It comes after the White House asked a military base outside of Chicago for support on immigration operations this week.
Matt Mogle, spokesperson for the base, said the Department of Homeland Security asked Naval Station Great Lakes for “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations.”
Trump administration officials reportedly said that the immigration operation is not related to the president’s plan to expand a crime crackdown that began in Washington DC to Chicago.
It comes weeks after the federal government deployed National Guard troops to Washington DC in a crime crackdown. Nearly 2,000 National Guard troops have been stationed in the nation’s capital, with the arrival this week of hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states.
Trump last week suggested that Chicago would be the next city targeted.
“We’ll go to another location and we’ll make it safe also. Chicago is a mess, you have an incompetent mayor…and we’ll straighten that one out probably next,” Trump said last Friday.
Two months ago, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 California National Guard troops to LA, along with 700 marines, in response to demonstrations against immigration raids.
Trump’s decision marked the first time in 60 years that a president had activated the National Guard to a state without a request from its governor. The incident sparked a bitter row between Trump and Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom.
