Gov. JB Pritzker called out the Trump administration on Sunday for defending its decision to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago as necessary to fight violent crime in the city, even though the federal government has emphasized in court and Pentagon memos that the mission is mainly to protect federal immigration enforcement agents and federal property.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Pritzker said President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s ultimate goal is to bring in the National Guard to cities like Chicago and Portland, Oregon, to militarize the country’s Democratic-controlled enclaves as a form of political payback.

“They’re claiming in court that this is about protecting (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facilities and ICE agents and not about crime on the streets,” the governor told the program’s host, George Stephanopoulos. “But then you hear Vice President Vance and the president of the United States contravening that and saying exactly what they actually think. They just want troops on the ground because they want to militarize, especially blue cities and blue states.”