Chicago, Illinois - Illinois Governor JB Pritzker used a press conference on Monday to slam President Donald Trump over reported plans to send the National Guard into Chicago.

Standing alongside Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as well as a number of business and community leaders and pastors, Pritzker slammed Trump's reported plans to send the National Guard into Chicago as early as September.

Chicago would become the third city to which Trump has deployed the National Guard under the guise of fighting crime, after Los Angeles in June and Washington DC in August.

"Calling the military into a US city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification," Pritzker said on Monday.

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"This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals."

According to Pritzker, state and city officials only found out about the plans via a Wall Street Journal report which revealed Trump's intentions on Saturday. Local law enforcement had also been left in the dark.

"There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention," Pritzker said. "There is no inter-insurrection. There is no insurrection."

"Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities."

"What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American," the governor insisted.