Exclusive: Leak Confirms Chicago Military Action
Memo reveals homeland crackdown has already begun
The Department of Homeland Security has requested military assistance for upcoming ICE operations in Chicago, according to a “For Official Use Only” memo that I’ve obtained. A military advance team has already arrived.
The document requests “immediate Department of Defense support” for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) activities “to address public safety and national security.” It suggests that the support will be provided by active duty troops, making no mention of the Illinois National Guard.
The request specifically seeks “support infrastructure,” including highway access, fuel, and “other logistical nodes…” with the military staging out of the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, some 30 miles from downtown.
Dated August 27, the request is from Department of Homeland Security Executive Secretary Andrew Whitaker to Defense Department Executive Secretary Anthony Fuscellaro. Whitaker is a former Ralph Lauren Brand Ambassador and a longtime Trump politico.
The request begins:
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requests immediate Department of Defense (DoD) support to provide existing infrastructure to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), a component of DHS, to conduct operations in the Chicago, Illinois metropolitan area. This support is critical to ensuring the efficient and secure handling of aliens in accordance with federal regulations and in line with ICE’s ongoing efforts to address public safety and national security.”
The memo goes on to cite several of President Trump’s executive orders and declarations casting southern border immigration as an “invasion” and a “national emergency.”
The memo says, “DHS seeks to expeditiously execute Presidential guidance to protect the American people against invasion, foreign terrorists, and other national security and public safety threats.”
Earlier this week, when asked if he would deploy the National Guard to Chicago, President Trump replied, “We’re going in,” adding: “I didn’t say when.”
The document represents the first hint of when this will take place — now. The memo also alludes to a month-long operation.
“DoD facilitates the use of Naval Station Great Lakes 30 days of operations in the Chicago Metropolitan area, with the advance party arriving September 2, 2025.”
Meanwhile, the Illinois National Guard insists that nothing has officially begun yet.
“No units have been activated and we do not have an order or preparatory command for any mission," deputy director of public affairs for Illinois National Guard William Grove told Axios yesterday.
Another homeland agency, Customs and Border Protection, is also being looped into the operation, a source tells me.
At a press conference yesterday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson expressed opposition to any military deployment.
Johnson said that Chicago does “not want or need military occupation in our city.”
“We know before anything has happened here, that the Trump plan is to use any excuse to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago,” Pritzker said. “If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try and go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago.”
Pritzker was of course referring to an incident in Washington, DC, in which a man hurled a Subway projectile at one of the federal immigration agents deployed to the city. The man was charged with a felony — an obvious overreach — but the case fell apart when a grand jury composed of ordinary Americans refused to indict him.
Opposition to Trump’s assault on major blue state cities even comes from the military itself. As I’ve reported, National Guard soldiers deployed to both Los Angeles and DC have expressed opposition to the mission (some even in the military’s own official media).
In Illinois, Guardsmen have already expressed opposition to the deployment.
“The National Guard has a sacred mission. We are part of the communities that we serve. We are the neighbors who show up when the flood hits, when the storms tear through the towns and when our country is in crisis," Illinois National Guard member Demi Palecek said.
This tracks with what I’m hearing from other servicemembers, who regard the mission asTrump theater and a stain on the mission and reputation of the military. It’s not that they don’t believe in responding to a crisis. They just don’t see one.
If you’re a servicemember with any newsworthy information about the Chicago deployment, text me securely via Signal at 202-510-1268. I’ll protect your anonymity.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
Shouldn't they now be requesting "Department of War" assistance instead? Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing ...
This is what fascism exactly looks like, and where the US has been heading since before I was a gleam in my Daddy’s eye.
Democrats fertilized the ground, Republicans plowed the fields, and both planted the seeds we are now harvesting. It was well done, and rolled out simultaneously throughott the US industrial global empire.
Welcome to Gaza, USA.