Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday said the Trump administration has begun preparations to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, including members of the Texas National Guard, and is planning to soon begin a major immigration enforcement effort in the city.

"We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois," Pritzker said Tuesday afternoon.

The governor's remarks came shortly after President Trump renewed his threats to send in federal troops to Chicago to crack down on crime, despite a judge in California ruling the president's deployment of troops in Los Angeles violated federal law.

"I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump," Pritzker said.

The president said on Tuesday he still plans to send National Guard troops to Chicago, after the city saw at least eight people killed and 51 others wounded over the Labor Day weekend.

"Well, we're going in. I didn't say when. We're going in," Mr. Trump said. "Look, I have an obligation. This isn't a political thing. I have an obligation."

Mr. Trump also suggested Baltimore could also draw a federal response.  

The president's latest threat was met with defiance from Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other state and local leaders.

The governor indicated he has used a tapestry of sources from calls from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Illinois State Police to discussions with journalists in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Chicago to provide the clearest picture yet that the Trump administration has begun the process to deploy several federal agencies – including ICE – along with the National Guard in Chicago.

ICE officials did reach out to Illinois State Police this weekend, and the governor said they were short on details but long on rhetoric.

"In the coming days, we expect to see what has played out in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to happen here in Chicago," Pritzker said. "It is likely those agents will be with ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, and other similarly situated federal agencies. Many of these individuals are being relocated from Los Angeles for deployment in Chicago. We believe that staging that has already begun started yesterday, and continues into today."

Pritzker said he has learned from multiple sources that National Guard troops previously deployed in Los Angeles will soon be moved to Chicago, and some of them already have arrived. He also said members of the Texas National Guard will be sent to Chicago.

During the governor's press conference, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signalled that Pritzker's claim is not accurate, and that the Texas National Guard is not mobilizing to Chicago.

Pritzker said the Trump administration already has begun staging armed federal agents and military vehicles on federal property, including Naval Station Great Lakes, for a major immigration enforcement effort in Chicago.

"Unidentifiable agents in unmarked vehicles with masks are planning to raid Latino communities, and say they're targeting violent criminals. As we saw in Los Angeles, a very very small percentage of the individuals they will target will be violent criminals. Instead, you're likely to see videos of them hauling away mothers and fathers traveling to work or picking up their kids from school," Pritzker said.

He also said he has reason to believe the Trump administration chose September for an immigration enforcement operation in Chicago because of upcoming Mexican Independence Day celebrations.

"It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades," Pritzker said. "Let's be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here."

Pritzker accused Trump of looking for "any excuse to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago" once the White House's immigration enforcement operation begins.

"If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try and go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago. I'm imploring everyone, if and when that happens, do not take the bait," he said.

Pritzker said the president is not really concerned about fighting crime or reforming immigration, but only about his own power.

"This is not about crime. More and more reports around these raids include people who were stopped or detained because of how they look, and not because of any threat to the public," Pritzker said. "If any of this was about dealing with the complexities of a broken immigration system, then Trump would have had the Congress [that] Trump Republicans control write and pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Not only has that not happened, there is no talk of any such effort on the horizon."

Mayor Brandon Johnson accused the president of trying to deflect attention away from his own problems.

"He just wants his own secret police force that will do publicity stunts whenever his poll numbers are sinking, whenever his jobs report shows a stagnating economy, whenever he needs another distraction from his failures. That's what this is about," he said.

Illinois Congresswoman Delia Ramirez and other lawmakers are condemning the Trump administration's plans to send in the National Guard.

Ramirez said the move is an effort to target immigrant communities, people of color, and those who disagree with the president's policies.

"For him, Donald Trump, abusing the power of the National Guard is not about protecting public safety, it's about control. It's about threatening diverse, successful Democratic-led cities like Chicago that refuse to bow down to authoritarianism," she said.

Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin echoed that statement, saying the president is targeting Democratic-led cities.

In an interview on CNN, Durbin said if this wasn't political, President Trump would be targeting cities in Republican-led states that have higher crime rates than Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and D.C.

Durbin called for a briefing from the Secretary of the Navy to learn more about what is happening at Naval Station Great Lakes.

