Hundreds of federal agents who are being sent to a north suburban naval base this week are expected to leave the facility before dawn each morning to carry out President Donald Trump’s mission to curb crime and make immigration arrests in Chicago, officials have been told.
The 230 agents, at least some of whom work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are coming from Los Angeles, where an immigration blitz this summer spurred protests that pushed Trump to call in the National Guard, sources familiar with the planning said.
At least 30 agents already have arrived at Naval Station Great Lakes near North Chicago, where they’ve been practicing crowd control with shields and flash-bang grenades, the sources said. Similar training has been underway for several months.
Once the surge in enforcement begins, agents are expected to leave the base by 5 a.m. daily to avoid interrupting normal operations, the sources said.
140 vehicles sent to suburban Naval base
About 140 unmarked vehicles that will be used in the operation have been sent to the base, which is the Navy’s largest training station and the largest military installation in the state, according to sources. Officials are seeking to establish a no-fly zone to keep away news helicopters and drones that aren’t already prohibited from flying in the area.
Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday said he expects U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be “assembled, ready to go on Friday, and that they will begin actions on Saturday or over the weekend.”
The federal agency still hasn’t confirmed any details with Pritzker’s office, which thinks the raids have been timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day festivities.
During a news conference in Pilsen, Pritzker said his office wants to ensure that Chicago police officers and other local cops “are aware of what they’re doing, so they can make sure they’re not standing anywhere near those actions or assisting in those actions, but also being ready for protests that might occur.”
The governor also called on residents to record ICE activities “to keep them honest in doing the right thing.”
The Trump administration got approval last weekend to use Naval Station Great Lakes for the operation. The Chicago Sun-Times first reported that staff at the base were told that it would be used to accommodate federal agents, and potentially National Guard troops, from Tuesday through the end of the month.
“These operations are similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer. Same [Department of Homeland Security] team,” Navy Cpt. Stephen Yargosz, the commanding officer of the base, said in an email to his leadership team on Aug. 25, referring to the controversial raids that roiled that city in June.
Federal officials didn’t respond to requests for comment Wednesday. But last week, a DHS spokesperson said officials were being sent to Chicago and Boston to target immigrants.
Trump on Tuesday confirmed that federal authorities were headed to Chicago after he was asked whether he was planning to send the National Guard.
“We’re going in,” Trump said during a news conference in the Oval Office. “I didn’t say when.”
JD Vance: 'No immediate plans' to send troops
Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday there were “no immediate plans” to send the National Guard into Chicago and chided Pritzker for not being a partner “in cutting down crime.”
Pritzker stood by a report his office has received that the White House might have already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment, which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office denied. Pritzker noted the Trump administration wouldn’t have to go through Abbott’s office to do that.
“If he wants to deny it, the governor of Texas, let’s just take into account that he has not been a good actor at all toward the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “So I don’t really trust anything that they’re saying.”
A day earlier, the governor joined Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to decry Trump’s crime-fighting promise as a partisan ploy to justify an unnecessary military presence in Chicago.
Trump highlighted a surge in gun violence in Chicago over the weekend, framing himself as a savior who can quickly solve an intractable problem. But Pritzker and Johnson have stressed that crime in Chicago has fallen significantly. This summer, the city saw its fewest murders since 1965, according to a WBEZ analysis.
Experts who study Chicago’s crime patterns said Trump’s plan amounts to a political stunt that could be “a recipe for disaster.”
“Just deploying troops to the area is not going to have an impact on violence being up or down, because violence, as it plays out in most places like Chicago, is more interpersonal than planned,” said Lance Williams, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University. “And so troops would not be able to get in front of that type of thing.”
Chicago Sun-Times reporter Tina Sfondeles contributed from Washington.
