Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., watches as people gather during Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights' "Chicago Says No Trump No Troops" protest Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) spoke with WCPT’s Joan Esposito and guest contributor Chris Bury to give first-hand updates on how many National Guard troops President Donald Trump might send into Chicago and where they would stay.

Duckworth shared what she learned at the Naval Station Great Lakes near North Chicago, Ill., where Mayor Leon Rockingham, Jr. confirmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will use as some sort of base of operations. However, the senator said the U.S. Navy told her ICE will only have access to office space instead of barracks. ICE will also not have access to lethal munitions at the Navy’s largest training center.

“There’s a building, and it is just some office space, and we got more insight from the Navy on exactly what is happening, and I was pleased to see that they were not going to be given access to barracks,” Duckworth said. “Those barracks are there to help train sailors who defend America. They’re not there to either house ICE personnel or to house detainees who have been ripped away from their families.”

The senator noted that she, along with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), tried to get that information from ICE itself. But according to her, the agency “locked the doors and ran away and gave all their people the day off” when the legislators tried to visit the building and future temporary base.

“We actually coordinated with them and made our request in writing and verbally, and it said, ‘We would like to come visit your facility.’ And they said no,” Duckworth said. “And we said, ‘Well, we’re coming anyway.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to be closed that day.’ And they gave all their people the day off and locked the doors.”

Despite recent stalling from the president, Trump has repeatedly threatened to send National Guard troops into the nation’s third-largest city in order to address crime. This is despite Chicago experiencing some of the most peaceful months in decades, according to Chicago Police Department data on violent crime. Still, Trump said last week he would “go to war” with Chicago before backtracking and say he would “clean them up.”

“A sitting United States president just declared war on one of his cities. This is unprecedented, and I’m pretty sure unconstitutional,” Duckworth told Esposito and Bury. “Had anybody else done this, my Republican colleagues would be up in arms. I cannot believe that we’re at a point in time, in our nation, when a sitting United States president would declare war on one of his own cities. His job is to defend us, protect and defend us, not declare war on us.”

Duckworth also noted that Chicagoans should treat any Guardsmen or women with respect, as they are civilian soldiers being ordered to do something they previously haven’t done.

Below is the full transcript of the interview. (Please note: The transcript has been edited for clarity.)

Joan Esposito: Sen. Tammy Duckworth is with Chris Bury and I right now.

Thank you so much for squeezing us into what I know is a very busy day for you.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Well, thanks for having me on. It’s such an important topic. I’m so glad you guys are covering it.

Joan Esposito: What is the latest that you know of about this alleged ICE and potentially National Guard invasion of Chicago?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Well, I was out at Naval Station Great Lakes, where we train .It’s a basic training station for all of our nation’s sailors and they had received a request from ICE to support this blitz. And, in fact, they only granted ICE support for office space and not for barracks, and also that they would not allow them to store lethal munitions there on base, which I applaud the Navy and the base for doing that. They need to focus on their job of training our nation’s sailors.

So that’s about all we know, because we tried to sit down with ICE and asked to tour their facility that they’ve been given, and you know what they did? They locked the doors and ran away and gave all their people the day off, rather than meet with Sen. [Dick] Durbin, Congressman [Brad] Schneider and myself. So all we know for sure right now is that they are launching their operations in Chicago from a command center at Great Lakes, but we don’t know very much else. Because guess what? They’re not coordinating with anybody in Chicago. You would think that if you’re there for law enforcement purposes or to help that you would be coordinating with local law enforcement, and they’re not doing that.

Chris Bury: Senator, what do you make of the Supreme Court’s decision in the shadow docket on Monday overturning a federal judge’s order that stopped agents in Los Angeles from stopping and questioning and detaining people based on their accent or their skin color or their place of business?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: I think Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor was quite, quite accurate, and I don’t you could say it better than what she said. This is completely un-American, and I personally think it’s unconstitutional. I’m surprised but not surprised that the Supreme Court would do this. I think this stains the legacy of the Supreme Court, and it certainly stains the legacy of [Chief] Justice [John] Roberts. And this is completely un-American.

So you’re going to be stopped on the streets for, what, the crime of being Brown, the crime of not looking quite American enough? Exactly what is American enough? I mean, I’m a daughter of the American Revolution. Do I look American enough to you? Who decides? Is this about being white enough, or is this about being American enough?

And I’m deeply, deeply concerned that that’s where we’re leading because this nation has, in its history, locked up Americans for simply — for not looking American enough. We did that by interning Japanese Americans during World War II.

Joan Esposito: Senator Duckworth, I am still gobsmacked by the fact that you and Brad Schneider and Dick Durbin showed up to talk to these people, and they locked the door and ran away? Oh, my god. Who were you there specifically to see? Who did the running? That’s what I want to know.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Well, it was ICE. It was DHS [Department of Homeland Security]. It wasn’t like we just showed up and surprised them and we were not doing our part. We actually coordinated with them and made our request in writing and verbally, and it said, “We would like to come visit your facility.” And they said no. They said no. And we said, “Well, we’re coming anyway.” And they said, “Well, we’re going to be closed that day.” And they gave all their people the day off and locked the doors. (Laughs.)

