Welcome to Talking Fed's one-on-one, deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues, defining our culture and shaping our lives.

I'm your host, Harry Littman.

Really pleased to be joined again by Congressman Rajah Kreshen Amorti, who has represented

Illinois' eighth district since 2016. He serves on a number of crucial House committees,

including as ranking member on the committee on U.S. competition with China, which has been an issue he has kept in the forefront of the news, even as he's been also involved in many of the challenges of paring Trump's assertions of

extraordinary authority domestically. In general, the congressman's been an uncommonly visible

member of the Democratic minority in the House involved in multiple issues of national and their national policy.

We have just a few minutes with them, so I want to jump right into the sundry topics we were

hoping to discuss. Congressmen, welcome back to talking feds.

Hey, thank you, Harry. Great to be with you. Hey, I thought we could maybe start with the administration's obvious gear up to storm into Illinois and Chicago on this pretext.

I think it's fair to call it of a public emergency.

So your district covers part of

Chicago and it's outskirts, and they've already started to really move a surge of immigration

officers into the city. And he seems to want a military presence as well. Let me just ask you what's going on on the ground?

What are you hearing from constituents about this?

And let's start there.

It's a mixture of emotions.

It's fear.

It's anger.

It's just worrying about what does tomorrow bring.

Just so you know, first, ice has stepped up its operations.

And apparently Governor Pritzker was informed that upwards of 200 additional ice agents

...