department of War … I put a request in today for them to come to Chicago,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson Friday during a visit to Illinois, where another round of protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility led to more than a dozen arrests.
Federal troops would also be “rolling in” to Portland “within the next 24 hours,” the DHS secretary said, appearing to cite the arrest late Thursday of conservative influencer Nick Sortor as one of the justifications for federal intervention.
“What we saw happen to that journalist, will not happen again,” Noem said.
Sortor, of Washington, DC, was arrested amid protests outside an ICE facility in Portland during what police characterized as a fight. He was released hours later without bond but went on to decry his detention as a wrongful arrest. Soon after, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into “potential viewpoint discrimination” on the part of Portland police, something the department denied.
The rising tensions between the federal government and Portland officials also played out in court Friday as a federal judge weighed whether to grant a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deploying the roughly 200 Oregon National Guard soldiers that have been mobilized.
US District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump nominee, presided over Friday’s hearing in Oregon and is expected to issue a decision Saturday.
As of Friday, National Guard units were still completing training and must finish preparations before arriving in Portland, a US Northern Command spokesperson told CNN. They were not able to say when training would be complete.
As for Chicago, a Northern Command spokesperson said Friday there were no written orders for the National Guard to be deployed to the city, and there was no unit preparing for that mission.
Here’s what else we know about the situations in the two cities.
Federal agents, including members of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Border Patrol, hold back protesters outside a downtown U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility yeseterday. – Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Portland attorneys argue ‘perception versus reality problem’
Oregon and Portland officials jointly sued the administration this week after President Donald Trump announced he would send the National Guard to protect “war-ravaged” Portland. The state says the order is illegal and has called the president’s portrayal of the city “wildly hyperbolic.”
The president and his administration have cited weekslong demonstrations outside the Portland ICE facility, framing them as “violent riots” tied to “Antifa domestic terrorists.” Local officials dispute that characterization, claiming in the lawsuit that protests were small until Trump’s National Guard announcement brought renewed attention to them.
On Friday the judge heard nearly two hours of testimony over the legality of the possible deployment.
US Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton cited a variety of incidents he said make the National Guard deployment necessary.
Hamilton accused demonstrators of blocking the entrance to the ICE facility, following ICE agents home and throwing incendiary devices, rocks and bricks at law enforcement. The facility closed for three weeks over the summer “because of the violence,” he said. CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for more details on the facility closure.
But Caroline Turco, an attorney for the city of Portland, said what ultimately is happening in Portland is a “perception versus reality problem.”
“The president’s perception is it’s World War II out here. The reality is, it’s a beautiful city and a sophisticated police force that can handle the situation,” Turco said.
Oregon state attorneys said the use of Oregon’s National Guard for civilian law enforcement does not fall within the narrow circumstances – including “rebellion” or invasion by a foreign nation – under which the president has the power to call state troops into federal action.
Federal law also orders this type of action to be made through state governors. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has fiercely opposed the deployment.
Trump’s crackdown in Portland follows similar efforts in Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Memphis – an effort met with impassioned pushback from Democratic leaders nationwide who argue the moves are politically motivated and lack justification.
Last month, a federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration broke the law when it deployed thousands of federalized National Guard soldiers and hundreds of Marines to suppress protests against ICE actions in Los Angeles.
The decision barred troops from carrying out law enforcement in the state, but the White House has appealed the decision.
Demonstrators march along the Magnificent Mile protesting the agenda of the Trump administration on September 30. – Scott Olson/Getty Images
Rising tensions in Chicago following sweeping immigration enforcement
Meanwhile, the latest round of protests outside an ICE facility in Illinois resulted in the arrests of at least 18 people, as tensions over federal involvement in the state was set in relief by Noem’s visit.
At least five people were arrested for aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting and obstruction during demonstrations in Broadview, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office told CNN. DHS reported 13 additional arrests Friday evening.
Protesters filled the streets as Noem was perched on the rooftop of the ICE building, surrounded by armed agents and a camera crew, according to CNN affiliate WLS.
The protests near Chicago began weeks ago, after local leaders got word that “a large-scale enforcement campaign” would soon be underway in the Windy City as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration agenda. That widespread operation has so far resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, DHS said in a news release Friday.
In his latest rebuke of the Trump administration’s actions in his state, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker delivered a “message of alarm” at a fundraiser held by Georgia Democrats Friday.
Pritzker warned that a “constitutional crisis is not on its way – it is here, and we all better start acting like it.”
Earlier the Democratic governor condemned a sweeping overnight raid carried out by federal authorities at a Chicago apartment building earlier this week. The multiagency operation led to the arrest of 37 undocumented immigrants – but also left the building’s tenants and neighbors shaken.
Demonstrators protest downtown in Chicago after recent ICE raids in the city. – Scott Olson/Getty Images
Adults and children alike were pulled from their apartments, crying and screaming, during the raid, which one neighbor characterized as a military-style “invasion.”
“Federal agents reporting to Secretary Noem have spent weeks snatching up families, scaring law-abiding residents, violating due process rights, and even detaining U.S. citizens. They fail to focus on violent criminals and instead create panic in our communities,” Pritzker said in a statement about the operation.
CNN’s Rebekah Riess and Bill Kirkos contributed to this report.
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