GOP Senator Calls ICE Comments by Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Criminal Incitements to Violence

Merely by describing the recent actions of federal immigration agents in Chicago, one Republican senator claimed at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, the city's mayor and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both Democrats, were "inciting violence."

At the hearing, where Attorney General Pam Bondi testified on her leadership of the US Department of Justice since she was appointed by President Donald Trump, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) recited a list of recent statements by Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, both of whom have expressed strong opposition to "Operation Midway Blitz."

The campaign has involved the deployment of more than 200 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal immigration authorities who have officially been directed to arrest undocumented immigrants with violent criminal records. More than 1,000 people have been arrested since ICE arrived in the nation's third-largest city in September. Nationally, the libertarian CATO Institute found in June that about 65% of people detained by ICE this year have not had any criminal conviction.

In Chicago over the past month, US citizens, immigrants with legal status, and children have been swept up in raids and violence. ICE agents have been filmed throwing a congressional candidate to the ground at a protest; a journalist reported being attacked with a pepper ball by a masked agent "absolutely unprovoked" outside a detention facility where she was covering protests; and body camera footage has cast doubt on the Department of Homeland Security's justification for the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez.

In her comments on Tuesday, Moody claimed to be concerned about violence in Chicago—but as with Trump's signing of a presidential memo last month that mandates a "national strategy" to allow law enforcement to clamp down on left-wing organizers before they can commit "violent political acts," the senator reserved her alarm for violence that she claimed Pritzker and Johnson were inciting by talking about ICE.

Moody condemned Pritzker's description of "militarized [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE agents to the streets of Chicago" and his statement that "people are getting detained, they're getting arrested." She placed special emphasis on the words "US citizens," apparently to suggest the governor should not speak about the fact that citizens, including residents of an apartment complex where ICE agents broke down doors and dragged people out onto the street one night last week, have been detained.

Moody also denounced Johnson's comments on "a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city" and for saying that the city "will use this as an opportunity to build greater resistance."

The senator appeared to suggest that, were it not for Johnson and Pritzker's expressions of outrage over Trump's deployment of federal agents and the National Guard in Chicago, residents would not be alarmed about Operation Midway Blitz.

"I am wondering if Pritzker and Johnson understand that there are federal laws that criminalize inciting violence," said Moody. "Any time you start pitting your own people against their own government, a government that's only there at its core to protect rights and the safety of its people, that is incredibly dangerous."

Without being pushed by Pritzker and Johnson, Chicago residents have engaged in nonviolent protests against Trump's anti-immigration agenda in recent weeks, with thousands marching in solidarity with immigrant communities before the deployment of ICE agents began.