Meantime, President Trump shrugged off a ruling from a federal judge in California that his deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles violated federal law.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Tuesday that the president's deployment of the National Guard and active-duty U.S. Marines to Los Angeles earlier this summer violated the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. Breyer blocked the Trump administration from deploying or using any military troops in California for civilian law enforcement – including to engage in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, or traffic and crowd control.

"Moreover, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country — including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California — thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief," Breyer wrote.  

The president said the judge who issued that ruling was a "radical left judge," and noted the ruling does not require him to withdraw 300 troops who remain in place in Los Angeles, although he did not mention that the ruling expressly prohibits them from performing any law enforcement functions – including making arrests; performing seizures; or providing traffic, crowd, or riot control.

CBS News Chicago legal analyst Irv Miller said while the judge found that the National Guard can be used to protect federal property, what they can't do is work alongside federal law enforcement agencies to make arrests in immigration enforcement operations.

The judge's ruling is also limited to the State of California, and does not place any restrictions on what federal troops in Chicago could do if and when they are deployed in Chicago. But Miller said he expects the governor and Illinois attorney general to cite that ruling as precedent for a challenge against the Trump administration's use of troops in Chicago.

"I suspect that if it's National Guard or active military, they'll file a lawsuit. if it's FBI ATF, Secret Service — law enforcement personnel — they won't file a lawsuit," said Miller.

Much of the judge's explanations for finding the deployment of troops in Los Angeles to be illegal seemed to be the same grounds that Gov. Pritzker has been threatening to use to challenge any deployment of troops in Chicago.

"There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals were engaged in violence. Yet there was no rebellion, nor was such civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law," U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote in his ruling.

Miller said the judge essentially found that local police could have and did respond to the protests to maintain the peace, and that nothing that happened in Los Angeles amounted to a rebellion or insurrection that would have warranted bringing in federal troops.

Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul say they cannot fight any troop deployment to Chicago in court until the National Guard actually arrives; a threat of sending forces to Chicago, they said, isn't enough.

Nevertheless, Raoul said bringing troops into Chicago would not be legal.

"Although the president does have limited — and I repeat — limited authority to deploy the National Guard to help federal law enforcement in specific circumstances, none of these circumstances exist in Chicago," Raoul said.

Meantime, Illinois Democrats are using their platform to oppose the president's efforts. Nearly every Illinois Democrat in the state's congressional delegation signed a letter demanding that President Trump and the Pentagon suspend their plans to send military members to Chicago, calling any such move "unlawful, unconstitutional, and unacceptable."

"The deployment of the U.S. military into American cities is not about safety or security. It is about control. It is about abusing the power of the Executive Branch and threatening Democratic-led cities and states that dare to openly oppose your authoritarianism. The Administration is attacking cities and states that continue to uphold the rule of law and defend our Constitution, our civil liberties, and due process," they wrote. "Abuses of government and military power to target and punish dissent are the tools of authoritarians. We demand you suspend any plans for the deployment of military personnel to Chicago and cease your unlawful power grabs and Executive Branch overreach."

Former Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C. police official says troops in Chicago are bad idea

"We do need to focus on crime, and we need to do everything we can to eliminate crime," said Charles Ramsey.

Ramsey grew up in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and spent three decades with the Chicago Police Department — working on the West Side, and rising to the rank of first deputy superintendent — before continuing his law enforcement career in Philadelphia and as the police commissioner in Washington, D.C.

"I have used National Guard in the past, both in Philadelphia and in Washington, D.C, but it was in a support role," said Ramsey.

Ramsey called a military presence in Chicago a mistake.

"Military people are not trained, and nor should they be. They're warfighters," Ramsey said. "I don't know what they'd be doing. Right now, what they're doing, basically, in Washington, there's a lot of standing around. It's a total waste of resources."

Ramsey said Chicago should and will likely embrace federal law enforcement resources.

"But it needs to be planned. They need to have a specific mission," Ramsey said. "They just can't just throw a lot of federal resources into an area with no coordination at all, and no request for that kind of assistance."

Ramsey also said politics should not be involved.

"You know, policing is different, and it shouldn't be a political football," Ramsey said. "You know, this is serious business."

Ramsey said if armed troops come, they would deter crime — but he said once the troops leave, Chicago would likely see a spike in crime.