WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)-The Trump administration on Monday launched a new immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, saying the latest federal crackdown in a US city would target the “worst of the worst criminals.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement of “Operation Midway Blitz” comes after President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to send National Guard troops into Illinois, sparring with the state’s governor JB Pritzker in social media posts in recent days.

“For years, Governor Pritzker and his fellow sanctuary politicians released Tren de Aragua gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers on Chicago’s streets — putting American lives at risk and making Chicago a magnet for criminals,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Pritzker, a Democrat, slapped back at the accusations, posting on X that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime” because Washington had done no coordination with Chicago authorities and “the Trump Administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisians.”

The DHS statement included a list of names, images and rap sheets for 11 “criminal illegal aliens” it said had been released back onto Illinois streets and are now sought for arrest.

Having declared victory with his unpopular troop deployments and deportation raids in Washington and Los Angeles, Republican Trump has turned to Democratic-run Chicago as a fresh talking point in his militarized rollout of anti-immigrant policy.

He calls the city a “hell-hole” ravaged by gun crime.

US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois criticized the move as actions that “don’t make us safer. They are a waste of money, stoke fear, and represent another failed attempt at a distraction.”

“As President Trump continues to wrongly hyper-fixate on deploying the military to Chicago, his administration is now ramping up its campaign to arrest hardworking immigrants with no criminal convictions,” Durbin said.

Trump posted new anti-immigrant messaging to social media Monday, sharing sketchy memes and cable news clips, decrying weekend violence and saying “I want to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them. Only the Criminals will be hurt!”

The president’s move to dial back his provocative tone against The Windy City came after brazen threats to unleash the military, and public protests that drew thousands of defiant demonstrators to Chicago’s streets.

Over the weekend, Trump posted an apparently AI-generated image of himself costumed as blood-thirsty Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore of “Apocalypse Now,” tweaking the famous line to say “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” and depicting the Chicago skyline inundated by smoke, flames and helicopters.

In the original line in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film, Kilgore says he loves the smell of napalm, the highly flammable deadly weapon dropped on Vietnam.

“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the president wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

Pritzker rebuffed the president’s threats saying: “This is not a joke. This is not normal… Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Pritzker posted advice for how to cope with raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), telling his followers to be loud in their opposition and advising them of their right to deny entry to any agent who lacks a valid warrant.