Operation Midway Blitz

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on December 23, the Supreme Court issued an order in Trump v. Illinois that checks this President and his authoritarian tendencies.

The Court rejected the Trump administration's request to stay a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge April Perry, which had blocked Trump's unnecessary deployment of the National Guard in Chicago.

In that unsigned order, the majority of the Supreme Court wrote, ``The Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.''

This is good news, and we should recognize the significance of this moment: Even the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority refused to greenlight the President of the United States' blatantly unlawful overreach.

Our government is supposed to help Americans--not go to war with them. The administration's deployment of the National Guard was dangerous political theater intended to sow fear and escalate the President's mass deportation campaign, not to reduce crime.

The President's false rhetoric about Chicago being ``overrun'' with chaos was clearly a pretext to intimidate our city and normalize the deployment of soldiers on our streets.

To protect civil liberties and civilian rule--pillars of democracy-- our country has long upheld the norm that the military does not police our cities.

The Supreme Court recognized that, in this country, the circumstances where the military may be used to execute the laws are exceptional and thankfully acted as a check on this President, at least at this preliminary stage.

The cost of this National Guard operation has already been enormous. The operations, maintenance, and personnel costs for federalizing the 500 National Guard soldiers for deployment in Illinois reached an estimated $20 million in a 2-month span.

That comes out to more than $300,000 per day.

That bears repeating: $20 million and 500 Guard personnel away for weeks on end from their families, their jobs, their communities . . . not performing any missions, but simply used by the President to threaten a reign of terror in the city of Chicago. It is unconscionable.

As of today, these troops are finally, slowly demobilizing and getting ready to head home. But unfortunately, the presence of militarized immigration operations is likely to continue in Chicago and around the country, along with the egregious use of excessive force by these Federal immigration agents.

Just yesterday, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis. The video of the shooting is horrific and contradicts the self-defense narrative that DHS has attempted to spin. Minnesota officials have rightfully promised a full, fair, and expeditious investigation. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has dodged testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee for months. What happened in Minneapolis yesterday was an unacceptable tragedy. She must testify before the Judiciary Committee, immediately.

Meanwhile, across the country, camouflaged and masked Federal immigration agents continue to deploy Black Hawk helicopters, armored vehicles, and a variety of chemical agents, including near schools, playgrounds, apartment buildings, and churches.

And the Department of Homeland Security refuses to provide information about the costs of these dangerous operations in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune estimated that these militarized immigration operations cost at least $40 million over a 10-week period.

In the wake of these operations, families are afraid to leave their homes, parents are scared to walk their children to school, and workers and vendors fear being pulled from the streets and detained simply for the way they look or the language they speak.

The Trump administration has repeatedly justified these militarized raids as necessary to target the ``worst of the worst.'' But the facts tell a different story, one that I have laid out repeatedly on this floor.

In one instance, on a list of 614 detainees submitted to a Federal court, the administration identified criminal histories for just 16 of the detainees. That shakes out to less than 3 percent of arrestees.

And people with no prior criminal backgrounds, including legal residents and U.S. citizens, were swept up.

As the President flirts with future military deployments and continues his militarized immigration raids, we know his campaign of terror will not stop at Chicago.

And while he failed in his attempt to use Chicago as ``training grounds'' for military forces, the scale and tactics of Operation Midway Blitz have given him a blueprint for similar operations across the country, including in Minneapolis this week.

So I ask my Republican colleagues, Will you denounce this President's use of troops in our communities before a city you represent becomes the administration's next ``training grounds''?

I will continue to speak out and conduct oversight of this President, and I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in that effort.

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