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By James Bickerton
News Reporter
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FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News there were “110,000 gang members” active in Chicago after a visit to the city on Tuesday.
Newsweek contacted the FBI and Chicago Police Department for comment on Wednesday via email outside regular office hours.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration has deployed hundreds of National Guard soldiers to Chicago, a move it argues is necessary to root out crime. Patel’s statement that there are “110,000 gang members” in the city is likely meant to build support for the deployment, though the FBI director did not provide Fox News with his source.
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Both the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois bitterly oppose the move and have launched legal action in a bid to block it. The president previously deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and other Democratic-run cities are expected to follow.
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What To Know
Patel appeared on Fox News on Tuesday after a trip to Chicago, during which he visited the FBI’s field office in the city.
The FBI director said: “When I was there today … we learned that the Chicago city streets have 110,000 gang members. That’s right. You heard me right. They had 1,200 shootings this year alone, 360 homicides.
“When politicians choose to side with those metrics and not with their citizenry—thank God we have President Trump and this Department of Justice and this FBI going in there and crushing violent crime.”
The Trump administration has moved to deploy soldiers from the Illinois and Texas National Guards to Chicago.
On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that hundreds of Texas National Guard troops had entered the greater Chicago area.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit on Monday to block the federalization of Illinois National Guard personnel or the deployment of National Guard troops from other states.
Earlier this week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order banning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel from accessing city-owned property.
Trump first deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June following violent anti-ICE demonstrations in the city, though a federal judge later ruled that the deployment was illegal. In August, the president ordered a National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., in a bid to crack down on crime.
What People Are Saying
FBI Director Kash Patel said on Fox News: “President Trump sent us into these cities quietly to set the stage, to set up for the National Guard, to see the success that we saw in Washington, D.C., in Memphis.
“The FBI’s been leading the charge in every single one of these streets because we know how to gather ground-level intelligence, and we know how to put handcuffs on the bad guys, and we know we have the backing of this administration. And most importantly, the agents of the FBI know that they have the backing of the American people and their government.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul wrote in his lawsuit: “The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor. To guard against this, foundational principles of American law limit the president’s authority to involve the military in domestic affairs. Those bedrock principles are in peril.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will deploy National Guard troops to other states. The administration’s efforts to station soldiers in Democratic-controlled cities have spooked senior Democrats, with California Governor Gavin Newsom warning it could lead to “martial law.”
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