WATCH: Pritzker won’t call Trump for help with public safety amid ICE operation

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(The Center Square) – Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he and his allies are winning in the fight over increased immigration enforcement efforts from the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.

Speaking with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Tuesday, Pritzker said they’re winning the fight.

“We are winning here. We are,” Pritzker said. “Even if there are still people who are being taken, there's still there are attacks on our communities.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said officers aren’t rounding people up indiscriminately.

“When our [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] goes out to conduct a targeted operation to deport illegal criminals from our community, they are doing so with intelligence. They are doing so with law enforcement sources,” Leavitt said.

ICE has not yet announced any apprehensions from the DHS operation launched Monday in Chicago.

Leavitt also said President Donald Trump’s plan to use the National Guard in Washington D.C. is working.

“The president would love to do this in every Democrat run city across the country,” Leavitt said.

Pritzker later said they are watching ICE “build up steam.” Instead, Pritzker said he wants more help from other agencies like the FBI, DEA and ATF to fight crime. He insisted he wouldn’t call the president.

“Let me be clear that if I pick up the phone and call Donald Trump, that will become part of a case in court that I somehow was calling him for help, and therefore it will become predicate to him sending military troops into the state of Illinois,” he said.

Pritzker later posted on social media that Trump is sabotaging ongoing work with other federal law enforcement partners.