Has an insurrection taken place in Chicago? J.B. Pritzker's lips say no no no, but video from the streets of the Windy City says otherwise.
Two days after Chicago PD were ordered to stand down rather than deal with a mob obstructing federal law enforcement, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth ordered National Guard troops to deploy to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents under assault. The Illinois governor then sued in federal court to stop the deployment, claiming that "there is no insurrection in Illinois":
The state of Illinois and city of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday morning seeking to block President Donald Trump's federalization and deployment of the National Guard.
"The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president's favor," the complaint said.
The foundational principle separating the military from domestic affairs is "in peril" as President Trump seeks to deploy the National Guard to cities across the country, lawyers for Illinois and Chicago wrote in a lawsuit. ...
"There is no insurrection in Illinois. There is no rebellion in Illinois. The federal government is able to enforce federal law in Illinois. The manufactured nature of the crisis is clear," according to the 69-page complaint.
Ahem. Is this how Pritzker thinks that the federal government "is able to enforce federal law" in his state?
🚨 BREAKING: Left-wing rioters are SIEGING and PELTING federal vehicles with rocks and bottles in Chicago.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 4, 2025
WHY are *ALL* of them not being rounded up?
Because local police are standing DOWN.
Unacceptable. Insurrection without consequence must END.pic.twitter.com/XUyNloXTbb
If Pritzker thinks this is the environment in which law enforcement can be achieved, it explains a lot about Chicago.
The Department of Justice has a different idea about enforcing the law. Two Chicago residents now face federal charges in the incident that took place on Saturday:
Two Chicago residents have been charged with using their cars to “assault, impede, and interfere with the work of federal agents,” federal prosecutors said on Sunday.
The charges stemmed from a confrontation Saturday morning between federal agents and motorists on the Southwest Side of Chicago that resulted in a federal agent shooting one of the motorists, Marimar Martinez, 30. She was treated and released from a hospital.
She was charged along with another motorist, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21.
Can Pritzker keep Trump from deploying the National Guard to Chicago? Gavin Newsom eventually lost his case about Los Angeles, but did manage to stall the process a bit in the courts by claiming that Trump had not followed proper procedure before assuming control of California National Guard units. Trump and Hegseth have avoided that issue by calling up Texas National Guard troops to deploy into Chicago, this time with Texas Governor Greg Abbott's blessing.
That didn't stop a federal judge from enjoining a similar deployment in Portland. Judge Karin Immergut had stopped the call-up of Oregon National Guard troops to protect federal property and agents in the city, and over the weekend stopped the deployment of troops from other states:
Judge Karin Immergut had said on Saturday that the Trump administration had overstepped its authority and couldn’t deploy Oregon’s National Guard to Portland. She said the same reasoning held for Sunday’s order, which came after the administration sent to Oregon 200 California National Guard troops that were under its command. The Trump administration also authorized the mobilization of up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard for federal protection missions in cities including Portland and Chicago.
“Do you believe that this is an appropriate way to deal with my order?” Immergut asked the lawyer for the federal government on Sunday, saying she saw the moves to send troops from California and Texas as a “direct contravention of the order that this court issued yesterday.” ...
In Saturday’s ruling, Immergut, a 2019 Trump appointee, said that there was no danger of rebellion against federal authority in Portland and that city police could deal with incidents arising from protests against immigration enforcement. The Trump administration filed Sunday to appeal that decision.
Unlike Pritzker, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has to deal with the Ninth Circuit. That's the same court that unanimously ruled in June that the violence directed at federal agents and federal property justified the deployment of troops in Los Angeles. A district court judge can throw a spanner in the gears in the short run, but the appellate courts won't just stand by while mobs attack federal agents and local police are ordered to stand down. That's probably even more true in the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois. And it will almost certainly be true of the Supreme Court if and when these Democrat governors push their luck by appealing the issue to the maximum.
And once again, this is forcing Democrats into the fringe on both immigration enforcement and crime. These are 80/20 issues with the electorate, even in blue states. They are siding with the rock-throwers and chaos agents rather than governing responsibly. Trump is forcing them to fully expose their radical nature on a national stage. We'll see how that works out for them in the midterms.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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