US President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago to address what he says is out-of-control crime. The move came hours after immigration authorities said they faced off with protesters in the Democrat-run city and shot an armed woman when she and others rammed their cars into law enforcement vehicles. State and local leaders have for weeks criticised President Trump’s deployment plans and called it an abuse of power. Illinois’ Democrat Governor JB Pritzker said President Trump was attempting to manufacture a crisis.
Earlier, the US Department of Homeland Security said that Border Patrol agents shot an armed woman in Chicago amid scores of protesters demonstrating against federal immigration agents on the city’s southwest side. The incident took place in Chicago’s suburb of Broadview, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility’s office is situated. A statement by the homeland department’s spokesperson said that no law enforcement officials were seriously injured in the incident. The statement added that the incident involved a group of protesters, including the woman ramming cars into vehicles used by US ICE.
ICE agents fired pepper spray and loaded rubber bullets as part of the confrontation with the protesters in Chicago. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, in a social media post said, she was sending additional special operations to control the situation in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood. Protests have intensified in Chicago and other Democratic-led cities, with previous clashes involving ICE using force against detainee transport blockades. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Portland, Oregon – another liberal city – temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying 200 troops there.
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