And so, luckily, the Navy did show us a facility. There’s a building, and it is just some office space, and we got more insight from the Navy on exactly what is happening, and I was pleased to see that they were not going to be given access to barracks. Those barracks are there to help train sailors who defend America. They’re not there to either house ICE personnel or to house detainees who have been ripped away from their families.

Joan Esposito: Based on the size of the office space, or maybe the Navy knew, what are the numbers that are expected to move into that space?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: I’m not sure. We didn’t get a true number, but I’m sure it’s going to be several dozen that will be operating out of there. Remember that ICE is allowed to range a hundred miles from our nation’s border, and Lake Michigan is considered to be a border. So they could, actually, from that position, travel pretty far north into Wisconsin and pretty far west across Illinois.

And so, I see that this is something that they’re going to be pretty wide-ranging. They’re going to focus on Chicago, but it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t take detainees and move them as far away from Chicago as possible in order to inhumanely separate families.

Chris Bury: Senator, President Trump declared in a meme over the weekend that Chicago was going to find out what the “Department of War” meant. And then later, he seemed to back off of that a little bit. Do you think that Trump is going to send U.S. soldiers to Chicago, and if that happens, what will be the recourse for the mayor and the governor?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: So let me just restate exactly what you said. A sitting United States president just declared war on one of his cities. This is unprecedented, and I’m pretty sure unconstitutional. Had anybody else done this, my Republican colleagues would be up in arms. I cannot believe that we’re at a point in time, in our nation, when a sitting United States president would declare war on one of his own cities. His job is to defend us, protect and defend us, not declare war on us.

And remember, this man is a five-time draft-dodging coward. He had five different opportunities to serve his nation at war and didn’t do it, and now he’s going to name the rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, to the tune of $2 billion. That’s what it’s going to cost, by the way, to rename the DoD into the Department of War. And do I think that he’ll try to activate National Guardsmen from other states, red states and send them into Chicago? Yes. But we’re not going to give him the satisfaction of being able to say that these National Guardsmen will be doing anything other than what they’re doing in D.C., which is picking up garbage.

We understand in Chicago that National Guardsmen and women are citizen soldiers who have to follow orders and who could not say no to an order from their leader. And so we’re going to treat them with respect, but we’re going to show Donald Trump that we don’t need the National Guard there, that our law enforcement can do their jobs, and if he truly wants to support law enforcement, send us back the money that supports law enforcement, that supports our officers, that supports crime prevention and Child Protective Services that he’s cut from the programs.

Joan Esposito: I spoke to retired Major General Randy Manner, who used to be the number two in the National Guard, and I asked him how people should act if the National Guard is deployed here locally. And he said, remember — kind of what you just said — they’re following orders. They are citizen soldiers; they know this is not supposed to be what they’re supposed to be doing. And basically, he said, just be kind. Be kind to the actual personnel that you might run into on the street.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Yes, exactly. Show them that we value our citizen soldiers. These folks swore an oath to defend us, and they should be training to protect and defend us, or to help us respond to tornadoes and floods. And the fact is that he’s sending in these National Guardsmen from red states. It’s pretty ironic that the National Guard that are being sent out are from places like Texas. If [Texas] Gov. [Greg] Abbott truly wanted to fight crime, maybe he should send his National Guardsmen to cities in Texas that have higher crime rates than Chicago does.

Joan Esposito: Yeah, really.

I wanted to ask you, too — I know you did a town hall recently in Rockford, Illinois. What were the concerns that people brought to your town hall?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Yes, I’ve been doing town halls all over. I just did one in Rockford a couple of days. I did one in St. Louis, Miss., because my Republican colleagues are running scared from town halls. And so, I was asked to do one in Missouri. So, I did one in Missouri as well.

People are concerned about their health care. That’s by far the number one question that kept coming up. It was about health care, about losing Medicaid, and it was also about fear that their local hospitals will shut down. Some of the folks there actually had Blue Cross Blue Shield or other health insurance, but they’re hearing that their grandparents or their mother’s nursing home will be shutting down. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is going to result in about 93 nursing homes being shut down in Illinois alone, and we’ll probably lose about nine rural and safety net hospitals, so health care, Medicaid was probably the biggest topic that came up.

Chris Bury: Senator, [House] Minority Leader [Hakeem] Jeffries has said that health care will be the red-line issue in deciding whether the Democrats would shut down the government. It would take many Democratic senators to join, to do that. Would you be in favor of shutting down the government if Republicans do not put back those cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Let me make it clear that the only people who can shut down government, at this point, are the Republicans, and they can shut down the government by not working with Democrats. And so, we’ve told them what we want. We’ve said we want it to be bipartisan, please speak with us, and so far, they’re not negotiating with Democrats, at least not here in the Senate.

So we ask them, please negotiate with us and please restore the cuts to Medicaid. And there are several things, but first and foremost is the Medicaid cuts. We also want SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits restored for our low-income children. And we want to promise not to touch Medicare, because they’re trying to go after Medicare. Remember that starting in January of next year, 10 different states are going to require pre-authorization from Medicare. So don’t think that it’s just about Medicaid funding.

That’s what we’ve said, but I think that the Republicans will be the ones to shut down government over Medicaid funding, in particular, over health care, because they’re not negotiating with us. It’s been crickets. We’ve made ourselves available, and they won’t negotiate.

Joan Esposito: Senator Duckworth, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Thanks for having me on.