President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Illinois will face legal scrutiny Thursday in a key court hearing, a day after a small number of National Guard troops began guarding federal property in the state. chicago area.
U.S. District Judge April Perry will hear arguments over requests to block the deployment of Illinois and Texas Guard members. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and local officials strongly oppose the use of security guards.
“Some” of the 200 Texas National Guard troops deployed to Illinois began operating in the Chicago area on Wednesday, a U.S. Northern Command spokesperson told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the operation, which have not been made public. The spokesperson did not say specifically where the troops were sent.
The troops, along with about 300 people from Illinois, arrived this week at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the command of Northern Command and have been in action for 60 days.
Northern Command said Guard members are in the city to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings, other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel. President Trump earlier sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington, and a small number of troops began assisting law enforcement in Memphis this week.
The units are part of the Memphis Safety Task Force, a group of about a dozen federal law enforcement agencies ordered by President Trump to fight crime in the city. Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee supports the use of the Guard.
Approximately 150 years old Posse law Limit the military’s role in domestic law enforcement. But Trump said he was prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to send active-duty troops to states that fail to quell an insurrection or violate federal law.
Chicago and the state of Illinois have filed suit seeking to block the deployment, arguing that it is unnecessary and illegal. Meanwhile, President Trump has painted Chicago as a lawless “hell” of crime, even though statistics show a significant drop in crime in recent days.
The Republican president said Wednesday that Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson and Mayor Pritzker said: should be jailed For failing to protect federal employees during immigration enforcement.
The city and state said in court filings in the lawsuit that protests at an ICE temporary detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview “are far from stopping federal immigration enforcement.”
“The President is using the Broadview protests as an excuse,” they wrote. “The impending deployment of federal troops to Illinois is the latest in a broader campaign by the President’s administration to target jurisdictions he dislikes.”
Also on Thursday, a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear arguments over whether President Trump has the authority to take control of 200 members of the Oregon National Guard. The president had planned to deploy to Portland, where small nighttime protests were taking place mainly outside the ICE building. State and city leaders insist the military is neither wanted nor needed there.
U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut ruled in Oregon and California on Sunday. temporary restraining order Prevent the Guard from deploying to Portland. President Trump had mobilized California troops to Portland just hours after Immergut first blocked the use of the Oregon National Guard.
The government has not yet appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit.
Immergut, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term, rejected the president’s claims that the military was needed to protect Portland and immigration facilities, saying, “It has been several months since we experienced sustained levels of violent or destructive protests in our city.”
___
Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Konstantin Tropin in Washington contributed to this report.
