OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:19 PM – Sunday, October 5, 2025
President Donald Trump authorized the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago to protect federal officers and property amid waves of “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity.
President Trump authorized the deployment hours after ICE agents shot an “armed woman” who had reportedly rammed her car into the vehicle of federal immigrant officers.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson confirmed that President Trump authorized the deployment in response to the attack and the general “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness.”
“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like [Illinois Governor JB] Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorized 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” Jackson stated.
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” she added.
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The center of the clashes between protestors and law enforcement is concentrated around an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.
Broadview police, along with other law enforcement agencies, have reportedly arrested a total of five individuals on Saturday, according to a local NBC affiliate. The individuals could potentially face charges of resisting arrest and obstruction.
Meanwhile, Democrat Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has demanded the Trump administration “Get out of Chicago,” describing the acts of federalizing the Illinois National Guard and deploying ICE agents to the city as “unprecedented escalations of aggression against Illinois citizens and residents.”
Pritzker went on to argue that the deployment “will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance — not a serious effort [to] protect public safety. For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”
Additionally, Pritzker made a Saturday appearance on CNN, arguing that the Trump administration seeks to manufacture a “war zone.”
“They want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops,” Pritzker told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They’re using every lever at their disposal to keep us from maintaining order.”
President Trump’s decision to federalize the National Guard resembles a similar decision made over the summer to protect federal agents and facilities from the violent riots targeting a Los Angeles ICE facility, while receiving condemnation from California Governor Gavin Newsom.
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