WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has been planning for weeks to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago as part of an expanded crackdown on crime and immigration, according to reports in US media. The Pentagon has been sketching out plans that could mobilize several thousand National Guard members to the nation's third-largest city as early as September.
The Pentagon refused to confirm the reports. "We won't speculate on further operations," a defense official said. "The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel," the official said.
Trump said that Chicago and New York were set to receive similar treatment. "We're going to make our cities very, very safe," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think Chicago will be our next and then we'll help with New York." The potential deployment in Chicago would follow a similar pattern to Trump's controversial June operation in Los Angeles, where he sent 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 active-duty Marines. — AFP
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