\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration<\/span> said on Monday that it was launching an operation targeting \u201ccriminal illegal aliens\u201d in Chicago, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.<\/p>\n The announcement came two days after President Donald Trump posted<\/a> an AI-generated image on Truth Social depicting himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s 1979 Vietnam War epic\u00a0Apocalypse Now<\/em><\/a>. In the film, Kilgore \u2013 an Air Cavalry Regiment commander who refers to Vietnamese people with a number of vile slurs<\/a> \u2013 annihilates a village to secure a beach for surfing. Trump\u2019s AI image was captioned with a riff on the character\u2019s most famous line: \u201c\u2018I love the smell of deportations in the morning\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cChicago about to find out why it\u2019s called the Department of WAR,\u201d the president\u2019s post continued. It came a day after Trump signed an executive order<\/a> changing the Defense Department\u2019s name to the Department of War.<\/p>\n Following backlash<\/a> to his threat to make war on America\u2019s third largest city, Trump assured Chicagoans that \u201cOnly the Criminals will be hurt!\u201d in another post<\/a>.<\/p>\n That has not reassured Chicago\u2019s elected officials.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump swore an oath to protect the American people and defend the Constitution. Instead, he is declaring war on every American \u2013 including Chicagoans \u2013 who stands against his fascist agenda,\u201d Congressmember Delia Ramirez, D-Ill, told The Intercept. \u201cAttacking American cities and wasting billions of dollars on unlawful activities, while cutting essential services for working families are the tactics of wannabe dictators. Trump has betrayed his Constitutional duties and should be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker shared a \u201cKnow Your Rights\u201d pamphlet, which mentions that ICE officers can be asked to present a warrant, on X<\/a> on Saturday. He encouraged those witnessing arrests to film them and share them with media organizations. \u201cOnce Donald Trump gets the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law \u2013 what comes next?\u201d he asked<\/a> during a Sunday press conference.<\/p>\n Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. \u2013 a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in combat in Iraq \u2013 also took exception to Trump\u2019s Kilgore post but for different reasons. \u201cTake off that Cavalry hat, you draft dodger. You didn\u2019t earn the right to wear it. Stolen valor at its worst,\u201d she wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Friday, Duckworth visited Naval Station Great Lakes, which local news outlets have reported<\/a> the Trump administration is using as a base for federal troops in Chicago. Duckworth wrote on X<\/a> that Navy personnel answered questions, but that \u201cTrump\u2019s DHS locked the doors and fled.\u201d She continued: \u201cThat\u2019s not how you act when you\u2019re doing something legal.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts, including a federal judge<\/a>, say that the increasing\u00a0use of military forces<\/a>\u00a0in the interior of the U.S. represents an\u00a0extraordinary violation<\/a>\u00a0of the Posse Comitatus Act, a bedrock 19th-century law fundamental to the democratic tradition that makes it illegal to use American federal troops on domestic soil as a presidential police force.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled last week that the Pentagon systematically used armed soldiers to perform police functions in California in violation of Posse Comitatus and planned to do so elsewhere. \u201cPresident Trump and Secretary Hegseth,\u201d he wrote, \u201chave stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country \u2026 thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has also threatened to deploy National Guard troops to Baltimore<\/a>, New York City<\/a>, New Orleans<\/a>, and Oakland<\/a>. He thanked himself for turning Washington into a \u201cSAFE ZONE\u201d in a Truth Social post<\/a> on Monday, adding: \u201cWho\u2019s Next???\u201d<\/p>\n Members of Congress have called out Trump\u2019s tyrannical tactics. <\/p>\n \u201cThe founders of this nation understood that an unchecked power to turn the military on the American people poses a grave threat to democracy and individual liberty,\u201d said Sen. Dick Durbin<\/a>, D-Ill. \u201cTrump\u2019s decision to deploy the military in American cities is more fitting for an authoritarian regime than the democracy that our nation\u2019s founding fathers fought for.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n