Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, has described Chicago as “a war zone” after federal agents shot a woman, prompting a backlash from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who accused the Trump administration of exacerbating the crisis.
Speaking on Fox News, Noem criticised Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, who had previously branded the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois as “unhinged and unhealthy”. Noem said: “His city is a war zone and he’s lying so that criminals can go in there and destroy people’s lives.”
President Donald Trump authorised 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to be deployed to Chicago to protect federal officers and property. This follows similar moves in Washington, where Trump federalised the police force in a crackdown on crime.
Governor Pritzker, a Democrat, told CNN’s State of the Union: “They are the ones who are making it a war zone. They need to get out of Chicago.” He described the deployment as an ultimatum from the “Department of War”, calling it “absolutely outrageous and un-American”.
The shooting occurred when border patrol agents fired at a person who attempted to run them over, injuring a US citizen armed with a semi-automatic weapon. Noem defended the administration’s actions, claiming that residents support the intervention and that “a thousand criminals are off the streets”.
