A judge blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area for two weeks, finding no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois.
It’s a victory for Democratic officials who lead the state and city and have traded insults with President Donald Trump about his drive to put troops on the ground in major urban areas.
U.S. District Judge April Perry didn’t lay out details of any order or say what part of the request she was granting as she spoke from the bench in her crowded courtroom.
The lawsuit was filed Monday by Chicago and Illinois to stop the deployments of Illinois and Texas Guard members. Some troops were already at an immigration building in the Chicago suburb of Broadview when Perry heard arguments on Thursday.
The building has been the site of occasional clashes between protesters and agents.
Perry said the actions of the Department of Homeland Security are largely rooted in President Donald Trump’s “animus toward Illinois elected officials.” She expressed skepticism of the federal government’s characterization of protests in Broadview.
“DHS’s narrative of events is simply unreliable,” she said.
The city and state have called the deployments unnecessary and illegal, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and local officials have strongly opposed the use of the Guard. In a court filing, the city and state said protests at the temporary detention facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Broadview have “never come close to stopping federal immigration enforcement.”
Trump, meanwhile, has portrayed Chicago as a lawless “hellhole” of crime despite statistics that show a significant drop in crime in the city.
U.S. Justice Department lawyer Eric Hamilton said in court that the Guard’s mission would be protecting federal properties and government law enforcers in the field — not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”
The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active duty military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.
Heavy turnout at the downtown courthouse caused officials to open an overflow room with a video feed of the hearing. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson sat in a corner of the courtroom.
Christopher Wells of the state attorney general’s office said U.S. citizens have been temporarily detained in Trump’s immigration crackdown. He acknowledged the president has the power to deploy the Guard, “but that power is not unlimited.”
Also Thursday, a federal appeals court heard arguments over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building.
A judge on Sunday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the move. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after the judge first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.
Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.
Trump previously sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington. In Memphis, Tennessee, Mayor Paul Young said troops would begin patrolling Friday. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports the role.
Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she hoped the Guard would be used to direct traffic and have a presence in retail corridors, but not used for checkpoints or similar.
Davis said she doesn’t want Memphis to “feel like there is this over-militarization in our communities.”
The Trump administration’s aggressive use of the Guard was challenged this summer in California, which won and lost a series of court decisions while opposing the policy of putting troops in Los Angeles, where they protected federal buildings and immigration agents.
A judge in September said the deployment was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained on the ground. The judge did not order them to leave. The government later took steps to send them to Oregon.
Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit, Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
