Illinois yesterday launched a legal challenge to block US President Donald Trump from deploying hundreds of federalised National Guard troops into the streets of Chicago – the latest flashpoint in a growing number of court battles over the Republican president’s authority to deploy military forces domestically.
The Democratic-led state and the city of Chicago filed the lawsuit hours after a federal judge in Oregon on Sunday temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from sending any National Guard troops to police Portland, Oregon.
Chicago’s lawsuit is the fourth legal action targeting Trump’s unprecedented use of soldiers to police US cities, suppress protests and bolster domestic immigration enforcement.
Courts have not yet reached a final decision in any of those cases, but judges in California and Oregon have made initial rulings that Trump likely overstepped his authority.
The Illinois lawsuit took aim at a decision by the Trump administration over the weekend to federalise up to 300 members of the Illinois National Guard over the objections of Democratic Governor J B Pritzker and another 400 from Texas to deploy into Chicago.
“These advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous,” the complaint alleged.
The Republican president is deploying the military to Illinois based on a “flimsy pretext” that alleges an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in a suburb of Chicago needs protecting as protests outside the building over Trump’s immigration crackdown continue, according to the lawsuit.
The state argues that the Trump administration has not met the legal conditions needed to allow it to federalise National Guard troops without Pritzker’s blessing and is violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law which sharply limits the use of the military for domestic enforcement.
The lawsuit also argues Trump’s actions violate the US Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which protects states’ rights, by usurping Pritzker’s role as the commander-in-chief of the National Guard in Illinois and by infringing on the state’s authority over local law enforcement.
A separate lawsuit was filed yesterday by a group of journalists and protesters in Chicago, who said that the Trump administration had violated their First Amendment right to free expression.
The Department of Homeland Security has routinely used “brutal” tactics meant to “intimidate and silence the Press and civilians,” such as using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse crowds even when protests were small and peaceful, according to the lawsuit.
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