During a Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker criticized the Trump administration’s approach to law enforcement in Chicago, claiming it was escalating tensions rather than addressing crime.
Pritzker argued that federal authorities were targeting individuals based on race, rather than focusing on criminal activity. “Instead of going after the bad guys, they’re just picking up people who are brown and black and then checking their credentials. Are you a U.S. citizen? I don’t know about you, but I don’t carry around papers that say I’m a U.S. citizen,” he said.
He described a recent overnight raid in South Shore, where federal officers emptied a building of 130 residents while pursuing a small number of gang members. According to Pritzker, the operation caused significant property damage, including broken windows and doors, and detained residents for hours. “There were elderly people and children zip-tied, elderly people held for three hours at a time. They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” he added.
Pritzker suggested that the federal government was intentionally creating chaos on the ground to justify deploying additional troops to the city.
