150 federal agents to be deployed to Chicago: report
Mayor Lori Lightfoot says to the president, 'We don’t need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the streets'
President Donald Trump is preparing to send as many as 150 federal agents to Chicago in efforts to reduce violence in the city.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Department will send federal agents who will be used to confront street protesters and research gang and drug violence in the city.
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According to The Chicago Tribune, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is against the plan.
She has instead said that the president could increase resources for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives department and provide funding for prosecutors.
“We don’t need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the streets and holding them, I think, unlawfully,” Lightfoot said. She sent the President a four-page letter saying that “despite his misplaced and incendiary rhetoric,” she will take him at his word that he wants to help her city.
Late Monday, Lightfoot appeared as one of the first guests on the premiere of The ReidOut hosted by Joy Reid on MSNBC, where she said, “we’re not going to have tyranny in the city of Chicago.”
The Chicago Police Department released a statement on Monday about the impending deployment.
“The Chicago Police Department does not maintain any authority over the federal government’s deployment of federal law enforcement agents to the City of Chicago. We regularly work alongside our local and federal law enforcement agency partners toward the common goal of keeping Chicago residents safe,” the statement read.
“If federal agents are deployed, it is critical that they coordinate with the Chicago Police Department and work alongside us to fight violent crime in Chicago.”
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Troops have already been active in Portland where they have been taking people off the streets and detaining them against the wishes of that city’s mayor. Trump has also declared that he would send troops to Detroit, Philadelphia, and Oakland, all Democratic cities with large Black populations.
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib said on Twitter, “They’ll have to arrest me first if they think they’re going to illegally lay their hands on my residents.”
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