🔗 Share this article

Greetings and welcome to the current updates in American political affairs. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.